She was 17. Just a harmless flirt on a dating app, he thought. The biggest mistake of his life
By Vince Beiser
There were only a few messages they had exchanged. Hardly worth mentioning. Jared Johns met a young woman on a dating app and sent her a photo of himself in a baseball cap. She responded with a selfie wearing a lace bra. Jared typed a reply on his scratched iPhone. He wrote, “I’m a US Army veteran and a father of two children…three if you count my dog. My youngest son’s mom and I just split up and I’m looking for friends to hang out with or maybe sometime later.”
“Sounds exciting,” replied the young woman, her name was Caroline Harris. “I live in Greenville with my parents. I’ll be 18 in a few weeks.”
“Oh cool, when exactly?”
“On the 15th.”
“September?”
“Yes. How old are you?”
“Oh, okay, are you still in high school? I’m 24,” Jared answered truthfully.
Then it was over, this brief conversation that was to turn out to be the worst mistake in Jared Johns’ life.