KY man out on bond in murder case is charged with asking for nude photos from minor
A Stanford man out on bond for a murder charge has been arrested again and accused of sending and requesting nude pictures from a minor under the age of 16.
John Gordon Stamper Jr., 25, was served a criminal complaint by Kentucky State Police on charges of procuring or promoting use of a minor by electronic means, and unlawful transaction with a minor in an illegal sex act, court records show.
According to the complaint, Stamper allegedly sent anonymous text messages to a girl suggesting they “send each other pictures.”
He used the “TextNow” app, designed to generate random numbers. The victim didn’t know it was Stamper who was sending her messages, and continued to ask who he was, according to the complaint.
The victim sent a selfie of her face still trying to figure out who Stamper was, according to the complaint. Stamper allegedly said he would tell her who he was in exchange for sexually explicit photographs of her.
When the victim didn’t send photos, Stamper allegedly offered to send her explicit pictures of him. The victim did return a photo, thinking the sender was a guy from school.
Stamper continued to ask for more pictures from the victim, and allegedly threatened to send screenshots of her photos to her family members if she didn’t send him more, according to the complaint.
“If you don’t send nudes in the next 30 minutes, I’m sending (names of the victim’s relatives) screenshots of our messages, and the nudes you already sent,” the complaint recited from text messages. “If you do send nudes, I’ll leave you alone, and we will go on like this didn’t happen. But do not think for a minute that I will not send it to them.”
The victim told her teacher, school counselor and her family about the situation. Stamper allegedly sent screenshots to two of the victim’s family members.
After further investigation, KSP were able to find that Stamper was the one texting the victim.
Stamper was arrested last month in Boyle County, according to a police citation. At the time, Stamper was already on home incarceration while he awaits a murder trial for the 2016 death of Desiree Sparks.
Sparks, 22, went missing in September 2016, and her body was found by a group of ATV riders in a wooded area on West Skyline Drive in the Stanford area in October 2016.
Lincoln County Coroner Farris Marcum said Sparks was found with no clothes and she had no wounds or traumatic injuries on her body, according to the Interior Journal in Lincoln County. The coroner deemed the autopsy results “inconclusive” because he was unable to determine a cause of death, the Interior Journal reported.
Stamper was not arrested until August 2020.
Stamper’s former attorney, Sarah Bryant, requested a bond reduction for him on April 30, 2021. Originally Stamper was required to pay $100,000 full cash, but Boyle Circuit Judge Darren Peckler reduced the bond amount requiring Stamper to only secure 10% — or $10,000 along with an individual acting as surety.
According to court documents, Stamper posted bond one day after it was set on May 20, 2021. He was required to be on an ankle monitoring device. But at Stamper’s April 4 court appearance, his bond surety requested to be removed, according to Lincoln County Commonwealth’s Attorney Richie Bottoms.
Stamper was scheduled to appear in court for his murder charge on May 2, 2023.
Bottoms said at the time the bond reduction was requested and granted, his office did not agree to that decision.
“We were not comfortable with the reduction of bond because of the pending charges against him,” Bottoms told The Herald-Leader. “On behalf of the (victim’s) family, we are appreciative he is back in jail.”
