TYLER, Texas — Michael Darwin Webb, 51, received attention throughout Texas and across the country after he was arrested for the kidnapping of 8-year-old Salem Sabatka. However, he was known to East Texas authorities well before Sunday.
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Between Smith and Gregg counties, Webb, who also went by the name 'Thin Man,' has been charged in 14 crimes since the mid-1980s.
Those charges range from theft and DWI, to aggravated assault and sexual assault.
Webb has been found guilty of the following crimes:
- Driving while license suspended - 1992 in Smith County
- Making a terroristic threat - 1993 in Smith County
- Unauthorized use of a motor vehicle - 1994 in Smith County
- Evading arrest/detention - 1994 in Smith County
- Failure to stop - 2010 in Smith County
- Expired driver's license - 2010 in Smith County
- Burglary - 1993 in Gregg County
- Burglary - 1996 in Gregg County
- Unlawful restraint - 2001 in Gregg County
In 2008, Webb was also convicted of possession of a controlled substance and burglary in Bowie County. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Webb's latest criminal charges in East Texas came in Smith County.
In June of 2018, he was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and sexual assault.
According to the indictment, the incident occurred in April 2018. The indictment says Webb assaulted a woman using a knife. In addition to pulling a knife on her, Webb also hit the woman with his hands.
However, the victim refused to cooperate with authorities and eventually moved out of state.
"We found out that she moved to the state of Arizona, so we had an uncooperative victim with warrants out, she was out of state, which makes them very difficult to find in a particular case like this," Smith County prosecutor, Richard Vance said.
The trial was initially scheduled to begin on October 8, 2018. However, the trial was continued until October 15, as prosecutors worked to locate the victim and convince her to testify.
The trial was continued again on October 15, and a third time on October 22.
Finally, the state filed a motion to dismiss the charges without prejudice on November 26, after multiple attempts to find the victim failed. The judge dismissed the charges the next day.
"We made the decision that we would dismiss it and dismiss without prejudice," Vance explained, "then we have the opportunity to prosecute again."
As prosecutors would likely not be able to secure a conviction without the victim's involvement, the charges against Webb were dropped and he was set free.
When Vance heard what happened on Sunday, he said it was hard.
"Thankfully, the girl was found, which is a huge blessing, but you know that there was at least a period of time where that little girl was having to go through some pain." he said, "and yeah, there's a part of And yeah, there's part of you personally that feels responsible for that even if it's something you had to do."
He went on to say he's sorry she had to go through that, and that he never expected Vance would harm a child.
"There wasn't anything in that that would indicate to me he would be the type that would ever do anything with a child," Vance explained, looking at Webb's criminal history.