True Crime Chronicles: One pervert, three accomplices, three victims, and thirty years in prison for the ringleader

Michael Ray Roe

A decade has passed since a chilling child sex exploitation ring came to light in the usually quiet rural community of Mulberry, shaking Franklin County and highlighting the hidden dangers that can lurk even in small towns. The case, which unfolded between August 2014 and April 2016, involved the systematic abuse of at least three vulnerable minors (two girls and one boy, aged 13 to 17) who were coerced into sexual acts for money and threatened into silence

.At the center was Michael Ray Roe, then 60, a registered sex offender from Mulberry with a prior 2001 conviction for possessing child sexual abuse material in neighboring Crawford County. Roe orchestrated the ring from his home, recruiting four younger men to lure and transport the victims, often under the guise of casual jobs like lawn mowing.

He used coded text messages, employing phrases like "playing checkers", to arrange encounters, paying victims $40 to $200 per act while demanding oral and anal sex. The abuse took place near the local elementary school, raising alarms about community safety.

The investigation began in April 2016 after a tip to the Franklin County Sheriff's Office prompted a deeper probe. Probable cause affidavits later revealed graphic details: victims were forced into acts with Roe and each other, with threats of harm to themselves or their families if they spoke out.

Arrests followed swiftly in July 2016: Roe and Dillion Wayne Harrison, 19, were taken into custody first, with Weston Bailey, 20, and John Larry Dalton Davis, 20, apprehended soon after.

Cory Bryant Oxford, 25, of Van Buren, fled and remained at large until his arrest in Bismarck, North Dakota, in March 2018 by U.S. Marshals

.Justice came through the Arkansas court system. In May 2017, Roe pleaded guilty in Franklin County Circuit Court to 14 felony counts, including three counts of rape, multiple sexual assault charges, sexual indecency with a child, transporting minors for prohibited conduct, and terroristic threatening. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison with an additional 20 years suspended.

Oxford, after extradition, pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual assault in June 2018 and received 4 years in prison.

One associate was given 4 years' probation for sexual indecency with a child in June 2017

. Harrison, Davis, and Bailey faced lesser charges like transporting minors and sexual indecency; all resolved their cases via plea deals by 2018, receiving sentences from probation to short prison terms.

While the victims' names remain protected to safeguard their privacy and healing, the convictions brought accountability to the perpetrators and served as a stark reminder: even in tight-knit rural areas like Mulberry and Ozark, predators can operate in the shadows until someone speaks up.