Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

STANFORD – The man who has been charged with the 2016 murder of Desiree Sparks has been indicted by a Lincoln County grand jury on charges of unlawful transaction with a minor. 

John Gordon Stamper, Jr., 25, of 207 Bender Hollow Road in Stanford was indicted on May 14 on two counts of unlawful use of electronic means to induce a minor to engage in sexual activities and one count of promoting human trafficking. Stamper’s bond following the indictment was set at $75,000.

According to the April 16, 2023 arrest warrant, Stamper allegedly used random phone numbers from a “text now app” on March 8-9 in 2023 to send text messages to a female under 16 years of age, suggesting they “send each other pictures.”  

According to the warrant, the minor continued to ask who the defendant was and sent a selfie of her face, while still trying to figure out who she was messaging.

Stamper allegedly said “I’ll tell you for a booty pic.”  

When the minor did not send him what he asked for, Stamper said “Now it’s gonna cost ya an a** and a T** pic,” police say.  

“The minor tells the defendant no,” the warrant states. “The above subject offers to send a picture of his private area. The victim sends a picture of her butt, thinking that the defendant was a guy from school that she had a crush on,” according to the warrant.

Stamper, according to the warrant, states that he “wants to see it facing the other way and continues to ask for boob pictures.”  

On March 9, the victim texts the number and notices that the guy she thought it was isn’t answering his phone, but she received a message from the number again.

Stamper then allegedly threatened to tell the female’s family if she didn’t send him nude photos. 

The juvenile then told her teacher and counselor at school, and her grandparents when she got home.

“After further investigation, this trooper has found that the above subject (Stamper) was the one that was texting the female juvenile.”

He was lodged in the Boyle County Detention Center. 

Stamper is still facing a murder charge for the 2016 death of Desiree Sparks. He was indicted by a Boyle County Grand Jury in 2020. 

Sparks, 22 years old at the time, was last seen in Danville on Sept. 27, 2016 and had been reported missing by local law enforcement when a group of people on all-terrain vehicles discovered her body a few days later at the end of West Skyline Drive in Lincoln County.

Lincoln County Coroner Farris Marcum deemed the autopsy results “inconclusive” because he was unable to determine a cause of death.

According to the indictment, Sparks was reported missing the same day she was allegedly killed.  

The indictment stated: “that on or about the 27th of September 2016 in Boyle County, Kentucky, the above named defendant, John Stamper Jr., committed the offense of murder by causing the death of Desiree Sparks.  Four years after the murder, Stamper was arrested on an indictment warrant and lodged in the Boyle County Detention Center. 

A status hearing on the murder case was scheduled for Tues., May 21 in Boyle County.

An arraignment has been scheduled for 10 a.m. on June 14.