Police Already Knew His Phone Number. Now a Registered Sex Offender Faces Seven Child-Abuse-Image Felonies in Tippecanoe County

The Tippecanoe County Courthouse in downtown Lafayette. Blake Boyd's case was filed in Tippecanoe County court. (Photo: Diego Delso, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Detectives chasing a child-exploitation tip this summer already knew one detail by heart: the suspect's phone number. When records tied a Google account to Blake L. Boyd, 39, investigators recognized the number "due to previous interactions," according to the probable cause affidavit as reported by the Purdue Exponent.

Boyd now faces seven felony counts of possessing child sexual abuse material in Tippecanoe County. WTHR reported the charges break down into five counts of knowing possession involving severe conduct and two counts of knowing possession by someone with a prior conviction. He has not been convicted of anything in this case, and he is presumed innocent unless the state proves otherwise in court. Everything below comes from court documents as described by those outlets.

A tip in May, a bike stop in October

The case began May 28, 2026, when a West Lafayette Police detective assigned to the Indiana Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force received a CyberTip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The Exponent said the tip flagged a suspected abuse video stored in a Google Photos account and showing a child who appeared to be younger than 12. The detective traced it through two email addresses and Comcast and Metronet internet addresses in Lafayette and West Lafayette.

The warrants came on Friday, Oct. 16, almost five months after the tip arrived. Around 9:30 that night, police found Boyd riding a bicycle near Vine Street and Sylvia Lane in West Lafayette, detained him and took a cell phone with a microSD card attached to the back, according to WTHR. Star City News reported he was arrested Oct. 17 and that the charge was filed Oct. 21.

What investigators say they found is the reason this case matters. The affidavit alleges hundreds of abuse images on the memory card, depicting numerous children who appeared to be under 12, and hundreds more, different images on the phone itself. Some of those, WTHR reported, allegedly show children who appeared to be under five, "crying" and "appearing to be fearful."

The record that came before

Boyd is already on Indiana's sex offender registry. A 2020 Indiana Court of Appeals memorandum decision confirms he was found guilty at a bench trial in Tippecanoe Superior Court of sexual battery, a Level 6 felony; that appeal dealt only with a paperwork issue on how a merged battery count was recorded.

The sex offense is not the whole list. Court documents cited by WTHR show Tippecanoe County convictions for burglary in 2006, trespassing in 2012, 2018 and 2021, and theft in 2020. Star City News reported prosecutors are asking to have him classified as a habitual offender, an enhancement that can add years to a sentence if he is convicted.

Hoosiers are entitled to ask a few things here. How much prison time, if any, did those earlier convictions actually produce? Why did a flagged video sit for nearly five months before officers had warrants in hand? And will the habitual offender request survive the plea bargaining that resolves most Indiana felony cases? None of the coverage so far answers those questions. The court file will, eventually, and this paper intends to read it.

Bond and what comes next

Reports on bond don't line up. WTHR, citing online court records, said bond was set at $75,000 surety and $7,500 cash. The Exponent, citing the Tippecanoe County Prosecutor's Office, said Boyd was held on a $25,000 cash bond as of Wednesday. Both say he was booked into the Tippecanoe County Jail. A pretrial conference is scheduled for Jan. 22, 2027.

Anyone who comes across child sexual abuse material online can report it to the NCMEC CyberTipline, the same channel that started this investigation. The photo above is by Diego Delso via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0.

Children who cannot speak for themselves are the reason these tips exist. The least the system owes them is a case that ends in a courtroom, not a quiet deal.

Written by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers.