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Predator Hunters - Season 1 - Episode 07: Partial Truths, Partial Lies
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00:00The following program documents real law enforcement investigations of child sexual predators.
00:05This deeply disturbing content may be triggering for some viewers. Please watch with care.
00:11Next, the team targets an all-American dad who expects to meet a 14-year-old girl for sex.
00:23Then, Detective Tony Godwin tracks a predator who uses Facebook to target an underage student.
00:38And one of Tony's officers goes above and beyond to get the job done.
00:44Tony tells me he needs me to decoy.
00:46You know, I told him all he was going to do is just talk and go to dinner.
00:52A team of police professionals in North Dallas has one goal.
00:56Take down online predators before they harm a real child.
01:02Child predators are everywhere.
01:05Online predators pose the biggest danger to America's children today.
01:10Kids are being targeted at an alarming rate.
01:13This team is opening its case files for the first time.
01:16To show you how it tracks them down.
01:20All right, he's coming this way.
01:22And brings them to justice.
01:23By any means necessary.
01:26Candle card.
01:29This is Detective Tony Godwin.
01:31And his team is...
01:33The Predator Hunters.
01:37Detective Tony is on a case that stands out.
01:41He's hunting a predator with a good job, a family, and a house in the suburbs.
01:47But this all-American dad is living a double life.
01:51And what Tony uncovers leaves him speechless.
01:55And I'm like at a loss for words.
01:57This is like the absolute first time I've ever seen this.
02:00He sends Tony some of the most disturbing images he's ever seen.
02:05First unit's out. We need someone to get on the front of him.
02:08All right, guys.
02:09And the deeper the team looks, the darker it gets.
02:20Sometimes a case comes along that really hammers home just how destructive a predator's behavior can be.
02:26Take this guy, Jeffrey Tuff.
02:28His actions leave his family in ruins.
02:38This case takes place in 2010.
02:41Chat rooms like Yahoo Chat were all the rage.
02:44If you're a predator, these are the places you want to hang out.
02:47If you're a predator hunter, it's an even better place to hang out.
02:52It's an even better place to hang out.
02:52Catfishing is simply posing online in an undercover capacity with a fake identity.
02:57The secret behind catfishing is to have a really good developed profile.
03:01So this particular profile, I'm a 14-year-old girl and my name is Alicia.
03:06Photographs used come from co-workers.
03:09And they have given me permission to use their photographs for these types of investigations.
03:13The only thing I require is that the photographs are actual photographs from 12 to 14-ish.
03:19The ages that I'm purporting to be online.
03:23When I enter the Yahoo Chat rooms, I enter into a room called Romance.
03:28Typically, I go into rooms that are heavily populated.
03:30I immediately get a private message from a user named JT.
03:34Hey Alicia, Jay here.
03:35I'm a 54-year-old male from Texas.
03:37What about you?
03:39Hey, I'm a 14-year-old female.
03:41Jay replies back.
03:42What you doing?
03:43Getting in trouble?
03:44LOL.
03:45A normal guy who has no interest or preference in children would have never even messaged.
03:51I got red flags waving all over the place with this guy.
03:57Within days, he messages me back.
03:59Do you have a computer in your room or is it a public computer?
04:05I bet your mom would not approve of your chatting with an older guy.
04:09Really typical predator behavior.
04:11What kind of seed is this guy planting in my head, right?
04:14He's trying to just keep this thing a secret, all about manipulation of this kid.
04:21I'm really concerned that he could be currently talking to other kids.
04:25I'm really just going to play into the role of this 14-year-old.
04:29I just ask him, what does JT stand for?
04:32He responds back and says, Jeffrey's my first name, but Jay is my nickname.
04:37Jay doesn't have a picture in his profile.
04:46He sends me three photos of himself.
04:49He looks like the average middle-aged man.
04:53When I've been talking to Jay for a little over three weeks and he sends me this message.
04:58I've collected some fun things for you to see, lol.
05:04You have to save it to your desktop and then delete it afterwards, okay?
05:08Now I'm really curious.
05:10Now I'm thinking, what the heck is this guy going to send me?
05:19What he sends are three very sexually explicit photographs.
05:24I'm looking at the faces of the girls in these photos and what's happened is he has superimposed
05:29my Alicia girl profile onto these images to make it look like Alicia is engaged in these sex acts.
05:39And I'm like at a loss for words.
05:41This is like the absolute first time I've ever seen this.
05:44Jeffrey is trying to just totally desensitize me playing this profile to the thought and idea of having sex with
05:52someone like him.
05:54This guy is revealing his absolute true colors.
05:58What a predator he is, plain and simple.
06:00What he just did is a felony in Texas.
06:05Tony needs a positive ID to move forwards.
06:09He calls in Detective Clint McNeer.
06:13Tony and I started the academy together about 30 years ago.
06:18Spent our whole career together, raised our kids together.
06:21He's been a brother I've never had for the last 31 years.
06:26The subpoena that was sent to Yahoo trying to identify JT and what we get in return is whatever
06:34blanket information in this case Yahoo has on that person.
06:38The results aren't great.
06:40Not a lot of useful information in there.
06:42We get an IP address and we get a location that he is in Austin.
06:46However, the name on the subpoena came back as Mr. JT.
06:51For all we know, that's a made up screen name they may have been using.
06:55We know where he is, but we're no closer to finding out who he is.
07:03Knowing how these cases lay out in court, I know I have the elements,
07:06but what I really need is for him to set up a meeting in person.
07:09Then he pops this question on me.
07:11What's your schedule like on Thursday?
07:17Okay, I'll be driving through Dallas on Thursday.
07:22Bam!
07:23We got this.
07:24This guy wants to meet in person.
07:26We're confident in where he's wanting to go with this communication he's having with Alicia.
07:32He sent pornographic images.
07:34He's sharing about his sexual fantasies.
07:38With all that has taken place so far, clearly he intends to harm a child.
07:42We need to bring the guy in.
07:49I decide I'm going to push to one of my favorite takedown locations.
07:52It's kind of a U-shaped driveway, which gives us the tactical advantage.
07:56It's one way in and one way out.
07:58There's a lot of team members and I have to place them strategically from an outer perimeter to an inner
08:03perimeter so that when the target, Jeffrey, arrives, we know that ahead of time.
08:08We see him ahead of time and then it gets passed off to Clint sitting close by.
08:13Yeah, you staged me just outside so no matter which angle he approached from,
08:18he was going to have to drive right in front of me and then I could pull out and trail
08:21him right inside.
08:23The reason we want to be able to control it is that he doesn't get out and harm the public
08:28or if they see another child to harm them or it turns into a car chase.
08:33So this is the best ability for us to control a very dangerous situation.
08:41Just days before the takedown, Jeffrey starts to back off.
08:46I really think the gravity of what's going on is kind of setting in with him and it's kind of
08:49weighing on his shoulders because he says, I'm a little nervous. And I respond back, me too.
08:56I'm really nervous. So then Jeffrey hits me with this. I could land in jail.
09:01I have visions of the police scooping me up as I walk out.
09:05What they're doing is obviously a crime. They know that they're coming to meet a child.
09:12And so they get cold feet. I try to reassure him. At the end of the day, I've still got
09:20him.
09:20We're about to put our hands on him. Now I just need him to show up.
09:30So April 22nd at 9 30 AM, I text him and I let him know what the address is of
09:37where he's coming.
09:38This guy potentially could be armed. My number one priority is that nobody gets hurt.
09:43I'm sitting up on surveillance, waiting for a traveler to come in. He's identified himself as Jay
09:49or Jeffrey. If it goes accordingly, he will pull in on the east side of the complex,
09:55which is this location that I have on video. You're sitting out there. Then you start thinking,
09:59okay, this guy's not going to show up. Is this going to really go down or are they,
10:02they're going to get nervous and bail? I'm getting a text message right now.
10:06Said he's caught in some construction, taking a little longer than expected.
10:09We don't know if he's gaming Tony. We don't know if he already may be there
10:13doing a heat run driving by looking for us. I just received this a few minutes ago.
10:18This is just all okay. About 45 minutes outside of Dallas and walks a hat seat.
10:23I responded back. Okay. I'm getting excited. And he sent back me too.
10:30All I want to hear is one of my spotters say, I have eyes on him.
10:3411, 18 AM. I just received a text from the suspect who said he is 10 minutes away.
10:44Tony's team is ready to take down a child predator in a North Dallas apartment complex.
10:50I'm sitting up on surveillance, waiting for a traveler to come in. He's identified himself as Jay
10:54or Jeffrey. These operations take a huge amount of resources because I have to have covert vehicles,
11:01covert detectives, uniform people. There's a lot of moving parts and a lot of risk that is involved.
11:09He's in front of the complex right now.
11:14Stand by. I got a visual on him. This is him.
11:21He's parking. Come in. Come in. Come in.
11:24First unit's out. We need someone to get on the front of him.
11:31They do a textbook take down. They approach Jeffrey.
11:37They've got him. He does comply.
11:41Here's our suspect. That's right.
11:44When the police are running up, banging on the window,
11:47I think it's just an overwhelming surprise. These people are so focused on this fantasy that
11:53they think is going to play out. When we click the cuffs on is really satisfaction. Today,
12:00this person will harm a child.
12:07They search him and his car. The team finds a webcam, a digital camera, a laptop, and a bottle of
12:17lubricant.
12:20I'm not shocked, but I wasn't anticipating finding that at all. They recover his driver's license,
12:26which identifies him as Jeffrey Blaze Toph. I do a search on him and determine that Jeffrey is married
12:34with two children. Toph is transported to the police station where he's booked in for online solicitation
12:40of a minor.
12:54What most people don't understand is there's an interview and there's an interrogation.
12:57And during an interview is when I'm just building rapport. But once I feel like I'm in that zone
13:03is when I will trigger and switch over to an interrogation.
13:06I want to ask you, Jeff, why are you here today?
13:10I am here today because I agreed to meet a girl who on the internet claims she was on the
13:21bridge.
13:25He opens up and makes admissions. Jeffrey has no idea that I played the role of Alicia.
13:32I want them to believe the entire time this was a real child. I do that because I want to
13:39have
13:39success in the interview. I want them to be very, very transparent and open with me. And oftentimes,
13:45when these predators believe that it's a real child, it puts them in a different mindset.
13:49How long ago did you meet this girl?
13:54Oh gosh, I don't know. A couple months maybe.
13:57How did it get from a couple months ago meeting to where you are here today?
14:05Well, I have to start with your doubts. I made the mistake of inviting her to lunch.
14:09But you were arrested at her apartment complex.
14:12That is correct because she wanted me to go there.
14:16Where I don't necessarily believe you is that your purpose for coming and going to the apartment
14:21complex was not to have a sexual relationship because I do believe that was the case.
14:26You kind of see a little deflection in his demeanor. He's like, I know, I know, like the head nod,
14:32the acknowledgement that, yeah, I really screwed up. He also understands he is in deep trouble.
14:39Yeah, I pretty much shut up my life is the way I look at it.
14:43Well, I would have to agree with you there. Yeah, I'm probably going to get,
14:46I'll probably lose my job, but I will definitely lose my wife.
14:53Officers take Toc to jail after his interview with Tony. Toc then calls home.
15:00Please continue to hold while the operator attempts to connect your call.
15:05Hello?
15:07I'm in jail. I have been charged with online solicitation of a minor.
15:12They're going to have a search warrant for the house. So I will search the house.
15:17And they were fine things.
15:21I am so sorry.
15:24There's nothing I can tell you, honey. I'm an idiot. And I could be in prison for life, as far
15:31as I know.
15:34Okay?
15:35Okay.
15:38And I know I have a problem. And at this point, I ruined my life.
15:47Thank you, man.
15:53When I hear the call, I feel so much empathy for his wife,
15:58because her world literally just shattered. And so it's a bittersweet moment. I'm super grateful
16:06that he's never going to have an opportunity to harm another kid, but I know it comes at a price
16:10for
16:10someone else. The next day, a team from Austin PD searches Jeffrey Toc's home.
16:17It seizes over 150,000 images of child sexual abuse material.
16:24The size of this collection is unbelievably large. It's unfathomable that somebody would have this
16:32much. Every one of those are real victims somewhere. This guy had everything going in his life. Like,
16:41he had wealth and a family, and he threw it all away.
16:56It's 2012. Tony is tracking a man who used Facebook to target an underage girl.
17:06To catch him, Tony must take over the identity of a real child
17:12and switch takedown locations when the predator throws a curve ball.
17:19Okay, I got eyes on him. Suspects coming up to Travis.
17:23When Tony finally sets the trap, the predator walks right into it.
17:29Every once in a while, we get notified that there's a predator that has contact with the child
17:33right now. That's what the scenario was with this guy, Andrew McKee. My team and I,
17:40we had to act really fast on a developing situation.
17:52April 23rd of 2012, I got a phone call from one of our school resource officers. This guy's job is
17:57to keep middle school students safe. So the SRO tells me that a 14-year-old student had come to
18:03him
18:03at the school and told him she got some really unsolicited messages on her phone.
18:10So the messages were really sexual in nature, really troubling to this kid while she came to the
18:16school to report it. There's a real sense of urgency because I'm a father and I have daughters. I tend
18:21to
18:22put that victim in the sense of being my own child. If something like this happened to my daughter,
18:28I'm going to flip the world upside down to make it get right.
18:35Tony is tracking a predator who used Facebook to target an underage girl.
18:41The question really is why is this adult reaching out to a kid who he doesn't know
18:46on any level whatsoever?
18:50So I tasked one of my teammates, David Galvan, to start this investigation.
18:53This is a file on the victim.
18:56So Tony, we met in the academy in 1994. He's a great cop. He's one of those guys that you
19:02could
19:02depend on on the street. Definitely one of the best in his field. When it comes to the sexual abuse,
19:09any type of abuse of a child takes a toll on you because you carry the weight of the children
19:14in
19:15your heart and what has happened to them. I go to the school and I do talk with the young
19:22girl.
19:23She's distraught about it. She feels like, of course, like she's done something wrong.
19:27Like she's in trouble for this when actually she's the victim.
19:33So what she tells us is that 10 days earlier, she got an unsolicited friend request from this guy
19:38named Andrew McKee, which she did accept. And then he immediately sends her a message, says,
19:42Hey, how are you? But she ignored this.
19:47Online, kids will friend everybody, whether they know them or not. And they're divulging information
19:52that shouldn't be divulged about themselves. Where they live, phone numbers and things like,
19:57where they go to school. It's a very dangerous place. Mistakes will be made. This child happened
20:02to have a lot of information on her Facebook page, one of which was her phone number. So a week
20:06later,
20:07the student's in class and she gets this message on her phone that says,
20:10This is Andrew from Facebook. So what girl do you know that will want a hundred dollars?
20:17He sends a third message to her and this time he sends a picture. And this is a picture of
20:22a man
20:23and woman's genitals that are touching. So now this student, like she's totally confused. He's offering
20:28her a hundred dollars to go find another girl to have sex. How disgusting is this guy?
20:34So when you have somebody that is out up front about things like that, especially when it comes
20:39to money and other children, it's very concerning. We need to do something quickly. We need to figure
20:45out who this person actually is to get more information on them, more intelligence on that person.
20:54I have to figure out if this is a real guy or this is a fake profile. So I do
20:59some database searches on
21:01Andrew McKee. I get some DMV information from Oklahoma and included in that is a driver's license photo.
21:08And that photo matches up a hundred percent to the photo that was used on the Facebook profile.
21:18We've got to find him and I've got an idea. The victim in this case, along with her parents,
21:24gives me permission to do a takeover of this Facebook account. To become that child, use her phone,
21:32use her accounts and target Mr. McKee. It's a really dangerous area to operate in, but I don't have any
21:40other alternatives at this point. I send a text message to McKee. I just play along with him at this
21:49point. So I give him some details of the girl I've allegedly found. So Brittany is me, right? I'm
22:00playing now my undercover role. And so I give McKee the phone number I use on my undercover phone
22:05so that we can keep things going. And he replies back immediately. Your friend gave me your number.
22:14How old are you? So I just confirm with him. Well, I'm 14. Is that cool? He tells me, yeah,
22:20I'm cool with that. This guy is a big problem and he could really harm a real kid.
22:33So on April 24th, I text McKee as Brittany and we talk for hours and it gets really pornographic. I
22:40mean,
22:40some nasty stuff starts happening. The majority of the things that he sent were so highly sexually
22:47graphic and disgusting that we're not able to show that type of material. We're not willing to expose
22:54other people to his depravity. He's a sick guy. In order to make this case a more solid case in
23:02court,
23:03he has to offer up or make a substantial step for a meeting in person for a sex act. Eventually,
23:11McKee does suggest a meeting in person and we are on. So I give McKee an address to the apartment
23:18complex where Brittany lives. I'm going to use that to lure him in.
23:28McKee says he's traveling on the train and he wants Brittany to meet at the station.
23:32The idea that we could do a takedown at a public train station is not something that would get even
23:36approved up my chain. There's too many people, innocent bodies. They have no idea what's going
23:41on. We have no real control tactically. So as Brittany, I just asked him to stick to the plan,
23:47just come to the apartments like he suggested. So I post two people at the train station. Both are
23:54covert. Their job is just to blend into the crowd and wait until they get a visual on McKee
24:00and notify us on the radio that he's arrived.
24:08Tony lies in wait for Andrew McKee.
24:11The predator thinks he's about to meet a 14-year-old girl.
24:17April 26, 2012. The current time is 10.06 AM. This is Detective Gupp. We are set up to meet
24:24a
24:25traveler in an online solicitation of a minor case. The suspect we are looking for is identified in this
24:32photograph. His name is Andrew Dale McKee. He's a 35-year-old male.
24:39At 10.16 AM, my covert officers at the station tell me that McKee has arrived.
24:49But McKee is lost. Tony steps in to keep the takedown on track.
24:56So I come up with a plan to shift everything by over a half a mile.
25:02I send him a message to say, hey, there's a store about halfway between you and me.
25:05I'll meet you there. The fact that we have to move from plan A to plan B,
25:12it elevates the risk level. Because the traffic concerns, the public safety concerns, logistically,
25:20it's a nightmare for me.
25:25We have changed the takedown location to the S&K food store next door to this tire shop.
25:32We do have undercover officers inside this location right now.
25:39Is that him at Travis?
25:42The person that was coming up, Tony's not him.
25:45I thought, man, I lost this dude. And all of a sudden, I get this message back.
25:51Coming up, Travis, right in a second.
25:54Okay, I got eyes on him.
25:58I'm expecting McKee to sort of bolt in a direction. It's not like he's not going to see these cars
26:04and squad cars screeching up on him.
26:09So I give the team the order to take him down.
26:121055.
26:17This is the arrest of Mr. McKee,
26:21who arrived to have sex with what he believes to be as a 14-year-old child.
26:29He's in custody.
26:36Okay, your first name?
26:38Andrew.
26:38Andrew.
26:40My name is Tony.
26:43I realized he suffers from a hearing loss, a very significant hearing loss.
26:48Why do you think you're here today?
26:50The only thing I think of is I've been talking to this girl,
26:57which I didn't think she was under eight.
27:02But that's not really the case here, because the girl you met on Facebook told you she was 14.
27:08Or 13.
27:08That one, 10 or 14.
27:12McKee says he's been talking to a girl, but she didn't really let him know how old she was.
27:16I need him to know I know everything about this case.
27:20Now I'm going to give it to him.
27:21So if the first girl is 14 and you know that,
27:24then you have to assume the girl she goes to school with is 14, right?
27:28I don't think about that either.
27:29Yeah.
27:30But you really said some pretty horrible things to this girl, right?
27:34And you know she's 14 and that's against the law.
27:37You know that. You're smart enough to know that.
27:40You offered to pay the first girl from Facebook $100 to have sex with her.
27:44Well, I just said that, but no, no, really.
27:49Because I ain't got the money.
27:51You wanted me to believe that if the police never were involved today,
27:56that you wouldn't have gone to her apartment?
27:57I think if we wouldn't have been involved,
28:01you would have taken that little girl back to her apartment and had sex with her.
28:05That's a bad thing.
28:07Andrew, you did a grown-up thing here.
28:09You're going to have to man up and talk about it, man.
28:14Yep.
28:15Dude, you don't even have any tears in your eyes.
28:17We need to get guys like you off the street,
28:20because there's a chance that you'll do it again.
28:22And I don't want to take that chance.
28:24He knew exactly that this kid was underage.
28:27I mean, come on.
28:28He wants me to believe all this crap.
28:30I don't buy it for a second.
28:33McKee's admission gives me every bit of evidence that I need to put him away for a very long time.
28:45The McKee case shows that parents shouldn't rely on social media platforms to protect their kids.
28:50Parents need to police their kids' privacy settings themselves.
28:54Kids really shouldn't have their full names, their direct cell phone number,
28:58or anything about their address on their social media.
29:02To lure the next predator, Tony uses one of his officers as a decoy.
29:08That's when the nerves kicked in.
29:11This case is about grooming, control, and the long game.
29:21But when this predator lands in custody, he denies everything.
29:25I don't understand, man.
29:26You know, he contacted me.
29:30You know, I depend on my co-workers to help me bring predators to justice.
29:34That was the case with this predator, Marty Taylor.
29:37I had to think outside the box to catch this guy.
29:46This case took place on the website Backpage.
29:50Backpage was a unique place.
29:52You can buy and sell.
29:53You can apply for jobs, find a house, a rent.
29:56But there's a really deviant side to Backpage in the personal lands.
30:00And that's where we tend to focus our attention because that's where we see predatory behavior.
30:04I navigate over to the Backpage Dallas area for men seeking men.
30:11What I'm looking for is those ads that appear to be a little ambiguous,
30:15looking potentially for kids versus a consenting adult.
30:19I've only been on the site for just a couple of minutes,
30:22and Sugar Dad looking for his son really catches my attention.
30:26Looking for a younger guy for companionship.
30:29You must be 18 to 30-ish.
30:31He wants love in return.
30:33He's offering up a nice place, three meals a day.
30:37This ad, in my experience, tells me that this is someone who's got some wiggle room
30:41in what they're looking for, meaning most likely younger.
30:45Knowing they can't put that onto that ad without getting it flagged or removed.
30:51This is a predator that's looking for a kid.
30:57Tony devises a plan to lure in the Backpage Sugar Daddy.
31:04He creates a profile for a 14-year-old boy named Brian.
31:09The email address I set up is Brian Boyd Curious, and I'm painting the picture that he is curious
31:14about where he is in his sexuality.
31:17I reply to the ad on 14.
31:20I'll be 15 in November.
31:22Any adult that saw a response like this would know immediately,
31:25hold up, this is a kid, this is illegal, and they would walk away.
31:29I get a reply, and it says,
31:32no, I'm not okay with it. You can be absolutely gorgeous, but it isn't worth jail to be with a
31:37hot
31:37young stud. Sorry, I'm Marty, by the way. On one side of this, he's acknowledging,
31:43I know this is wrong. I know this is illegal. I could go to jail. But on the flip side
31:47of it,
31:48he's very interested. When you see the messages from these predatory types,
31:53they know it's wrong, and they know they have to be very cryptic in what they say.
31:58Marty brings up that he wants to transition from email over to text messaging,
32:02and that is absolutely a home run for me. And now I've got his phone number. He fully believes
32:09I'm a 14-year-old boy, and we go from there.
32:15As soon as we start texting, Marty sends me a picture of himself.
32:19And knowing what Marty looks like or is purporting to look like is a big advantage for me. The flip
32:24side
32:24to getting a picture from Marty is that within a few hours, he wants to know what Brian looks like,
32:29and he needs validation that this is a real kid. Tony enlists officer Bobby Taylor to bring the
32:36character of Brian to life. When I first met Tony in the academy, he came to teach us about the
32:44Internet Crimes Against Children unit. During that time is when he asked if any of us would be willing
32:51to work with him once we finished training. I was 23. I still looked pretty closely to what I did
32:57in high
32:57school. And so I took him some of my pictures from when I was a kid.
33:03So the profile picture that I send him of Brian, which is actually Bobby at that age,
33:08is a really big hit with Marty. Right off the bat, he escalates things.
33:19Marty's tone and what he's saying is his way of trying to normalize the deviance that he wants to
33:25interject. And that's just another example of the grooming process and his power and control.
33:33September 17th of 2014, Marty sends me a message. He says to me, we'll only do what you feel up
33:38to.
33:39I don't think kissing is illegal. We can go back to my place and kiss and talk.
33:44He wants to come across like it's innocent, but it doesn't really emphasize what he's really wanting
33:48to do and how wildly inappropriate something like that would be between a guy in his 50s and a 14
33:54year old kid. Marty's really clear in the messages about meeting to make sure that I don't tell any
33:59adults. Your mom will never find out about me. But he's still nervous and he messages me. Okay,
34:06I have to ask this to protect myself. You're not a cop and you don't work for the police, right?
34:12Because I'm not a cop and I don't work for them. I just reassure him.
34:19I mean, this is really classic predator behavior, right? This guy is scared. Obviously,
34:24he's having some very rational thoughts, but that doesn't deter him.
34:31So I need to get Marty identified. I kick off legal process to the cell provider. And while I'm waiting
34:37for that to happen, Marty messages me just after six o'clock the next morning. Good morning, my boy.
34:44I hope you slept well. I thought about you a lot last night. And this morning when I woke up
34:48and just really out of nowhere, he sends me a picture of his white Chevy Silverado. There's this
34:54gotcha moment because his license plates in the actual photo. I run this plate through the DMV and I
34:59come back with a full name. Jack Marty Taylor, 59 year old male from Dallas, Texas. So Taylor's not
35:04married. He has no criminal history I can find and he has no access to kids that I can find.
35:11In order for this case to move forward and me to put a charge onto Taylor, I need a couple
35:15of
35:16things to happen. One, I need him to set up a specific date and time for when this meeting will
35:21happen. And then two, I need him to show what his intentions are. Does he want to have a sexual
35:27relationship with this child? And if so, it's game on. It takes about three months. But eventually,
35:36Marty gives me exactly what we're looking for. Marty's message reveals his true intentions towards
35:42Brian. This guy's a real danger to minors. I need to lock in a date for him to meet so
35:52I can arrest him
35:53and charge him and eventually get him convicted and put in prison.
36:03Tony prepares to take down predator Marty Taylor using a fellow police officer as bait.
36:10The use of a live decoy is not such a hurdle to get over because the person that we're using
36:15is a police officer. The biggest threat to that is if our bad guy shows up and kind of realizes,
36:20wait a minute, that's not a real kid. Marty needs validation that what he believes in his mind right
36:27now, which is he's got the pot of gold, which is why I asked Bobby to help me in this
36:31case.
36:36Tony tells me he needs me to decoy and he's going to need me to dress up as a kid
36:41because this guy is
36:43very eager but very cautious. This is the spot where I tell Marty to come over and meet Brian.
36:51My intention is to put him right out in the middle of this field. You want to be on this
36:55side of the
36:57field so there was distance between us where you thought he was going to park.
37:01The advantage of having Marty meet Brian over here is a bunch of things. The drive to come in,
37:07just a one way in and one way out. We have good coverage for surveillance units. If Marty starts
37:12to freak out, he has nowhere to go. The moment you said, hey, he's en route, that's when the
37:19nerves kicked in. Right. And all I could think of was, I'm the most junior guy in this operation.
37:24I can't mess this up. Marty's pickup pulls in at 4 15 PM.
37:38Marty starts flashing his lights at me to let me know it's him. And I remember freezing.
37:44Tony tells me, pretend you're texting. As I'm walking towards him, I get about halfway. And at
37:50that point, as I see red and blue lights, I take off running and I hide. So I give the
37:56team the order
37:56to take him down. Two squad cars race across the parking lot to block Marty's escape.
38:12I think he's in a degree of shock at that moment because of everything that's happened,
38:18the culmination of this, the gravity of this. Now he's in handcuffs. He's been back in the squad car.
38:24And so his mind is racing a million miles an hour. I don't understand, man. You know,
38:30he contacted me. He said he needed somebody as a mentor, as a father figure.
38:36All they got to do is look back on my cell phone conversation with him. And
38:40I told him all he was going to do was just talk and go to dinner.
38:46When Marty gets into custody, he's sort of pleading his innocence and that he's a nice guy,
38:52just trying to help. Nothing's happened. The reality is he knows full well what he was doing.
38:58When this kid contacted me, you know, I originally told him, you know, it's like there could be no
39:05sex between us because that was illegal. But he just wanted me to quote unquote be his father figure,
39:11his mentor and answer questions. And that's all I agreed to. So in regards to the ad that you placed,
39:17you mentioned that you said you're looking for someone between 18 and 30s or whatever. What else
39:22was really what were you asking for in the ad? Was it for a sexual relationship? Well, yes, yes,
39:29it was. But I mean, you know, it was a mutual relationship. I was looking for a boyfriend.
39:37So he's sort of minimizing things with partial truths, but he's also telling partial lies.
39:42Was there ever any conversation that you had to give this kid Brian the impression that you guys would
39:51engage in a sexual activity? Oh, yeah, I think I might have lost control a couple of times. But
39:56I afterwards I told him it's like, no, no, we can't do that. You know, the reality is that's an
40:02online
40:03solicitation of a minor. You just told me that you might have slipped. You might have agreed to have
40:07a sexual relationship with this 15 year old kid. Yeah, but only momentarily because I knew it's like,
40:14hey, you know, if he gets mad at me or something like that, he'll he'll tell his mom or tell
40:19somebody.
40:19So I'm like, no, I can't do that. I was going to be nice to him and honest with him
40:24and answer
40:25his questions and not ask anything in return, except maybe, you know, I guess it would have been
40:32nice to have somebody, you know, I could have called like a son or been like a son to me.
40:37Marty tells me in his confession that he lost control. Ultimately, he was doing what it is he
40:43really, truly wanted to do and would have done had there been no police intervention.
40:56Taylor case shows that boys as well as girls are at risk from online predators. In fact,
41:02one in 20 boys is a victim of child sexual abuse. Parents need to show their kids that they're
41:09approachable and that their kids can talk to them about important life stuff. Because if a kid feels
41:15different or lonely, like my undercover identity, Brian did their mixture of vulnerability and curiosity
41:22puts them at a higher risk of being targeted by an online predator.
41:26I love that's a lot of the people.
41:27That's my first enoughirsiniz.
41:27I'd love to be honest with you.
41:27I'm grateful I got to be honest with you.
41:27I am.
41:28I love that.
41:28But I'm grateful for this, though.
41:29I'm grateful for this, too, and I'm grateful for this, too, and I'm grateful for this.
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