Puckett appeared in a Clark County Municipal Court courtroom Friday morning and pleaded not guilty to a charge of gross sexual imposition.
He is booked in the Clark County Jail on $25,000 bond.
Family members of the victim were at Puckett’s arraignment and said they believe there are other children out there who are also victims of Puckett’s sexual actions toward children.
“He made them a victim of his little sick world and he took their innocence away,” a family member said. The Springfield News-Sun will not identify the family member to keep the identity of the child victim.
Springfield police began their latest investigation into Puckett’s conduct with children after the child victim told a family member that Puckett had touched her, police said. A forensic interview with the child was conducted at the Child Advocacy Center in Springfield, according to court records.
Puckett is listed as a suspect in two other children’s services cases from 1991 and 1992, where both child victims stated Puckett had also inappropriately touched them, police said. Charges were never filed in those cases, according to court records. But in this latest police investigation, Puckett admitted to detectives he also touched another child in the 1990s.
When detectives first questioned Puckett, he denied the child’s allegations, police said, and they asked Puckett to undergo a polygraph test at the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations in London, Ohio.
Puckett admitted to inappropriately touching the young girl before the lie detector test was administered, police said.
Family members of the young victim in this current case said they want Puckett’s face and name to get out into the public because they’re afraid there are other child victims in the area.
If released on bond, a judge ordered Puckett have no contact with the child victim.
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