3 boys arrested in Lakebay after allegedly sending Snapchats of 15-year-old's sexual assault

LAKEBAY, Wash. - Three teenage boys are accused of sending Snapchat videos and pictures as they sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl they’d bound with a cord in a shed behind her house early Monday morning, Pierce County sheriff’s deputies said.

Sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer said the girl’s 14-year-old sister was hiding in the shed during the assault.

The girl’s mother found the victim semi-conscious, partially nude, badly injured and covered in scratches and blood, The News Tribune reported. The girl's parents and two little sisters were in the house, but didn't know what was going on.

Troyer said the boys used the victim’s sister’s phone without her permission to send two pictures and two video clips of the assault to the sister’s Snaptchat followers.

He said the victim and at least some of the others involved were drinking at what started as a party, and that the victim was unconscious during the alleged assault. He said they then tied her up with a cord, dragged her around the shed and tore off or removed her clothes before sexually assaulting her.

The boys, who are 13, 14 and 17, were arrested and booked into Remann Hall Juvenile Detention Center in Tacoma. A 20-year-old man who has a warrant for first-degree child rape in Mason County was also at the party and was arrested, but detectives didn’t say whether they believe he was part of the alleged assault.

The News Tribune reported that detectives filmed the Snapchat video as it played on the phone of one the recipients. The case has been forwarded to prosecutors, who are reviewing it.