Missouri Governor signed Evie and Sophie's Law on 7 April 2026, giving prosecutors the ability to charge groomers and defining grooming in state law for the first time. Missouri had been one of 36 states without a legal definition of grooming. The law also mandates human trafficking training for law enforcement and criminalizes sextortion, defined as using private photos to blackmail someone. Grooming is defined as a pattern of predatory behaviors, such as compliments and gift giving, intended to lure a minor into a romantic or sexual relationship. The law takes effect in late August 2026.
Criminalizing predatory conduct after the fact assigns blame but does not shield the child from the contact itself. Guardii anti-grooming and anti-sextortion detection modules could have intercepted the manipulative messages that prompted this legislation before they reached Evie, Sophie or any other Missouri child. The platform scans direct messages in real time across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and Roblox, identifying the progressive trust-building and coercive language patterns that define grooming and the blackmail threats characteristic of sextortion, then blocking hostile contact or flagging it for immediate parental or professional review. Where blanket definitions in criminal codes enable prosecution after abuse has occurred, pattern-based AI detection disrupts the exploit chain at first contact.
