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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.
01:55I'm like at a loss for words.
01:57This is like the absolute first time I've ever seen this.
01:59He sends Tony some of the most disturbing images he's ever seen.
02:05First unit's out.
02:06We 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
02:26can be.
02:27Take 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.
02:52Catfishing 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 and they have given me permission to use their photographs
03:11for these types of investigations.
03:13The only thing I require is that the photographs are actual photographs from 12 to 14-ish, the
03:19ages 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.
03:38What about you?
03:39Hey, I'm a 14-year-old female.
03:41Jay replies back, what you doing?
03:43Getting in trouble?
03:44LOL.
03:44Well, a normal guy who has no interest or preference in children would have never even
03:51messaged.
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.
04:10What 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.
04:28I just ask him, what does JT stand for?
04:32He responds back and says, Jeffrey's my first name, but Jay is my nickname.
04:38Jay 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.
05:03Well, you 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.
05:23I'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
05:37sex 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
05:50idea of having sex with someone 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.
06:26This is the subpoena that was sent to Yahoo, trying to identify JT.
06:31And what we get in return is whatever blanket information, in this case, Yahoo, has on that
06:37person.
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.
06:56We 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, but what I really
07:07need 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.
07:18I'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
07:31Alicia.
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
08:02to an inner perimeter, 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, he was going
08:18to have to drive right in front of me, and then I could pull out and trail him.
08:22Right 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
08:49kind of weighing on his shoulders because he says, I'm a little nervous, and I respond
08:54back, me too.
08:56I'm really nervous.
08:57So then Jeffrey hits me with this.
08:59I 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.
09:09They know that they're coming to meet a child, and so they get cold feet.
09:15I try to reassure him.
09:18At the end of the day, I've still got him.
09:21We're about to put our hands on him.
09:22Now, I just need him to show up.
09:30So April 22nd at 9.30 a.m., I text him, and I let him know what the address is
09:37of where
09:37he's coming.
09:38This guy potentially could be armed.
09:41My number one priority is that nobody gets hurt.
09:43I'm setting up on surveillance, waiting for a traveler to come in.
09:46He's identified himself as Jay or Jeffrey.
09:50If it goes accordingly, he will pull in on the east side of the complex, which is this
09:55location that I have on video.
09:57You're sitting out there, then you start thinking, okay, this guy's not going to show up.
10:01Is this going to really go down, or are they going to get nervous and bail?
10:04I'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.
10:12We don't know if he already may be there doing a heat run, driving by, looking for us.
10:16I 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.
10:26And 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 a.m., 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.
10:53He's identified himself as Jay or Jeffrey.
10:56These operations take a huge amount of resources, because I have to have covert vehicles, covert
11:01detectives, uniformed people.
11:03There'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.
11:15I got a visual on him.
11:16This is him.
11:21He's parking.
11:21Come in, come in, come in.
11:24First unit's out.
11:25We need somebody to get on the front of him.
11:33They do a textbook takedown.
11:35They approach Jeffrey.
11:37They've got him.
11:39He does comply.
11:41Here's our suspect.
11:43That's right.
11:44When the police are running up, banging on the window, I think it's just an overwhelming
11:49surprise.
11:50These people are so focused on this fantasy that they think is going to play out.
11:55When we click the cuffs on, it's really satisfaction.
11:59Today, this person won't harm a child.
12:07They search him and his car.
12:10The team finds a webcam, a digital camera, a laptop, and a bottle of lubricant.
12:20I'm not shocked, but I wasn't anticipating finding that at all.
12:25They recover his driver's license, which identifies him as Jeffrey Blaze Toph.
12:31I do a search on him and determine that Jeffrey is married with two children.
12:36Toph is transported to the police station, where he's booked in for online solicitation
12:40of a minor.
12:53What most people don't understand is there's an interview and there's an interrogation.
12:58And during an interview is when I'm just building rapport.
13:01But once I feel like I'm in that zone is 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
13:20on the bridge.
13:22Okay.
13:22He opens up and makes admissions.
13:28Jeffrey has no idea that I played the role of Alicia.
13:32I want them to believe the entire time this was a real child.
13:36I do that because I want to have success in the interview.
13:40I want them to be very, very transparent and open with me.
13:43And oftentimes when these predators believe that it's a real child, it puts them in a different
13:49mindset.
13:50How long ago did you meet this girl?
13:53Oh, 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 was trying to get your doubts.
14:07I made the mistake of inviting her to lunch.
14:10But you were arrested at her apartment complex.
14:12That is correct.
14:13Because she didn't want 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.
14:30He's like, I know, I know.
14:31Like the head nod, the acknowledgement that, yeah, I really screwed up.
14:35He also understands he is in deep trouble.
14:39Yeah, I pretty much shut up my life just the way I look at it.
14:43Well, I would have to agree with you there.
14:44Yeah, I'm probably going to get, I'll probably lose my job.
14:47I would definitely lose my wife.
14:53Officers take Toc to jail after his interview with Tony.
14:57Toc then calls home.
15:00Please continue to hold while the operator attempts to connect your call.
15:05Hello?
15:07I'm in jail.
15:08I have been charged with online solicitation of a minor.
15:12They're going to have a search warrant for the house.
15:16So I'll search the house.
15:18And they will find things.
15:19Okay.
15:21I am so sorry.
15:24I don't, you know, there's nothing I can tell you, honey.
15:26I'm an idiot.
15:28And I could be in prison for life as far as I know.
15:33Okay?
15:35Okay.
15:36Okay.
15:37I love you.
15:38And I know I have a problem.
15:42And at this point, I ruined my life.
15:46Because I love you, man.
15:53When I hear the call, I feel so much empathy for his wife.
15:58Because her world literally just shattered.
16:03And so it's a bittersweet moment.
16:05I'm super grateful that he's never going to have an opportunity to harm another kid.
16:09But I know it comes at a price for someone else.
16:12The next day, a team from Austin PD searches Jeffrey Toc's home.
16:16It seizes over 150,000 images of child sexual abuse material.
16:24The size of this collection is unbelievably large.
16:30It's unfathomable that somebody would have this much.
16:35Every one of those are real victims somewhere.
16:38This guy had everything going in his life.
16:41Like, he had wealth and a family.
16:44And he threw it all away.
16:56It's 2012.
16:59Tony 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 and switch takedown locations when the predator
17:15throws a curveball.
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 right now.
17:35That's what the scenario was with this guy, Andrew McKee.
17:38My team and I, we 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.
17:56This guy's job is to keep middle school students safe.
17:59So the SRO tells me that a 14-year-old student had come to him at the school and told
18:04him 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 school to
18:16report it.
18:17There's a real sense of urgency because I'm a father and I have daughters.
18:21I tend to put that victim in the sense of being my own child.
18:26If something like this happened to my daughter, I'm going to flip the world upside down to make it get
18:30right.
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 on any level
18:47whatsoever?
18:49So 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.
18:59He's a great cop.
19:01He's one of those guys that you could depend on on the street.
19:04Definitely one of the best in his field.
19:07When it comes to the sexual abuse, any type of abuse of a child takes a toll on you because
19:13you carry the weight of the children in your heart and what has happened to them.
19:19I go to the school and I do talk with a young girl.
19:23She's distraught about it.
19:24She feels like, of course, 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 named
19:38Andrew McKee, which she did accept.
19:40And then he immediately sends her a message, says, hey, how are you?
19:43But she ignored this.
20:11But she ignored this.
20:13So what girl do you know that will want $100?
20:17He sends a third message to her.
20:19And this time he sends a picture.
20:21And this is a picture of a man and woman's genitals that are touching.
20:24So now this student, like, she's totally confused.
20:28He's offering her $100 to go find another girl to have sex.
20:32How disgusting is this guy?
20:34So when you have somebody that is out of front about things like that, especially when it comes to money
20:39and other children, it's very concerning.
20:42We need to do something quickly.
20:44We need to figure out who this person actually is and get more information on them, more intelligence on that
20:50person.
20:54I have to figure out if this is a real guy or this is a fake profile.
20:58So I do some database searches on Andrew McKee.
21:02I get some DMV information from Oklahoma.
21:05And included in that is a driver's license photo.
21:08And that photo matches up 100% to the photo that was used on the Facebook profile.
21:18We've got to find him.
21:20And I've got an idea.
21:21The victim, in this case, along with her parents, gives me permission to do a takeover of this Facebook account.
21:28To become that child.
21:31Use her phone.
21:32Use her accounts.
21:34And target Mr. McKee.
21:36It's a really dangerous area to operate in.
21:39But I don't have any other alternatives at this point.
21:43I send a text message to McKee.
21:47I just play along with him at this point.
21:51So I give him some details of the girl I've allegedly found.
21:58So Brittany is me, right?
22:00I'm playing now my undercover role.
22:01And so I give McKee the phone number I use on my undercover phone so that we can keep things
22:07going.
22:11And he replies back immediately.
22:13Your friend gave me your number.
22:14How old are you?
22:16So I just confirm with him.
22:17Well, I'm 14.
22:18Is that cool?
22:19He tells me, yeah, I'm cool with that.
22:22This 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.
22:38And it gets really pornographic.
22:40I mean, some nasty stuff starts happening.
22:43The majority of the things that he sent were so highly sexually graphic and disgusting that we're not able to
22:51show that type of material.
22:52We're not willing to expose other people to his depravity.
22:55He's a sick guy.
22:58In order to make this case a more solid case in court, he has to offer up or make a
23:06substantial step for a meeting in person for a sex act.
23:10Eventually, McKee does suggest a meeting in person, and we are on.
23:16So I give McKee an address to the apartment complex where Brittany lives.
23:20I'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.
23:38There's too many people, innocent bodies.
23:40They have no idea what's going on.
23:42We have no real control tactically.
23:44So as Brittany, I just ask him to stick to the plan.
23:47Just come to the apartments like he suggested.
23:51So I post two people at the train station.
23:53Both are covert.
23:55Their job is just to blend into the crowd and wait until they get a visual on McKee and notify
24:00us 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 a.m.
24:21This is Detective God.
24:22We are set up to meet a traveler in an online solicitation of a minor case.
24:29The suspect we are looking for is identified in this photograph.
24:34His name is Andrew Dale McKee.
24:37He's a 35-year-old male.
24:39At 10.16 a.m., my covert officers at the station tell me that McKee has arrived.
24:49But McKee is lost.
24:52Tony 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.
25:08The fact that we have to move from plan A to plan B, it elevates the risk level.
25:14Because the traffic concerns, the public safety concerns, logistically, it'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 first one that was coming up sounds not him.
25:45I thought, man, I lost this dude.
25:48And all of a sudden, I get this message back.
25:50It says, folks, coming up to Travis right in a second.
25:54Okay, I got eyes on him.
25:58I'm expecting McKee to sort of bolt in a direction.
26:02It's not like he's not going to see these cars and squad cars screeching up on him.
26:09So I give the team the order to take him down.
26:1210.55.
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.
26:42I 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, which I didn't think she was under
27:018.
27:02But that's not really the case here because the girl you met on Facebook told you she was 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, then you have to assume the girl she goes
27:26to 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.
27:37Yeah.
27:37You know that.
27:38You're smart enough to know that.
27:39You 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.
27:51And wanting me to believe that if the police never were involved today, that you wouldn't have gone to her
27:57apartment,
27:57I think if we wouldn't have been involved, you would have taken that little girl back to her apartment and
28:04had sex with her.
28:05That's a bad thing.
28:06Andrew, you did a grown-up thing here, you'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 because 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.
28:53Kids really shouldn't have their full names, their direct cell phone number, or anything about their address on their social
29:00media.
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,
29:59and 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 looking potentially for kids versus a
30:18consenting adult.
30:20I've only been on the site for just a couple of minutes, and Sugar Dad looking for his son really
30:25catches 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 in what they're looking
30:42for,
30:43meaning most likely younger, knowing 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.
30:58Tony 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 about
31:15where he is in his sexuality.
31:17I reply to the ad, well, I'm 14.
31:20I'll be 15 in November.
31:22Any adult that saw a response like this would know immediately, hold up, this is a kid, this is illegal,
31:27and they would walk away.
31:29I get a reply, and it says, no, I'm not okay with it.
31:33You can be absolutely gorgeous, but it isn't worth jail to be with a hot young stud.
31:38Sorry, I'm Marty, by the way.
31:40On one side of this, he's acknowledging, I know this is wrong.
31:44I know this is illegal.
31:45I could go to jail.
31:46But on the flip side of it, he's very interested.
31:50When you see the messages from these predatory types, they know it's wrong, and they know they have to be
31:55very cryptic in what they say.
31:58Marty brings up that he wants to transition from email over to text messaging, and that is absolutely a home
32:05run for me.
32:06And now I've got his phone number.
32:08He fully believes I'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.
32:24The flip side to getting a picture from Marty is that within a few hours, he wants to know what
32:28Brian looks like, and he needs validation that this is a real kid.
32:33Tony enlists Officer Bobby Taylor to bring the character of Brian to life.
32:38I first met Tony in the academy.
32:41He came to teach us about the Internet Crimes Against Children unit.
32:46During that time is when he asked if any of us would be willing to work with him once we
32:52finished training.
32:53I was 23.
32:54I still looked pretty closely to what I did in high school, and so I took him some of my
33:00pictures from when I was a kid.
33:03So the profile picture that I sent him of Brian, which is actually Bobby at that age, is a really
33:09big hit with Marty.
33:10Right 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 interject,
33:26and that's just another example of the grooming process and his power and control.
33:43He wants to come across like it's innocent, but it doesn't really emphasize what he's really wanting to do and
33:49how wildly inappropriate something like that would be between a guy in his 50s and a 14-year-old kid.
33:55Marty's really clear in the messages about meeting to make sure that I don't tell any adults.
34:00Your mom will never find out about me, but he's still nervous, and he messages me.
34:06Okay, I have to ask this to protect myself.
34:09You'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.
34:15Really?
34:15I just reassure him.
34:19I mean, this is really classic predator behavior, right?
34:22This 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.
34:33I kick off legal process to the cell provider, and while I'm waiting for that to happen, Marty messages me
34:40just after 6 o'clock the next morning.
34:43Good morning, my boy.
34:44I hope you slept well.
34:45I thought about you a lot last night, and this morning when I woke up, and just really out of
34:50nowhere, he sends me a picture of his white Chevy Silverado.
34:53There's this gotcha moment because his license plate's in the actual photo.
34:57I run this plate through the DMV, and I come back with a full name.
35:00Jack Marty Taylor, 59-year-old male from Dallas, Texas.
35:04So Taylor's not married.
35:05He 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 things to happen.
35:16One, I need him to set up a specific date and time for when this meeting will happen, and then
35:22two, I need him to show what his intentions are.
35:25Does he want to have a sexual relationship with this child, and if so, it's game on.
35:32It takes about three months, but eventually, Marty gives me exactly what we're looking for.
35:39Marty's message reveals his true intentions towards Brian.
35:48This guy's a real danger to minors.
35:50I need to lock in a date for him to meet so I can arrest him and charge him and
35:54eventually 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.
36:16The biggest threat to that is if our bad guy shows up and kind of realizes, wait a minute, that's
36:22not a real kid.
36:23Marty needs validation that what he believes in his mind right now, which is he's got the pot of gold,
36:29which is why I asked Bobby to help me in this case.
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 very eager but very cautious.
36:47This 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.
36:54You wanted me on this side of the field, so there was distance between us where you thought he was
37:00going to park.
37:01The advantage of having Marty meet Brian over here is a bunch of things.
37:05The drive to come in, just a one-way-in and one-way-out, we have good coverage for surveillance
37:11units.
37:11If Marty starts to freak out, he has nowhere to go.
37:15The moment you said, hey, he's en route, that's when the nerves kicked in.
37:20Right.
37:20And all I could think of was, I'm the most junior guy in this operation.
37:24I can't mess this up.
37:33Marty's pickup pulls in at 4.15 p.m.
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.
37:47As I'm walking towards him, I get about halfway, and at that point, as I see red and blue lights,
37:53I take off running and I hide.
37:55So I give the team the order to take him down.
37:58Two squad cars race across the parking lot to block Marty's escape.
38:11I think he's in a degree of shock at that moment because of everything that's happened, the culmination of this,
38:19the gravity of this now.
38:21He's in handcuffs, he's been back in the squad car, and so his mind is racing a million miles an
38:27hour.
38:28I don't understand, man.
38:30You know, he 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, you know, I told
38:41him 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, just trying to
38:52help, nothing's happened.
38:53The reality is, he knows full well what he was doing.
38:58When this kid contacted me, I originally told him, you know, it's like there could be no sex between us
39:06because that was illegal,
39:07but he just wanted me to, quote unquote, be his father figure, his mentor, and answer questions, and that's all
39:13I agreed to.
39:14So, in regards to the ad that you placed, you mentioned that you said you're looking for someone between 18
39:19and 30s or whatever.
39:21What else was really, were you asking for in the ad?
39:25Was it for a sexual relationship?
39:27Well, yes, yes, it was.
39:30But, I mean, you know, it was a mutual relationship.
39:35I 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 engage
39:51in a sexual activity?
39:53Oh, yeah, I think I might have lost control a couple of times, but afterwards I told him, it's like,
39:58no, no, we can't do that, you know.
40:00Okay.
40:01The reality is, that's an online solicitation of a minor.
40:04You just told me that you might have slipped.
40:06You might have agreed to have a sexual relationship with this 15-year-old kid.
40:10Yeah, but only momentarily.
40:12Because I knew it's like, hey, you know, if he gets mad at me or something like that, he'll tell
40:18his mom or tell somebody.
40:19So I'm like, no, I can't do that.
40:21I was going to be nice to him and honest with him and answer his questions and not ask anything
40:27in return, except maybe, you know,
40:31I guess it would have been nice to have somebody, you know, I could have called like a son or
40:35been like a son to me, you know.
40:37Marty tells me in his confession that he lost control.
40:41Ultimately, he was doing what it is he really, truly wanted to do and would have done had there been
40:47no police intervention.
40:56Taylor case shows that boys, as well as girls, are at risk from online predators.
41:01In fact, one in 20 boys is a victim of child sexual abuse.
41:07Parents need to show their kids that they're approachable and that their kids can talk to them about important life
41:13stuff.
41:13Because if a kid feels different 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.
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