A 36-year-old Arizona man accused of grooming a 15-year-old Wyoming girl online and driving her hundreds of miles across state lines is now facing seven felony charges in Wyoming, on top of an initial South Dakota charge, after license plate reader cameras helped authorities track him down within an hour of the alert going out.
Dalton Renollet, of Maricopa, was arrested August 31 on a charge of sexual contact with a minor after South Dakota Highway Patrol troopers stopped his car on Interstate 90 near the Aurora County line, according to South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley. As reported by AZ Family, troopers stopped Renollet less than an hour after authorities were alerted, after license plate reader technology detected his vehicle east of Plankinton in southwestern South Dakota. The girl had gone missing from Sundance, in northeastern Wyoming, and was brought to safety by law enforcement.
Wyoming prosecutors have since filed seven felony charges against Renollet in Crook County, including three counts of grooming a minor for a sexual offense, two counts of child sexual exploitation, one count of felony interference with custody, and one count of third-degree sexual abuse of a minor, according to Cowboy State Daily. Those charges carry a maximum sentence of up to 74 years in prison if served consecutively. Additional charges are still expected in Wyoming, and the Aurora County State's Attorney's Office is prosecuting the South Dakota case.
Investigators Were Already Watching Before the Girl Vanished
Per the same outlet, the Crook County Sheriff's Office and the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation were already actively investigating an out-of-state suspect for child grooming before the 15-year-old was reported missing at 9:55 a.m. on August 31. That pre-existing investigation appears to have helped authorities move quickly once she disappeared, issuing multi-agency alerts almost immediately.
Wyoming authorities initially believed Renollet was heading back toward Arizona with the girl and coordinated with police in Utah as part of that assumption, per AZ Family. Instead, license plate reader cameras picked up his vehicle in southwestern South Dakota, and troopers intercepted him hundreds of miles from where investigators expected to find him. The technology assisted officers in locating a vulnerable juvenile and bringing her to safety within an hour, according to the station's report.
Court affidavits filed in September indicate Renollet gave investigators conflicting accounts of who the teenager was and why she was in his car. The Cowboy State Daily reports that he initially claimed she was a hitchhiker named “Lorelel,” but later changed his story, telling investigators he was driving her to Ohio to live with a family member.
Second Grooming Case to Hit Rural Crook County in a Month
Crook County Sheriff Jeff Hodge said the abduction marked the second case within a single month in which a juvenile from rural Crook County was targeted online by an out-of-state alleged predator, according to FOX 10 Phoenix. The sheriff's comments point to a growing challenge for small law enforcement agencies in rural Wyoming, where online grooming cases involving out-of-state suspects appear to be on the rise.
The FBI confirmed its personnel provided specialized technical tools and investigative resources to help local and state agencies locate the minor across state lines, per Cowboy State Daily's reporting. Federal involvement of that kind is common when missing juveniles cross state borders, though it underscores how quickly this case escalated from a local disappearance to a multi-state operation involving Wyoming, Utah, and South Dakota agencies.
Where the Case Goes From Here
Renollet was booked into the Davison County Jail in Mitchell, South Dakota, following his arrest, with an arraignment in South Dakota state court scheduled for September 30, according to InMaricopa.com. He remained in custody in South Dakota as of Monday morning, and it remains unclear when or whether he will be extradited to face the newly filed Wyoming charges.
The case has also landed amid an active statewide policy debate over the very technology that helped locate the missing teenager. Weeks before the abduction, on August 12, Attorney General Jackley announced plans to introduce state legislation for the 2027 session establishing statutory privacy guardrails and data deletion rules for law enforcement's use of automated license plate readers. Similar reviews of networked license plate reader systems were also underway in August in Arizona and Florida, according to Smart Cities Dive, as officials nationally weigh the technology's crime-fighting value against Fourth Amendment privacy concerns.
It remains an open question how Wyoming's rural law enforcement agencies plan to address the reported increase in online grooming cases targeting local youth, and whether federal prosecutors will pursue additional charges against Renollet under federal kidnapping or trafficking statutes. For now, the case stands as a stark example of how quickly an alleged online grooming relationship can turn into a cross-country abduction — and how automated surveillance tools are increasingly shaping the outcome of these cases.
