PENSACOLA, Fla. — Tara Sykes he remains in the Escambia County Jail on Tuesday. She faces charges of attempted murder after allegedly communicating with a 10-year-old child and instructing the child to harm a two-month-old baby.

When WEAR News first reported this story last week, the sheriff’s office said Sykes was using the social media platform Roblox to communicate with the child.

Roblox and the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office are working together on this case. But the gaming company has also completed its own internal investigation.

A spokesperson for Roblox told WEAR News in a statement that they found no evidence to indicate that the alleged conversations requesting violence took place on Roblox. The company said it analyzed activity on the platform from the two usernames provided by law enforcement.

While the company confirms the communication between the two usernames, company officials said the conversations were “political and did not contain the alleged instructions for violence that led to Sykes’ arrest.”

“I’ve been in law enforcement for over 40 years and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmons said. “I am truly disturbed by the circumstances and the thought that anyone could think like this, let alone train them. acts to be performed. There’s something really wrong with her.”

That’s what Simmons told WEAR News last week when we first learned about the case.

Deputies say Sykes instructed the 10-year-old on multiple occasions to kill the child in a Roblox communication thread, including instructions to drown him in a bathtub, scald him with hot water and throw the child on the floor to kill the infant.

The sheriff was not available to speak to WEAR News on camera Tuesday, but in a statement he said the investigation is ongoing. Simmons adds that his office is working collaboratively with Roblox and any other social media platforms that may have information about this investigation.

“This investigation is not about Roblox,” Simmons said. “This is about a person using a social media platform in an effort to harm another person. As I said from the beginning, this communication was not accidental in nature.”

“This is not some random person who goes on that social media platform or any social media platform and just finds someone to start engaging in a conversation,” he said. “The relationship was already well established before the social media platform communication.”

No one from Roblox could talk to the camera. But in a statement, they told WEAR News they will continue to work closely with law enforcement. They said their investigation included current and past deleted communications, saying they are required by law to keep chat logs for two years.

The sheriff told WEAR News last week that the 10-year-old involved in the case could also face charges.