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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.
00:09Please watch with care.
00:11Next, Detective Tony Godwin zeroes in on a horrific repeat offender.
00:18This dude's a predator.
00:20Get out of the car.
00:23Now this weirdo is asking if a 13-year-old girl is a virgin?
00:28Holy crap.
00:29Sit up.
00:30I'm trying.
00:31I'm trying.
00:32Then, the team pursues a predatory school janitor.
00:36This guy's kind of sickening, right?
00:39Who thinks he's arranged to meet a child for sex.
00:42But I'm on this case and I'm determined to take him down.
00:48And detectives join forces to snare a pastor with unholy fantasies.
00:55Police, search warrant, come to the door.
00:57Come on.
01:00She told me she was 13.
01:01Is she sweet?
01:02Do you want to meet?
01:04Get off the ground.
01:34Get out of the car.
01:34Come on this way.
01:35And brings them to justice by any means necessary.
01:42This is Detective Tony Godwin and his team is the Predator Hunters.
01:50January 2024, Tony and his team stop a dangerous predator in his tracks.
01:57What a deviant.
01:59What a twisted deviant.
02:00He thinks he's meeting a 13-year-old girl for sex.
02:09Even after his fantasy is smashed, this repeat offender refuses to face up to his crime.
02:18Yeah.
02:19I have a W-tick wrong.
02:20Okay.
02:20Honestly.
02:24When they say lightning doesn't strike twice, I know different.
02:27This guy, Christopher Holloway, he had a prior hands-on offense with a real child, and he was already on
02:33the registered sex offender list.
02:35He wanted to offend again, and I wasn't going to let that happen.
02:45In January of 2024, I'm online in an undercover capacity trolling a platform called Chat Hour, which is where a
02:52lot of predatory types seem to congregate.
02:55I start on Chat Hour with an undercover profile of a 13-year-old female named Sarah from North Texas.
03:01The profile picture that I use for this Sarah account is from one of my colleagues who allows me to
03:06use her images from when she was 13.
03:08My profile creation makes it very, very clear this is a 13-year-old girl.
03:14Once my profile is established, I enter into a room for Texas, and I just simply sit and wait.
03:21I don't have to wait too long at all.
03:23At 1.36 p.m., my Sarah profile gets an instant message from a user named Barnflyer55.
03:29Are you into older guys?
03:31I mean, I can't believe this guy.
03:33Like, right off the bat, he's just jumping in that quick.
03:36What a huge red flag.
03:37I don't have any option but to just kind of stay in character, and I just reply back,
03:41yeah, I'm interested in older guys.
03:46I tell him I'm 13, almost 14.
03:48He tells me that he's in his 50s.
03:51He acknowledges that my Sarah profile?
03:53Kind of young.
03:55Duh.
03:5640 years younger.
03:57What a deviant.
03:59What a twisted deviant.
04:01So this creepy guy's got my attention, but I'm going to give him a chance to do the right thing.
04:06So I tell him, we don't have to talk if you don't want to.
04:08It's cool.
04:09He probably should have walked away, but he doesn't.
04:12Then he hits me with a really creepy question.
04:19I mean, what kind of response is this?
04:22We've barely been chatting, and now this weirdo is going to jump right into this sexualized content asking if a
04:2813-year-old girl is a virgin?
04:31Holy crap.
04:32Make no mistake, the fact that this guy is steering that conversation sexual, this dude's a predator.
04:39He is the poster child for a predator.
04:41You look that up in the dictionary, you're going to find this guy.
04:44We keep talking.
04:45He's trying to keep his interest going, and what he says in return is unbelievable to me.
04:54It's disgusting to think that in five minutes, this guy is already talking about pleasuring himself or playing with himself.
05:00This guy is really classic predatory moves so far, really fast.
05:05I need to get a better look at who this guy is.
05:08When I click on his profile, it shows me that he's got three publicly available photographs.
05:14This is the dude that just told a 13-year-old girl that he's masturbating.
05:19What a creep.
05:22It's an older, very overweight white male.
05:26So I take a look at his profile, and it gives me really specific stuff.
05:29And he's in the Houston area.
05:34While all this information is really helpful, and it's documented for evidence, I need more.
05:38I'd love to know this guy's name.
05:40So for that, I've got to keep this thing going and chatting with him.
05:47Barnflyers' messages, they just keep coming in, and it's all really great evidence.
05:53But then it turns sexual again.
05:56He's referring to a man's genitals.
05:58And I tell him, absolutely not.
06:00I'm 13.
06:02I mean, what an absolute pig this guy is.
06:06But I'm going to use this as an opportunity to test and see if he's willing to travel.
06:13And he says, yeah, I am.
06:15Later that day, about 5.51 p.m., I get a message from him on chat hour.
06:19The message he sends is a friend request.
06:21And now I can see those private photos.
06:27What I see is utterly disgusting.
06:31It is naked photos of the same dude doing a selfie in a mirror, thinking that it looks
06:37somehow sexy or cute to show his genitalia off.
06:41He's just committed a crime.
06:42He just transferred obscene material to a minor.
06:45I want to get this guy identified and figure out who he really is.
06:48So I reach out to my coworker, Nick Sherry, to help me out with that.
06:52My name is Nicholas Sherry.
06:54I'm a neighborhood police officer, and I've been working with Tony for about five years now.
06:59Tony gets in touch with me to do some research on the social media handle, Barnflyer55.
07:06I do some digging through our law enforcement databases and discover one name, Christopher Holloway.
07:14I researched all the Christopher Holloway's in the state of Texas, and I discovered a Christopher Holloway with the date
07:20of birth of 11-23-1969.
07:24I do a search on Christopher Holloway with that same date of birth and discover his photo on his driver's
07:31license,
07:31which matches the photo that he sent to Tony.
07:39The vehicle that is registered to Holloway is a black Ford pickup.
07:43Once I've confirmed who Christopher Holloway is, I discover something very serious.
07:501989, he was sentenced to a five-year prison sentence for aggravated sexual assault of a child.
07:57He's on the sexual offender registry for the rest of his life.
08:03The fact that a guy who's been through this system has been convicted, went to prison, is now a registered
08:10sex offender for life, is right back at it.
08:14This guy is clearly ready to offend again.
08:17It's unacceptable on every human level.
08:22In a best-case scenario for me, this guy travels from where he's at in Houston to where I'm at
08:28in North Texas.
08:29I want to build a good, solid case for prosecution, so now I just need him to make the date
08:34and time and make it happen.
08:38In my undercover capacity, I work sometimes 24-7, on duty, off duty, at the house.
08:44It's the necessary evil for this job.
08:48We've been talking for, like, a couple of months now.
08:50This guy's paranoia is, like, through the roof.
08:54The next thing that he tells me is that he wants to start talking by regular messaging, SMS messaging between
08:59phones.
09:00I give him my phone number for Sarah, and that's just one of my undercover numbers that I use for
09:05this job.
09:06All of a sudden, I get thrown a curveball that kind of has me scrambling.
09:11He wants a video call because he wants validation.
09:14He wants to know, in his own mind, I really am talking to a 13-year-old girl.
09:19But I completely ghost him, and I go right through that, and I tell him,
09:23Well, you do that first.
09:24You show me around your place.
09:26And guess what?
09:27He does.
09:29Okay, one hallway here, then the front door there.
09:33He starts to send me videos showing me every part of his house.
09:38It's unbelievable.
09:41He's in the bathroom, in the kitchen, right?
09:44This video gives me really good evidence.
09:46I mean, one, I hear the guy's voice.
09:47It's kind of gravely or growly.
09:50I don't really know what's going on with that.
09:52My bed.
09:53It's not in bed, of course.
09:56He shows his bed, and then the biggest thing I take away from this is this TV.
10:01Huge TV on the wall, probably 65 inches, and all I see are cameras.
10:05My huge ass TV up on the wall.
10:07Black truck is super helpful.
10:09This is just confirmation on what Nick found on the DMV search for this guy.
10:13This is gold.
10:15This video ends in the bathroom, and his camera's pointed right at the mirror,
10:20which shows him with no shirt on and black shorts.
10:25If only this guy knew who he was sending the videos to, don't worry.
10:30He'll find out soon enough.
10:35After three months of determined catfishing, Detective Tony Godwin finally gets Christopher Holloway to bite.
10:43Holloway suggests that he and Sarah meet for a date.
10:52At this point, he crossed this line to say he wanted to meet in person for sex.
10:57Legally, he just committed a crime.
10:59That's great evidence for me to give to a prosecutor.
11:03The problem is, he's still super paranoid.
11:05Next thing he says,
11:07promise me you're not some police.
11:10I mean, sure, you want me to promise I'm not a cop?
11:12I'm not a cop.
11:14The next thing he says,
11:16I mean, yeah, you're young, but you asked me to do this.
11:20Now he wants to shift the blame over to this child.
11:23You asked me to do this?
11:24What an absolute, depraved, disgusting, creepy, nasty, evil human being.
11:31I am hyper-focused to put Holloway away.
11:37The next day, much to my surprise, he tells me he's on his way to Dallas.
11:41He lets me know in his text which hotel he's staying in.
11:45At 10.37 p.m., I can see him on the CCTV for the hotel, and he's clearly intoxicated.
11:55I'm questioning whether this guy's gonna have the wherewithal to wake up and drive to the meeting tomorrow.
12:00He's baked.
12:02I get the whole team spun up and in place and let them know what's going on.
12:06I'm tired of talking to this guy.
12:08I'm ready to get his ass in jail.
12:13Holloway sends a message and asks for the address of where Sarah lives,
12:17but then he's so cautious and paranoid, he's like,
12:20how are we gonna get away without your nosy neighbors seeing things?
12:23So I just simply reply, why don't we meet at the gas station right next door to the apartment?
12:29By 9.30 in the morning on that Friday, we've got everybody in place surrounding that gas station.
12:35We're ready to go.
12:37The adrenaline's pumping because we have a chance to take someone down that needs to be arrested.
12:45I can't tell you how excited I am to get this guy under arrest.
12:50It's time to go.
12:51I order the team.
12:52Move in.
12:53Make the arrest.
12:54You guys about to move in?
12:56Yeah, we're moving now.
13:17Turn off your car right now.
13:20Turn off the car now.
13:40Let's move so we're not in front of it.
13:41Yeah, punch it.
13:43Punch it, punch it.
13:44Hold on.
13:49Air brake.
13:49I got it, I got it.
13:57So I use my window punch to shadow the window.
13:59Turn off the truck right now.
14:04Get out of the car.
14:06Get out of the car.
14:12When they pull him out of that truck, they have to do so with violence.
14:15This guy's big, right?
14:19What are y'all doing to me?
14:22He hits the ground like a sack of 400 pounds of potatoes.
14:26Bam!
14:27He's on the ground.
14:28It's great.
14:30Ow!
14:31Ow!
14:32We get him handcuffed.
14:34We finally get him stood up.
14:35Relax.
14:36Ow!
14:37Hey, calm down.
14:38Calm down.
14:39You're hurting me.
14:40You're under arrest.
14:41I know you're saying I'm under arrest for what?
14:43What?
14:47I'm not soliciting any minor.
14:49I'm not soliciting any minor.
14:51I'm not soliciting any minor.
14:54The team executes a search warrant on Christopher Holloway's truck.
14:58And in that truck, they find a slip of paper with the address written down of where Sarah lived.
15:02In addition, they find condoms, Viagra, and lubricant.
15:08When I see this guy getting escorted away in handcuffs, like, I immediately have this, like, 5,000-foot view
15:14of it and think, this is a really bad guy.
15:17This is a dangerous guy.
15:19This guy is a sexual predator.
15:21Now, two times over, if I hadn't got him into custody, there's no telling what kind of harm he could
15:28bring to a real kid.
15:29I know what you said, but I haven't done anything wrong.
15:33OK.
15:33Honestly.
15:35I haven't done .
15:35Detective, we'll be down here with you in a minute, all right?
15:39Stop cracking me out of my crotch.
15:41You should have just gone out.
15:42It would have been a lot easier.
15:43Why?
15:44Everybody out here, I'm not doing anything wrong.
15:46I'm not doing anything wrong.
15:48I haven't done anything wrong.
15:53Holloway's escorted to a patrol car where he's going to be transported down to the jail for an interview.
16:08I hand over the interview duties to my colleague, Detective Sanger.
16:12Holloway openly talks about being a registered sex offender.
16:17Yeah, you've been through this, right?
16:19I am a registered sex offender.
16:21OK, so a long time ago it happened.
16:23I think you actually target people like that to become a registered sex offender.
16:26I think I get targeted like that a lot, but that's just me.
16:30He starts to play the blame game.
16:31That because he's a registered sex offender, he's always targeted to woe is me.
16:37I'm the poor wounded sex offender.
16:39So you don't want to talk to him anything, Chris?
16:41Sure.
16:41I'm not sure about why, man.
16:42Honestly, no.
16:43OK.
16:43That's true or not.
16:44Because he's all .
16:45OK.
16:46And I'm always going to get it out and start out, I'm sure.
16:50This guy is living in an absolute fantasy land.
16:53He has no idea what we've got on him or the fact that that ain't happening.
16:57He ain't getting none of this tossed.
17:06This guy, Christopher Holloway, is already a registered sex offender.
17:10There are publicly available sites that tell you where registered sex offenders do live.
17:15Be diligent.
17:16Look at those websites.
17:18Know who lives around you and in your community and be aware of that.
17:27August 2010.
17:29Tony pursues a high school janitor with an appetite for adolescence.
17:36You, sir, are a pedophile.
17:38He thinks he's meeting a 14-year-old for ice cream and sex.
17:44Marco's sitting in his vehicle.
17:46But this is not going to be the date he was hoping for.
17:50You're not getting ice cream today, John.
17:55I've been doing this job a long time.
17:58I've got hundreds of these guys.
18:00This guy, John Markle, he's one I remember.
18:03He was so shameless in his approach, I knew he was a danger to real kids.
18:08We moved super quick, and within 48 hours, we had him in cuffs.
18:20This case started in August of 2010.
18:23Back then, the internet was a different beast.
18:25Social media platforms, chatting, they were just in their infancy stages.
18:30Yahoo chat rooms were really popular.
18:32Especially kids love being on there.
18:34But what that means is where kids are, predators are.
18:39I set up an undercover profile for a girl named Annalisa, and she's 14 from North Texas.
18:46I still have the screen recording from that group of messaging on Yahoo.
18:51Once I got the profile established, I go into the chat rooms.
18:55I don't initiate anything because I need a predator to set the tone and pace.
18:59So I just sit and wait to be contacted.
19:02You know, before I know it, I've got multiple conversations going on with multiple different users.
19:06Most of those end as soon as I let them know that I'm 14, because guess what?
19:10That's the right thing to do.
19:12Don't talk to children.
19:14But one, he keeps talking.
19:17It's clear to me that he responded to my username based on the age that I have in the username
19:22itself.
19:23He doesn't get deterred at all.
19:28I make it very clear that he's as old as my grandfather, but it still doesn't deter this guy.
19:33He clearly knows now in his own mind that he's talking to a 14-year-old girl.
19:36And so I ask him, like, what are you doing here?
19:40A woman.
19:41If he's looking for a woman, why is he talking to a 14-year-old girl?
19:45This guy's already given me the creeps.
19:47But then, without prompting, he just tells me what his location is.
19:54He's definitely laying the groundwork for wanting to meet.
19:57I mean, based on our conversation now, I really want to get an eye on what this guy looks like.
20:02So I ask him, how come you don't have a profile pic?
20:06This guy does a reversal.
20:08He does what I would normally do to him.
20:12He really wants to know that he's talking to a kid before he gives up what he looks like.
20:16The profile pic I have is really small on Yahoo Chat, so I need to send him some more.
20:21I already have photos in place with this profile from one of my colleagues,
20:25who is graciously giving me her permission to use her photos from the age that I'm purporting to be for
20:31these undercover cases.
20:35As soon as he tells me how good I look, he sends one of himself to me.
20:40He's got a scorpion tattoo on his arm.
20:43That's something really pretty unique.
20:47Yeah, you really could get in trouble.
20:49I'm trouble for you.
20:50You just don't know it yet.
20:54Thirty minutes into this conversation and this guy is already turning the conversation sexual.
21:00Well, sir, that's really pretty forward.
21:03You do know I'm only 14, right?
21:07What a romantic.
21:10I just have to play along with it, and I do.
21:21The fact that he specifically mentions he's not a pedophile,
21:24everything I've seen over the last hour tells me quite the opposite.
21:29You, sir, are a pedophile.
21:32So to keep it going, I ask him what he's doing today.
21:34His reply causes me a lot of concern.
21:39And immediately, alarm bells are going off in my head.
21:43I'm thinking here, I have a child predator who's arranged his work life
21:47to be in a school around small children?
21:50Wow, huge red flag.
21:52Does he have access to real kids?
21:54Are real kids in danger?
21:55Like, the urgency for me just went to the top of the list.
21:59A couple hours into this conversation, and now this guy wants to go on a date.
22:04I mean, what does this guy think?
22:06A 59-year-old dude with a 14-year-old girl, and he wants to go on a date?
22:10But I'm on this case, and I'm determined to take him down.
22:15The morning after our first day of chat, I'm working from home for a little while.
22:19And when I open up my computer, I see this barrage of, like, unanswered messages that have come in from
22:24this guy.
22:26I mean, this guy's really desperate.
22:29So I'm going to throw him a bone, try to keep him on the hook.
22:34That's my verbal seduction tactic right there.
22:37I envision he's like, she loves me.
22:42Right away, he's right back at me.
22:44So later that day, I decide to ask him about that scorpion tattoo on his arm, and he tells me
22:49it's a star sign.
22:50He's a Scorpio.
22:51So I ask him about his birthday, and he tells me October 26th.
22:56If, in fact, that's true, having a date of birth like that is going to go a long way to
23:00help get this guy identified.
23:02At this point, I need him to arrange a meeting in person, and then bingo, it comes.
23:16I suggest that he can come over and meet me at my apartment, but this seems to kind of spook
23:20him.
23:23So I suggest the movie theater.
23:25Then he offers to buy me ice cream.
23:28This guy's kind of sickening, right?
23:30He's going to lure a child to buy her an ice cream cone?
23:33Ooh, super creepy.
23:35He's moving really fast.
23:36We've been chatting 48 hours, and we're now at this stage.
23:40I've got to scramble to get a team together.
23:42Before the chat ends, he gives me some vital information.
23:45He gives me his name.
23:48That'll help us get you identified properly.
23:51Since this guy's willing to give out useful information, I'm going to ask him for some more.
23:58He tells me a silver Hyundai Santa Fe.
24:01Now we know what to look for.
24:03Awesome.
24:04Tony enlists Detective Clint McNeer to help unmask the grade school ghoul.
24:11So Tony tells us what we have so far.
24:14We've got a name of John.
24:16We know that he's a janitor.
24:18We know that he's 59 years old, and he gives us a date of birth of October the 26th.
24:24That's going to give us his year of birth.
24:27John was born in 1950.
24:28So I run these two key pieces of evidence through the police database, and we get a hit.
24:34John George Markle, 59 years old.
24:38Date of birth October 26th, 1950.
24:42The photo on the driver's license matches the photo that he sent to Tony.
24:47The address on his driver's license comes back at Lake Ray Hubbard.
24:50He also told Tony he lives near the lake.
24:53With this hit, we've got our guy, and I'll let Tony know.
25:04Tony and his team are in position to take down a school janitor who believes he's meeting a minor for
25:10ice cream and sex.
25:13This is Detective Godwin.
25:15We are at the movie theater.
25:16We are here to effect the arrest of one John Merkle.
25:20This is a photo of a vehicle similar to what he described in an internet chat log.
25:25We will have units parked all around the theater, unmarked, as well as officers staged inside the movie theater itself.
25:33Mr. Merkle is believing to come to the theater to meet up with a 14-year-old female for the
25:38purposes of a sexual relationship.
25:42Clint and I are set up in the parking lot where Merkle arrives.
25:46It's 3.32 p.m.
25:49We're here in front of the movie theater.
25:54It's Mr. Merkle sitting in his vehicle.
25:58You can see that he's looking down the street towards Cold Stone Creamery,
26:02which is one of the places he had mentioned visiting or meeting the victim at.
26:10Is he watching the store or us?
26:14He's looking both directions.
26:20We have eyes on him.
26:21Yeah, I think internally his little hamsters run in full speed and he's like,
26:25man, I'm gonna meet this girl and I'm gonna get her ice cream and then I'm gonna take her home
26:28and I'm gonna do something sexual to her.
26:31That's what I think is going on in his mind.
26:33Take down moments are the most stressful part for me because there's so many things that could go wrong.
26:38These are really unknown situations.
26:40Like, granted, we can see this guy sitting in a car smoking a cigarette, but we don't know what kind
26:44of threat he is.
26:45Like, he could have a gun in there, he could have a knife.
26:48So I'm continually communicating with my take down team and once I know everybody where they are in position,
26:53I give the order to take him down.
26:56I've got my gun out.
26:57You've got to be ready.
27:05This is Detective Godwin.
27:06This is the arrest of Mr. Merkel.
27:11I enjoy snatching a sick person out of their car and stopping them from what they think they're about to
27:16be.
27:19We've definitely caught John Markle with his OODA loop all jacked up.
27:22He's so off guard, he has no idea what's going on.
27:24Now he's sworn by cops.
27:29The vehicle he drove is exactly what he said he'd be driving, a silver Hyundai Santa Fe.
27:34I'll get a license plate on it here in a moment.
27:39He'll be transported to the police department and booked into the jail at that location.
27:45You're not getting ice cream today, John.
27:47You'll be lucky if you get in time to get a bologna sandwich.
27:51In the interview with John Markle, he freely admits he was there to meet a minor.
27:56I believe if he had not got taken down by the cops and a real kid would have shown up
28:00for that ice cream,
28:01he would have absolutely 1000% bought her the ice cream, took her somewhere and sexually abused her.
28:15The team's next case focuses on this man.
28:19I'm glad you chose to join us here for worship.
28:22To his congregation, he's their devoted pastor.
28:26Now let us celebrate Christ's resurrection as we worship together.
28:30Online, he's sending pornographic images to a child.
28:35He sends pictures of himself and his genitals are visible in every picture.
28:39And when his crimes catch up with him...
28:43Police! Search warrant!
28:44...this predator begs for forgiveness.
28:47Can we make this day go away and never happened?
28:51Many predators lead a double life.
28:54They have a public persona that seems completely normal, but then they have a darker side.
28:59That was never more true than with this guy, Gregory Barnes.
29:03This guy had access to real children.
29:06We had to act fast and take him down.
29:19My colleague, Brandon Poore, he ran point on this case.
29:22He drove it and brought me in to help.
29:26In July of 2020, I go on an application called Antiland,
29:30which is a chat platform that has a deleting message feature.
29:35It is designed to keep a user anonymous, and that tends to lend itself very well
29:41for someone who's a predator looking to harm children.
29:44I log in to my profile, which is KylieGirl13TX.
29:50I get a message from a user named Greg, who says, Hi Kylie.
29:57I click on his profile, it tells me a little bit of information about him,
30:00and what I see is he's in the 55 plus age range.
30:06Right away he wants to know how old I am, and I tell him I'm 13 years old.
30:14It certainly sends up a red flag because the normal people we talk to in those circumstances
30:19tell us, you're way too young, don't ever message me again.
30:24And then he wants to know if I like talking to old men.
30:27And pretty quickly, he turns things sexual.
30:32It's clear in my mind now, he's a degenerate sexual predator looking for a kid to harm him.
30:38And now it's my job to take him out of circulation.
30:44Detective Brandon Poor is in pursuit of a 60-year-old predator.
30:49He asked me for a picture of myself, and in order to do that, we have to do it somewhere
30:54off of the Auntie Land platform.
30:56So he sends me his cell phone number.
30:59A cell phone number sometimes gives us a way to track down who this person really is.
31:04I send a photo of a colleague of mine that's given me permission to use her pictures.
31:08And the benefit of that is I actually get one in return from him.
31:13He's a middle-aged guy with a gray beard and glasses.
31:16I now have a clear idea of who I'm talking to.
31:22What's concerning is he's telling me that he's already talked to younger girls like me before.
31:28Yeah, I think you're a bad guy.
31:30I think you're the definition of a predator.
31:32You're someone who's 60 years old, talking in a sexual way to a kid.
31:41And then, unexpectedly, he reveals something that I would have never thought of.
31:49He tells me he's talking to a guy who likes sissy men.
31:55What?
32:00What 13-year-old knows what a sissy man and a dominant man are?
32:05I think he's just lost it.
32:08Then he sends me pictures of himself in lingerie.
32:14For the most part, his genitals are visible in every picture.
32:19And if I didn't think it could get worse, then he sends me pictures and videos of sex toys
32:26and videos of the use of these sex toys as well.
32:34He's sending me all of these extremely graphic pictures.
32:39At this point, it's a good idea to get an analyst involved.
32:42And that's where KV can come in, trying to find out who this person really is.
32:48So Brandon gives me a phone number.
32:49And he's hoping that I can run this phone number in our database and get him some information back.
32:54And I do get full subscriber information for this cell phone number.
32:59What I get is a Gregory Kent Barnes, and he's a 60-year-old white male.
33:04He lives in Glen Rose, Texas, which is about 75 miles southwest of Dallas.
33:10Our database has also given me a good photo back.
33:16This photo does match the photos that he has sent to Brandon in their chats.
33:22I do an internet search on Gregory Barnes, and I find one of the most shocking and perhaps worse things
33:28that I can find out.
33:29As we begin our Palm Sunday service, let me share a few verses out of the Psalms with you.
33:34He's actually a minister at a local church.
33:39Talk about a hypocrite.
33:41I think of him as a wolf in shepherd's clothing.
33:44She's supposed to be a man of God.
33:46I'm glad you chose to join us here for worship.
33:49And he's talking to a 13-year-old in indescribable ways.
33:55There's one message that really concerns me.
34:04He's got access to kids, and with what he's talked about watching girls at the pool, that's a huge problem
34:10for me.
34:12On July 20, 2020, I'm talking about normal, everyday life.
34:22And he suggests that maybe he'll come pick me up.
34:25I think, okay, this is going to be a meet, and we're going to plan a takedown.
34:31But then he expresses to me that he's always a little nervous about meeting someone online in real life.
34:36And so he requests something that is pretty common.
34:40A proof pick.
34:43He wants me to hold up a sign with his name on it.
34:46My coworker has given me pictures already, and agrees to take this picture to prove that I'm a real kid.
34:53Brandon is unable to reveal the photos of his fellow officer.
34:57He uses them today in ongoing child predator cases.
35:04He's very excited.
35:08He's absolutely convinced he's grooming and talking to a real child.
35:12His intentions are clear.
35:19Then he tells me he's going to come to Dallas.
35:23I know that he's a danger based on what he's been sending me.
35:26But also, he has access to real kids.
35:29I make one last decision.
35:31I'm not going to wait for him to come to me.
35:33I'm going to go to him.
35:44Detectives Tony Godwin and Brandon Poor are about to swoop in on the home of 60-year-old preacher predator
35:50Greg Barnes.
35:57Police search warrant. Come to the door.
36:00Nobody's answering the door. They're banging loudly. They're announcing police search warrant.
36:05That really kind of ups the anxiety for everybody there.
36:09We have no idea what's going on behind closed doors.
36:11They could be deleting evidence. They could be retrieving weapons.
36:14So it's really a tense moment.
36:17Come out. Come out.
36:19Open the door. Come here. Come here. Come here. Step outside. Step out. Step out. Right now.
36:25Who else is in the house?
36:27Yeah, eventually the door opens and there's Barnes.
36:29He's kind of looking a little haggard and bewildered.
36:34We pull him and his family out before we go in and start conducting a search.
36:41What's that smell in there? Barbers?
36:47We're able to recover nine devices capable of connecting to the internet and a bag of goodies.
36:54Women's underwear, lingerie, sex toys.
36:58I start conducting on-scene forensic examinations of some of the electronic devices
37:03while Tony's interviewing Mr. Barnes.
37:06Mr. Barnes? Yes.
37:07Hey, I'm Detective Godwin. I'm on the North Texas ICAC Task Force.
37:10I'll be having a talk with you here in a few minutes.
37:12Barnes is wearing a mask because it's 2020 and we're right in the middle of the pandemic.
37:17I'm not infected, I promise.
37:19I'm not worried. No COVID. I'm not worried.
37:21I'm not worried about it.
37:23I really want Barnes to talk to me and open up.
37:26And so I just kind of play it slow and see how it goes.
37:30You have an opportunity to do the right thing.
37:33That's just what it boils down to.
37:35I know that what I'm here to look at is called online solicitation of a minor.
37:39It's a little hard to read because he's buying a mask obviously, but look at his eyes.
37:43Like this guy's blinking like a hundred times a second.
37:47All I see initially here is fear.
37:50Is there a kid out there that we should be concerned about?
37:54Possibly yes.
37:55Okay. Can you tell me who that person is?
37:58Name is Kylie.
37:59That's a girl?
38:00And how old is Kylie?
38:03She told me she was 13.
38:0413.
38:05Okay.
38:07Did you send her any photos?
38:10What kind of photos did you send them?
38:12Appropriate photos.
38:14Okay, like nude photos.
38:16You sent her pictures of your penis.
38:18Did you have an erection?
38:21I said I am.
38:22Okay.
38:23I mean, listen to what this guy's saying.
38:25He just admitted to a crime, transferred obscene material to a minor?
38:30Kids became a bit of the fixation.
38:31It sounds like, just from communications and whatnot.
38:36For pleasure, I try to talk to kind of many of natrices and that kind of thing.
38:41Okay.
38:43Because sometimes if you can talk to somebody that's more innocent, it kind of makes you, if you can tell
38:50them you've done something, they don't judge you for it.
38:53Mm-hmm.
38:53Somehow makes you feel like maybe you're not such a horrible person.
38:56You just can say you're a nice guy.
38:58Mm-hmm.
38:59Think of what this guy just admitted to, that he sends his penis pictures to a 13-year-old child
39:04and all of the sexual content so that he seems like less of a horrible person in his own mind.
39:11Like, what kind of paradigm is this guy operating in?
39:14That he can do this and then out of, like at the flip of a switch, go right to church
39:19and preach in front of a congregation?
39:21She's sweet.
39:23She's sweet.
39:23She's sweet to talk to.
39:24She wanted me.
39:26I said we would.
39:27I never intended to.
39:29He never intended to?
39:31Really?
39:31Like you never intended to send her deviant, sexually graphic videos and images?
39:38With sex toys?
39:40Bro, you are unhinged.
39:44Well, she sent me a photograph holding, hi, Greg.
39:47She was just sitting down in jeans and a t-shirt or whatever covered right here so I could see
39:52a little bit of her eyes.
39:53Oh, I got you.
39:54You know, just to say she did something, something she wanted to do to show that to me she was
39:59a real person and that that was who she actually was.
40:01I got you.
40:02And we still talk about meeting or something like that.
40:03Oh, yeah, we can really meet now because you're real and that kind of thing.
40:06Meeting for sex, though.
40:08Mm-hmm.
40:08Because that's what we talked about and that's what she wanted to talk about.
40:10Yeah.
40:11We now have a full admission of the true intent of Gregory Barnes to come and show up and have
40:17sex with a minor.
40:19Can we make this day go away and it never happened?
40:22This, my friend, is your cross to bear right now.
40:26While you would love to hit that rewind button to make this day go away, that is simply not going
40:31to happen.
40:31It's never going away.
40:41If we need you to...
40:42Immediately after questioning Gregory Barnes, Tony and Brandon visit the leader of his church to inform him of the situation.
40:51So what we investigate is online investigations that have to deal with, like, child solicitation, child pornography, any sort of
41:00exploitative thing.
41:01So I've been conducting an investigation that involves Mr. Barnes, and we've just come from his house where we executed
41:07a search warrant.
41:08From what I've seen, been involved in what's going on, but there have been certainly some components that have been
41:14going on an awful long time.
41:17I'm going to have to put out our stand.
41:19A warning to you predators.
41:21No two of you are alike.
41:23It's my goal in life.
41:25As long as I'm a cop, I will find you and track you down.
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