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Predator Hunters - Season 1 - Episode 09: Huge Red Flag
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00:04The following program documents real law enforcement investigations of child sexual
00:09predators. This deeply disturbing content may be triggering for some viewers. Please watch with
00:14care. Next, Detective Tony Godwin zeros in on a horrific repeat offender. This dude's a predator.
00:28Now this weirdo is asking if a 13 year old girl is a virgin. Holy crap. Then the team pursues
00:39a predatory school janitor. This guy's kind of sickening right? Who thinks he's arranged
00:44to meet a child for sex. But I'm on this case and I'm determined to take him down. And detectives
00:53join forces to snare a pastor with unholy fantasies.
01:00Police! Search warrant! Come to the door!
01:04She told me she was 13. She's sweet. If you want to meet us.
01:10A team of police professionals in North Dallas has one goal. Take down online predators before
01:17they harm a real child. Child predators are everywhere. Online predators pose the biggest danger
01:25to America's children today. Kids are being targeted at an alarming rate. This team is opening
01:32its case files for the first time to show you how it tracks them down.
01:39And brings them to justice by any means necessary.
01:47This is Detective Tony Godwin and his team is the Predator Hunters.
01:55January 2024. Tony and his team stop a dangerous predator in his tracks.
02:02What a deviant. What a twisted deviant.
02:05He thinks he's meeting a 13 year old girl for sex.
02:10Get out of the car!
02:13Even after his fantasy is smashed.
02:16I'm just stuck with my lightning!
02:18This repeat offender refuses to face up to his crime.
02:23I'm not having a W-T-Roll.
02:25Okay. Honestly.
02:28They say lightning doesn't strike twice. I know different.
02:32This guy, Christopher Holloway, he had a prior hands-on offense with a real child.
02:36And he was already on the registered sex offender list.
02:40He wanted to offend again. And I wasn't going to let that happen.
02:49In January of 2024, I'm online in an undercover capacity trolling a platform called Chat Hour,
02:56which is where a lot of predatory types seem to congregate.
03:00I start on Chat Hour with an undercover profile of a 13 year old female named Sarah from North Texas.
03:06The profile picture that I use for this Sarah account is from one of my colleagues
03:10who allows me to use her images from when she was 13.
03:13My profile creation makes it very, very clear.
03:16This is a 13 year old girl.
03:18Once my profile is established, I enter into a room for Texas and I just simply sit and wait.
03:25I don't have to wait too long at all.
03:27At 1.36 PM, my Sarah profile gets an instant message from a user named Barnflyer55.
03:33Are you into older guys?
03:35I mean, I can't believe this guy like right off the bat.
03:38He's just jumping in that quick.
03:40What a huge red flag.
03:42I don't have any option but to just kind of stay in character and I just reply back.
03:46Yeah, I'm interested in older guys.
03:50I tell him I'm 13, almost 14.
03:53He tells me that he's in his 50s.
03:56He acknowledges that my Sarah profile kind of young.
04:00Duh, 40 years younger.
04:02What a deviant.
04:03What a twisted deviant.
04:05So this creepy guy's got my attention, but I'm going to give him a chance to do the right thing.
04:10So I tell him, we don't have to talk if you don't want to.
04:13It's cool.
04:13He probably should have walked away, but he doesn't.
04:17Then he hits me with a really creepy question.
04:23I mean, what kind of response is this?
04:26We've barely been chatting and now this weirdo is going to jump right into this sexualized content asking if a
04:3313 year old girl is a virgin?
04:35Holy crap.
04:37Make no mistake, the fact that this guy is steering that conversation sexual.
04:41This dude's a predator.
04:43He is the poster child for predators.
04:45You look that up in the dictionary, you're going to find this guy.
04:48We keep talking.
04:50He's trying to keep his interest going.
04:52And what he says in return is unbelievable to me.
04:59It's disgusting to think that in five minutes this guy is already talking about pleasuring himself or playing with himself.
05:05This guy's really classic predatory moves so far, really fast.
05:09I need to get a better look at who this guy is.
05:12When I click on his profile, it shows me that he's got three publicly available photographs.
05:19This is the dude that just told a 13 year old girl that he's masturbating.
05:23What a creep.
05:26It's an older, very overweight white male.
05:30So I take a look at his profile and it gives me really specific stuff that he's in the Houston
05:35area.
05:38While all this information is really helpful and it's documented for evidence, I need more.
05:43I'd love to know this guy's name.
05:44So for that, I've got to keep this thing going and chatting with him.
05:52Barnflyer's messages, they just keep coming in and it's all really great evidence.
05:57But then it turns sexual again.
06:00He's referring to a man's genitals.
06:02And I tell him, absolutely not.
06:04I'm 13.
06:06I mean, what an absolute pig this guy is.
06:11But I'm going to use this as an opportunity to test and see if he's willing to travel.
06:17And he says, yeah, I am.
06:19Later that day, about 5.51 p.m., I get a message from him on chat hour.
06:24The message he sends is a friend request.
06:26And now I can see those private photos.
06:31What I see is utterly disgusting.
06:35It is naked photos of the same dude doing a selfie in a mirror,
06:41thinking that it looks somehow sexy or cute to show his genitalia off.
06:46He's just committed a crime.
06:47He just transferred obscene material to a minor.
06:49I want to get this guy identified and figure out who he really is.
06:52So I reach out to my coworker, Nick Sherry, to help me out with that.
06:57My name is Nicholas Sherry.
06:59I'm a neighborhood police officer, and I've been working with Tony for about five years now.
07:03Tony gets in touch with me to do some research on the social media handle BarnFlyer55.
07:10I do some digging through our law enforcement databases and discover one name, Christopher Holloway.
07:18I researched all the Christopher Holloways in the state of Texas,
07:21and I discovered a Christopher Holloway with the date of birth of 11-23-1969.
07:28I do a search on Christopher Holloway with that same date of birth and discover his photo on his driver's
07:36license,
07:36which matches the photo that he sent to Tony.
07:43The vehicle that is registered to Holloway is a black Ford pickup.
07:47Once I've confirmed who Christopher Holloway is, I discover something very serious.
07:54In 1989, he was sentenced to a five-year prison sentence for aggravated sexual assault of a child.
08:02He's on the sexual offender registry for the rest of his life.
08:08The fact that a guy who's been through this system has been convicted, went to prison, is now a registered
08:15sex offender for life is right back at it.
08:18This guy is clearly ready to offend again.
08:22It's unacceptable on every human level.
08:27In a best-case scenario for me, this guy travels from where he's at in Houston to where I'm at
08:32in North Texas.
08:33I want to build a good, solid case for prosecution.
08:37So now I just need him to make the date and time and make it happen.
08:42In my undercover capacity, I work sometimes 24-7, on-duty, off-duty, at the house.
08:48It's the necessary evil for this job.
08:52We've been talking for, like, a couple of months now.
08:55This guy's paranoia is, like, through the roof.
08:58The next thing that he tells me is that he wants to start talking by regular messaging, SMS messaging between
09:04phones.
09:04I give him my phone number for Sarah, and that's just one of my undercover numbers that I use for
09:09this job.
09:11All of a sudden, I get thrown a curveball that kind of has me scrambling.
09:15He wants a video call because he wants validation.
09:18He wants to know, in his own mind, I really am talking to a 13-year-old girl.
09:23But I completely ghost him, and I go right through that, and I tell him,
09:28Well, you do that first.
09:29You show me around your place.
09:31And guess what?
09:32He does.
09:38He starts to send me videos showing me every part of his house.
09:43It's unbelievable.
09:45He's in the bathroom.
09:47In the kitchen, right?
09:48This video gives me really good evidence.
09:50I mean, one, I hear the guy's voice.
09:52It's kind of gravely or growly.
09:54I don't really know what's going on with that.
09:56My bed.
09:58It's not in bed, of course.
10:00He shows his bed, and then the biggest thing I take away from this is this TV.
10:05Huge TV on the wall, probably 65 inches, and all I see are cameras.
10:10My huge TV up on the wall.
10:12Black truck is super helpful.
10:14This is just confirmation on what Nick found on the DMV search for this guy.
10:17This is gold.
10:20This video ends in the bathroom, and his camera's pointed right at the mirror,
10:25which shows him with no shirt on and black shorts.
10:30If only this guy knew who he was sending the videos to, don't worry.
10:35He'll find out soon enough.
10:38After three months of determined catfishing, Detective Tony Godwin finally gets Christopher Holloway to bite.
10:47Holloway suggests that he and Sarah meet for a date.
10:55At this point, he crossed this line to say he wanted to meet in person for sex.
11:00Legally, he just committed a crime.
11:02That's great evidence for me to give to a prosecutor.
11:06The problem is he's still super paranoid.
11:09Next thing he says, promise me you're not some police.
11:13I mean, sure, you want me to promise I'm not a cop?
11:16I'm not a cop.
11:18The next thing he says, I mean, yeah, you're young, but you asked me to do this.
11:23Now he wants to shift the blame over to this child.
11:26You asked me to do this?
11:28What an absolute, depraved, disgusting, creepy, nasty, evil human being.
11:35I am hyper-focused to put Holloway away.
11:40The next day, much to my surprise, he tells me he's on his way to Dallas.
11:44He lets me know in his text which hotel he's staying in.
11:49At 10.37 p.m., I can see him on the CCTV for the hotel, and he's clearly intoxicated.
11:58I'm questioning whether this guy's going to have the wherewithal to wake up and drive to the meeting tomorrow.
12:04He's baked.
12:06I get the whole team spun up and in place and let them know what's going on.
12:10I'm tired of talking to this guy.
12:11I'm ready to get his ass in jail.
12:17Holloway sends a message and asks for the address of where Sarah lives.
12:21But then he's so cautious and paranoid, he's like,
12:23how are we going to get away without your nosy neighbors seeing things?
12:27So I just simply reply, why don't we meet at the gas station right next door to the apartment?
12:33By 9.30 in the morning on that Friday, we've got everybody in place surrounding that gas station.
12:38We're ready to go.
12:40The adrenaline's pumping because we have a chance to take someone down that needs to be arrested.
12:48I can't tell you how excited I am to get this guy under arrest.
12:53It's time to go.
12:55I ordered the team.
12:56Move in.
12:57Make the arrest.
12:59Yeah, we're moving now.
13:21Turn off your car right now.
13:25Turn off the car, now!
13:43Let's move so we're not in front of it.
13:45Yeah, punch it.
13:46Punch it, punch it.
13:47Hold on.
14:00So I use my window punch to shadow the window.
14:03Turn off the truck right now.
14:08Get out of the car.
14:10Get out of the car.
14:16When they pull him out of that truck, they have to do so with violence.
14:19This guy's big, right?
14:25He hits the ground like a sack of 400 pounds of potatoes.
14:29Bam!
14:30He's on the ground.
14:31It's great.
14:36We get him handcuffed.
14:37We finally get him stood up.
14:39Ow!
14:40Hey, calm down.
14:42Calm down.
14:42You're hurting me.
14:43You're under arrest.
14:44I know you're saying I'm under arrest for what?
14:47No.
14:47You're under arrest for what?
14:49What?
14:50You're hurting me.
14:50I'm not supposed to say you're in my arm.
14:54I'm not supposed to say you're in my arm.
14:58The team executes a search warrant on Christopher Holloway's truck.
15:01And in that truck, they find a slip of paper with the address written down of where Sarah lived.
15:06In addition, they find condoms, Viagra, and it's lubricant.
15:11When I see this guy getting escorted away in handcuffs, like, I immediately have this, like, 5,000 foot view
15:17of it and think,
15:19this is a really bad guy.
15:21This is a dangerous guy.
15:22This guy is a sexual predator.
15:25Now, two times over, if I hadn't got him into custody, there's no telling what kind of harm he could
15:32bring to a real kid.
15:33You're sitting there. I know what you said.
15:35Oh, yeah.
15:35I haven't done anything wrong.
15:36OK.
15:36Honestly.
15:38I haven't done .
15:39Detective, we'll be down here with you in a minute, all right?
15:42What the crap?
15:43We got my crutch.
15:44You should have just gone out.
15:46It would have been a lot easier.
15:47Why?
15:47Everybody out here, I'm not doing anything wrong.
15:50I'm not doing anything wrong.
15:51I'm not doing anything wrong.
15:51I haven't done anything wrong.
15:56Holloway's escorted to a patrol car where he's going to be transported down to the jail for an interview.
16:11I hand over the interview duties to my colleague, Detective Sanger.
16:15Holloway openly talks about being a registered sex offender.
16:18I've been through this all hard before.
16:21Yeah.
16:21You've been through this, right?
16:23I am a registered sex offender.
16:24OK, so **** a long time ago it happened.
16:26I think I actually target people like that because I'm a registered sex offender.
16:30I think I get targeted like that a lot, but that's just me.
16:33He starts to play the blame game that because he's a registered sex offender, he's always
16:38targeted to woe is me.
16:40I'm the poor wounded sex offender.
16:43So you don't want to talk to me then, Chris?
16:44Sure.
16:45Honestly?
16:46No.
16:46OK.
16:47Because he's all **** obvious.
16:49OK.
16:50And I'm always going to get it out, start out.
16:52I'm sure.
16:53This guy is living in an absolute fantasy land.
16:57He has no idea what we've got on him or the fact that that ain't happening.
17:01He ain't getting none of this tossed.
17:09This guy, Christopher Holloway, is already a registered sex offender.
17:13There are publicly available sites that tell you where registered sex offenders do live.
17:19Be diligent.
17:20Look at those websites.
17:22Know who lives around you and in your community and be aware of that.
17:30August 2010, Tony pursues a high school janitor with an appetite for adolescence.
17:38You, sir, are a pedophile.
17:41He thinks he's meeting a 14-year-old for ice cream and sex.
17:46Marco's sitting in his vehicle.
17:49But this is not going to be the date he was hoping for.
17:53You're not getting ice cream today, John.
17:58I've been doing this job a long time.
18:00I've got hundreds of these guys.
18:02This guy, John Markle, he's one I remember.
18:05He was so shameless in his approach.
18:08I knew he was a danger to real kids.
18:10We moved super quick.
18:12Within 48 hours, we had him in cuffs.
18:22This case started in August of 2010.
18:25Back then, the internet was a different beast.
18:27Social media platforms, chatting, they were just in their infancy stages.
18:32Yahoo chat rooms were really popular.
18:35Especially kids love being on there.
18:37But what that means is where kids are, predators are.
18:42I set up an undercover profile for a girl named Annalisa.
18:46And she's 14 from North Texas.
18:49I still have the screen recording from that group of messaging on Yahoo.
18:54Once I got the profile established, I go into the chat rooms.
18:57I don't initiate anything because I need a predator to set the tone and pace.
19:01So I just sit and wait to be contacted.
19:04You know, before I know it, I've got multiple conversations going on with multiple different users.
19:09Most of those end as soon as I let them know that I'm 14.
19:12Because guess what?
19:13That's the right thing to do.
19:14Don't talk to children.
19:16But one, he keeps talking.
19:20It's clear to me that he responded to my username based on the age that I have in the username
19:24itself.
19:26He doesn't get deterred at all.
19:30I make it very clear that he's as old as my grandfather.
19:33But it still doesn't deter this guy.
19:35He clearly knows now in his own mind that he's talking to a 14-year-old girl.
19:39And so I ask him, like, what are you doing here?
19:42A woman. If he's looking for a woman, why is he talking to a 14-year-old girl?
19:48This guy's already given me the creeps.
19:50But then, without prompting, he just tells me what his location is.
19:56He's definitely laying the groundwork for wanting to meet.
20:00I mean, based on our conversation now, I really want to get an eye on what this guy looks like.
20:04So I ask him, how come you don't have a profile pic?
20:09This guy does a reversal.
20:10He does what I would normally do to him.
20:14He really wants to know that he's talking to a kid before he gives up what he looks like.
20:18The profile pic I have is really small on Yahoo Chat, so I need to send him some more.
20:23I already have photos in place with this profile from one of my colleagues
20:27who has graciously given me her permission to use her photos
20:31from the age that I'm purporting to be for these undercover cases.
20:37As soon as he tells me how good I look, he sends one of himself to me.
20:42He's got a scorpion tattoo on his arm.
20:46That's something really pretty unique.
20:49Yeah, you really could get in trouble.
20:51I'm trouble for you.
20:53You just don't know it yet.
20:57Thirty minutes into this conversation and this guy is already turning the conversation sexual.
21:03Well, sir, that's really pretty forward.
21:05You do know I'm only 14, right?
21:10What a romantic.
21:12I just have to play along with it.
21:14And I do.
21:23The fact that he specifically mentions he's not a pedophile,
21:27everything I've seen over the last hour tells me quite the opposite.
21:31You, sir, are a pedophile.
21:34So to keep it going, I ask him what he's doing today.
21:37His reply causes me a lot of concern.
21:42And immediately, alarm bells are going off in my head.
21:45I'm thinking here, I have a child predator who's arranged his work life
21:49to be in a school around small children?
21:52Wow.
21:53Huge red flag.
21:55Does he have access to real kids?
21:56Are real kids in danger?
21:57Like the urgency for me just went to the top of the list.
22:02A couple hours into this conversation and now this guy wants to go on a date.
22:07I mean, what does this guy think?
22:08A 59-year-old dude with a 14-year-old girl and he wants to go on a date?
22:12But I'm on this case and I'm determined to take him down.
22:18The morning after our first day of chat, I'm working from home for a little while.
22:21And when I open up my computer, I see this barrage of like unanswered messages
22:26that have come in from this guy.
22:29I mean, this guy's really desperate.
22:31So I'm going to throw him a bone, try to keep him on the hook.
22:36That's my verbal seduction tactic right there.
22:40I envision he's like, she loves me.
22:44Right away, he's right back at me.
22:46So later that day, I decide to ask him about that scorpion tattoo on his arm.
22:50And he tells me it's a star sign.
22:52He's a Scorpio.
22:53So I ask him about his birthday and he tells me October 26th.
22:58If in fact that's true, having a date of birth like that is going to go a long way to
23:02help get this guy identified.
23:04At this point, I need him to arrange a meeting in person.
23:08And then bingo, it comes.
23:18I suggest that he can come over and meet me at my apartment.
23:21But this seems to kind of spook him.
23:25So I suggest the movie theater.
23:28Then he offers to buy me ice cream.
23:30This guy's kind of sickening, right?
23:32He's going to lure a child to buy her an ice cream cone.
23:36Super creepy.
23:38He's moving really fast.
23:39We've been chatting 48 hours and we're now at this stage.
23:42I got to scramble to get a team together.
23:44Before the chat ends, he gives me some vital information.
23:48He gives me his name.
23:50That'll help us get you identified properly.
23:54Since this guy's willing to give out useful information, I'm going to ask him for some more.
24:00He tells me a silver Hyundai Santa Fe.
24:03Now we know what to look for.
24:05Awesome.
24:07Tony enlists Detective Clint McNeer to help unmask the grade school ghoul.
24:14So Tony tells us what we have so far.
24:16We've got a name of John.
24:19We know that he's a janitor.
24:21We know that he's 59 years old and he gives us a date of birth of October the 26th.
24:27That's going to give us his year of birth.
24:28John was born in 1950.
24:31So I run these two key pieces of evidence through the police database and we get a hit.
24:36John George Markle, 59 years old.
24:41Date of birth, October 26th, 1950.
24:44The photo on the driver's license matches the photo that he sent to Tony.
24:49The address on his driver's license comes back at Lake Ray Hubbard.
24:53He also told Tony he lives near the lake.
24:56With this hit, we've got our guy and I'll let Tony know.
25:05Tony and his team are in position to take down a school janitor who believes he's meeting a minor for
25:12ice cream and sex.
25:14This is Detective Godwin.
25:16We are at the movie theater.
25:17We are here to effect the arrest of one John Merkel.
25:22This is a photo of a vehicle similar to what he described in an internet chat log.
25:27We will have units parked all around the theater, unmarked, as well as officers staged inside the movie theater itself.
25:34Mr. Merkel is believing to come to the theater to meet up with a 14-year-old female for the
25:39purposes of a sexual relationship.
25:43Clint and I are set up in the parking lot where Markle arrives.
25:47It's 3.32 p.m.
25:51We're here in front of the movie theater.
25:55It's Mr. Markle sitting in his vehicle.
26:00You can see that he's looking down the street towards Cold Stone Creamery, which is one of the places he
26:07had mentioned visiting or meeting the victim at.
26:12Is he watching the store or ice?
26:15He's looking both directions.
26:21We have eyes on him.
26:23Yeah, I think internally his little hamster is running full speed and he's like,
26:26Man, I'm going to meet this girl and I'm going to get her ice cream and then I'm going to
26:29take her home and I'm going to do something sexual to her.
26:32That's what I think is going on in his mind.
26:34Take down moments are the most stressful part for me because there's so many things that could go wrong.
26:40These are really unknown situations.
26:42Like, granted, we can see this guy sitting in a car smoking a cigarette, but we don't know what kind
26:46of threat he is.
26:47Like, he could have a gun in there, he could have a knife.
26:49So I'm continually communicating with my take down team and once I know everybody where they are in position, I
26:56give the order to take him down.
26:58I've got my gun out. You've got to be ready.
27:06This is Detective Godwin. This is the arrest of Mr. Merkle.
27:13I enjoy snatching a sick person out of their car and stopping them from what they think they're about to
27:17do.
27:20We've definitely caught John Merkle with his OODA loop all jacked up.
27:23He's so off guard, he has no idea what's going on.
27:26Now he's sworn by cops.
27:30The vehicle he drove is exactly what he said he'd be driving, a silver Hyundai Santa Fe.
27:36I'll get a license plate on it here in a moment.
27:40He'll be transported to the police department and booked into the jail at that location.
27:46You're not getting ice cream today, John.
27:48You'll be lucky if you get in time to get a bologna sandwich.
27:53In the interview with John Merkle, he freely admits he was there to meet a minor.
27:57I believe if he had not got taken down by the cops and a real kid would have shown up
28:02for that ice cream,
28:03he would have absolutely 1000% bought her the ice cream, took her somewhere and sexually abused her.
28:16The team's next case focuses on this man.
28:21I'm glad you chose to join us here for worship.
28:24To his congregation, he's their devoted pastor.
28:27Now let us celebrate Christ's resurrection as we worship together.
28:32Online, he's sending pornographic images to a child.
28:36He sends pictures of himself and his genitals are visible in every picture.
28:41And when his crimes catch up with him...
28:44Police! Search warrant!
28:46This predator begs for forgiveness.
28:49Can we make this day go away? It never happened.
28:53Many predators lead a double life.
28:55They have a public persona that seems completely normal, but then they have a darker side.
29:00That was never more true than with this guy, Gregory Barnes.
29:05This guy had access to real children.
29:07We had to act fast and take him down.
29:20My colleague, Brandon Poor, he ran point on this case.
29:24He drove it and brought me in to help.
29:27In July of 2020, I go on an application called Antiland, which is a chat platform that has a deleting
29:35message feature.
29:36It is designed to keep a user anonymous and that tends to lend itself very well for someone who's a
29:43predator looking to harm children.
29:46I log in to my profile, which is KylieGirl13TX.
29:52I get a message from a user named Greg, who says, Hi Kylie.
29:58I click on his profile. It tells me a little bit of information about him.
30:02And what I see is he's in the 55 plus age range.
30:07Right away, he wants to know how old I am, and I tell him I'm 13 years old.
30:16It certainly sends up a red flag because the normal people we talk to in those circumstances tell us, you're
30:22way too young, don't ever message me again.
30:25And then he wants to know if I like talking to old men.
30:28And pretty quickly, he turns things sexual.
30:34It's clear in my mind now, he's a degenerate sexual predator looking for a kid to harm him.
30:39And 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.
30:52And in order to do that, we have to do it somewhere off of the Antiland platform.
30:57So he sends me his cell phone number.
31:00A 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.
31:09And the benefit of that is I actually get one in return from him.
31:14He's a middle-aged guy with a gray beard and glasses.
31:17I now have a clear idea of who I'm talking to.
31:23What's concerning is he's telling me that he's already talked to younger girls like me before.
31:29Yeah, I think you're a bad guy.
31:31I think you're the definition of a predator.
31:33You'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.
31:50He tells me he's talking to a guy who likes sissy men.
31:56What?
32:00What 13-year-old knows what a sissy man and a dominant man are?
32:06I think he's just lost it.
32:09Then he sends me pictures of himself in lingerie.
32:14For the most part, his genitals are visible in every picture.
32:20And if I didn't think it could get worse, then he sends me pictures and videos of sex toys
32:27and 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.
32:43And that's where KV can come in trying to find out who this person really is.
32:48So Brandon gives me a phone number.
32:50And 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.
33:00What I get is a Gregory Kent Barnes.
33:03And he's a 60-year-old white male.
33:05He 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.
33:23I 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.
33:35He'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.
33:45She'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.
33:56There'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
34:11for me.
34:13On July 20th, 2020, I'm talking about normal, everyday life.
34:23And he suggests that maybe he'll come pick me up.
34:26I 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, and
34:37so he requests something that is pretty common, a proof pick.
34:43He wants me to hold up a sign with his name on it.
34:47My coworker has given me pictures already and agrees to take this picture to prove that I'm a real kid.
34:54Brandon is unable to reveal the photos of his fellow officer.
34:58He uses them today in ongoing child predator cases.
35:05He's very excited.
35:08He's absolutely convinced he's grooming and talking to a real child.
35:13His intentions are clear.
35:20Then 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, but also he has access to real
35:29kids.
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 Poore are about to swoop in on the home of 60-year-old preacher predator
35:50Greg Barnes.
35:56Police search warrant, come to the door.
35:59Nobody's answering the door.
36:00They're banging loudly.
36:01They're announcing police search warrant.
36:04That really kind of ups the anxiety for everybody there.
36:08We have no idea what's going on behind closed doors.
36:11They could be deleting evidence.
36:12They could be retrieving weapons.
36:13So it's really a tense moment.
36:17Come out.
36:18Come out.
36:18Open the door.
36:19Come here.
36:20Come here.
36:20Step outside.
36:21Step out.
36:24Who else is in the house?
36:27Eventually the door opens and there's Barnes.
36:29He's kind of looking a little haggard and bewildered.
36:33We pull him and his family out before we go in and start conducting a search.
36:41What's that smell in there?
36:42Barber?
36:47We're able to recover nine devices capable of connecting to the internet and a bag of goodies.
36:53Women's underwear, lingerie, sex toys.
36:57I start conducting on-scene forensic examinations of some of the electronic devices while Tony's interviewing Mr. Barnes.
37:05Mr. Barnes?
37:06Yes.
37:07Hey, I'm Detective Godwin.
37:08I'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.
37:20No COVID.
37:20I'm not worried.
37:22I really want Barnes to talk to me and open up and so I just kind of play it slow
37:27and see how it goes.
37:29You 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.
37:46All I see initially here is fear.
37:49Is there a kid out there that we should be concerned about?
37:53Possibly, yes.
37:54Okay.
37:55Can you tell me who that person is?
37:57Her name is Kylie.
37:59That's a girl?
38:00Yeah, I don't have a last name.
38:01And how old is Kylie?
38:03She told me she was 13.
38:0413.
38:05Okay.
38:06Did you send her any photos?
38:09What kind of photos did you send them?
38:12Inappropriate photos.
38:12Okay.
38:14Like nude photos.
38:16You sent her pictures of your penis.
38:17Did you have an erection?
38:20I assume I am.
38:21Okay.
38:22I mean, listen to what this guy's saying.
38:25He just admitted to a crime, transferred obscene material to a minor?
38:29Kids became a bit of the fixation that it sounds like, just from communications and whatnot.
38:35For pleasure, I try to talk to kind of many other matrices and that kind of thing.
38:41Okay.
38:42Because sometimes if you can talk to somebody that's more innocent, it kind of makes you
38:48if you can tell them you've done something, they don't judge you for it.
38:52Mm-hmm.
38:53Somehow makes you feel like maybe you're not such a horrible person.
38:55Usually because they're a nice guy.
38:57Mm-hmm.
38:58Think of what this guy just admitted to, that he sends his penis pictures to a 13-year-old
39:03child and all of the sexual content so that he seems like less of a horrible person in his own
39:10mind.
39:10Like, what kind of paradigm is this guy operating in?
39:13That 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.
39:22She's sweet to talk to.
39:24If you want to meet, I said we would.
39:27I never intended to.
39:28He never intended to?
39:30Really?
39:31Like you never intended to send her deviant, sexually graphic videos and images?
39:37With sex toys?
39:40Bro, you are unhinged.
39:44Well, she sent me a photograph holding, hi, Greg.
39:46She was just sitting down in jeans and a t-shirt or whatever.
39:50Right.
39:50Covered right here so I could see a little bit of her eyes.
39:53Oh, I got you.
39:53You know, just to say she did something, something she wanted to do to show that to me she was
39:58a real person.
39:59That that was who she actually was.
40:00I got you.
40:01And we still talk about meaning or something like that.
40:03Oh yeah, we can really mean that because you're real and that kind of thing.
40:05Meaning for sex though.
40:07Because 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 never happen?
40:22This, my friend, is your cross to bear right now.
40:25While you would love to hit that rewind button to make this day go away, that is simply not going
40:30to happen.
40:31It's never going away.
40:41Immediately 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.
41:04And we've just come from his house where we executed a search warrant.
41:08From what I've seen, been involved in what's going on.
41:11There have been certainly some components that have been going on an awful long time.
41:17I'm going to have to tell her story.
41:19A warning to you predators.
41:21No two of you are alike.
41:23It's my goal in life.
41:24As long as I'm a cop, I will find you and track you down.
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