Dallas man charged with kidnapping, sexually assaulting 12-year-old girl in Galveston
A Dallas man is being held in a Texas jail without bond after he was accused of abducting a 12-year-old girl and sexually assaulting her in a hotel room.
Graham Dunn, 27, is in the Galveston County Jail charged with kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault of a child, jail records show.
Galveston police said they responded to a report of a missing child at about 8:30 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 30; the girl had not returned from walking the dog after she left at around 7 p.m.
In a news conference Thursday morning, Galveston Police Chief Douglas Balli said Dunn had lured the victim into his car. Five law enforcement agencies participated in the search, which also included three drones and a DPS helicopter. An emergency ping to the girl's cell phone showed up in the area of a hotel.
Police were eventually able to access the hotel's security camera footage, which showed Dunn taking the victim into a room. Police forced entry to the room at about 10:30 p.m. and found Dunn with the victim.
"I'm grateful that our officers and everyone involved, all the other agencies involved, acted quickly and with urgency to save this child," Balli said.
Graham Dunn criminal history
After Dunn's arrest, Galveston Police detective Hector Dominguez said they learned that he was a "serial sexual offender" with multiple arrests and charges pending in five states: Texas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Massachusetts and Louisiana. Dunn's alleged victims are both adults and juveniles, Dominguez said, but none of those arrests have yet resulted in convictions.
Dallas County court records show that Dunn had been on probation for a misdemeanor charge of family violence stemming from an incident in June of 2023.
A Dallas magistrate judge had already revoked his probation in October following an arrest in North Carolina on charges of sexual battery and secret peeping, court records show. He bonded out of jail in December, but prosecutors said he violated his probation again and a judge issued an arrest warrant on Jan. 27. The alleged incident in Galveston happened three days later.
Galveston County District Attorney Kenneth Cusick said that his office will insist that Dunn be held in jail without bond until trial.
"I've been a prosecutor for 37 years and this is one of the most disgusting situations I've heard of," Cusick said. "We're going to get a conviction on him, one or all of those charges, and we're going to seek maximum sentencing. There should be no leniency for someone like this that's proven again and again that they're a sexual predator, preying not only on women but girls."
