Missouri father arrested at Cracker Barrel over Craigslist ad seeking rape of daughter

A Missouri father was arrested last week after he showed up at a Cracker Barrel to meet an undercover officer who he had contacted on Craigslist about beating and raping his 11-year-old daughter.

At a press conference on Monday, St. Louis County Detective Mike Slaughter said that it took a lot to shock detectives who investigate Internet predators, but they just couldn't believe it when 32-year-old Anthony Brinkman came to the restaurant with the young girl that he expected them to assault.

"It’s just a lot of talk for most of these guys, but this guy actually brought (the girl) to the scene to go ahead with the next step of enacting it," Slaughter explained. “If we hadn’t gotten involved and someone bad had gotten in touch with him, something bad would have happened to that little girl.”

Slaughter said that the Missouri Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force was called into action after someone reported a Craigslist ad Brinkman posted last week. He told an undercover officer posing as 27-year-old woman that he was looking for a girlfriend and someone who would help him assault the girl with sex toys, according to Slaughter.

If the undercover officer liked what he saw at the Cracker Barrel then the plan was for them all go back to Brinkman's place and begin sexually assaulting his daughter.

"From the time he posted that ad to the time we arrested him was less than 48 hours," Slaughter noted.

Investigators did not believe Brinkman had previously sexually assaulted the girl, but he allegedly told them that he "might" be in possession of child pornography, KMOV reported.

Brinkman was charged with attempted statutory sodomy and was being held on a $100,000 cash-only bond. Prosecutors were considering additional charges for sex trafficking.

Watch this video from KMOV, broadcast Nov. 5, 2013.