An investigation that began in Tuscola County resulted in the arrest of a man and woman for criminal sexual assault against a minor.
In September 2023, Michigan State Police’s Caro Post forwarded a sexual assault allegation to their Houghton Lake Post counterparts. They had interviewed a victim at the Child Advocacy Center of Tuscola County and learned that the crime had likely occurred in Crawford County.
Text messages between the victim and the male suspect were turned over to law enforcement, with a trooper later interviewing the two suspects.
The suspects, 24-year-old Kyle Louis Purtill and 23-year-old Alexis Nichole Bradley, both from Grayling, initially gave investigators the slip when arrest warrants were authorized in early January 2024. However, on January 27, a trooper from the Houghton Lake Post stopped to talk to a man and woman walking on the wrong side of the road on M-72, near M-93, and found they were the wanted suspects.
Purtill and Bradley were placed under arrest and lodged in the Crawford County Jail. Both were arraigned this week, with Purtill arraigned on two charges of criminal sexual conduct, third degree, victim age 13-15. Bradley was charged with one count of the same.
They will reappear in court on March 19, at 2:00 p.m.
