Authorities say a Sheppard Air Force Base airman will spend life in federal prison after grooming, abducting, and repeatedly sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl from Colorado Springs. The punishment followed a multi-state investigation that recovered the teen on a military base and shifted the case into federal court.
According to a press release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas, 24-year-old Travis Robert Larson of Denton pleaded guilty in November 2025 to one count of enticement of a minor and one count of sexual abuse of a minor. Chief U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor sentenced Larson on February 27 after a federal grand jury had indicted him in August 2025.
How Investigators Say It Unfolded
Prosecutors say the case started in early May 2025, when the girl’s father reported her missing and uncovered messages showing Larson had been in contact with her. Investigators tracked Larson’s movements to Colorado Springs, then followed the trail through surveillance video and cellphone data that later showed the pair at a Buc-ee’s in Amarillo as he drove back toward Texas, according to FOX4 Dallas-Fort Worth.
Authorities say Larson hid the teen in the trunk of his vehicle to smuggle her onto Sheppard Air Force Base, then kept her in his dorm room, where he sexually abused her multiple times before U.S. Air Force Security Forces recovered the girl on May 5, 2025. Reporting and court records indicate Larson first began communicating with the victim online when she was about 10 or 11 and spent years soliciting sexually explicit images from her, as reported by CBS Texas.
Multi-Agency Probe and Prosecution
The Colorado Springs Police Department, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the FBI’s Dallas Field Office Wichita Falls Resident Agency all took part in the investigation. The federal case proceeded under the Justice Department’s Project Safe Childhood initiative, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas said.
Legal Notes
Larson was indicted in August 2025, pleaded guilty in November 2025 and received a life sentence in federal court on February 27, 2026. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Allyson Monte and Stephen Rancourt prosecuted the case, and local coverage notes that Larson had been held in the Wichita County Jail on state-level charges while the federal investigation moved forward, CBS Texas reports.
Officials say the outcome highlights the Justice Department’s focus on online grooming cases and the importance of coordination across agencies and state lines. FBI Denver pointed to those partnerships in its March 2 social media post announcing the life sentence.
