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Predator Hunters - Season 1 - Episode 09: Huge Red Flag online. #Crime
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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.
00:37Then the team pursues a predatory school janitor. This guy's kind of sickening, right? Who thinks
00:44he's arranged to meet a child for sex. But I'm on this case and I'm determined to take him down.
00:52And detectives join 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. She wanted me.
01:10A team of police professionals in North Dallas has one goal.
01:14Take down online predators before they harm a real child.
01:20Child predators are everywhere.
01:23Online predators pose the biggest danger to America's children today.
01:28Kids are being targeted at an alarming rate.
01:31This team is opening its case files for the first time to show you how it tracks them down.
01:38All right, he's coming this way.
01:40And brings them to justice by any means necessary.
01:44Okay, look out.
01:46This 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.
02:06He thinks he's meeting a 13-year-old girl for sex.
02:13Even after his fantasy is smashed.
02:18This repeat offender refuses to face up to his crime.
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 this 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 p.m., 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, he'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. He tells me that he's in his 50s.
03:56He acknowledges that my Sarah profile, kind of young.
04:00Duh, 40 years younger. What a deviant. What a twisted deviant.
04:06So 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 we don't want to. It's cool.
04:14He probably should have walked away, but he doesn't. Then he hits me with a really creepy question.
04:49I mean, what kind of response is this?
04:50He's trying to keep his interest going, and what he says in return is unbelievable to me.
04:58It's disgusting to think that in five minutes, this guy is already talking about pleasuring
05:03himself or playing with himself. This guy's really classic predatory moves so far, really fast.
05:09I need to get a better look at who this guy is. When I click on his profile, it shows
05:14me that he's got
05:15three publicly available photographs. This is the dude that just told a 13-year-old girl that he's
05:22masturbating. What a creep. It's an older, very overweight white male. So I take a look at his profile,
05:32and it gives me really specific stuff. And he's in the Houston area. While all this information is
05:40really helpful and it's documented for evidence, I need more. I'd love to know this guy's name. So for
05:45that, I've got to keep this thing going and chatting with him. Barnflyer's messages, they just keep coming
05:54in and it's all really great evidence. But then it turns sexual again. He's referring to a man's
06:02genitals. And I tell him, absolutely not. I'm 13. I 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. Later that day, about 5 51 PM, I get a message from him on
06:23chat hour.
06:24The message he sends is a friend request. And now I can see those private photos.
06:32What I see is utterly disgusting. It 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. He's just committed a crime.
06:47He just transferred obscene material to a minor. I want to get this guy identified and figure out
06:51who he really is. So I reach out to my coworker, Nick Sherry, to help me out with that.
06:57My name is Nicholas Sherry. I'm a neighborhood police officer. And I've been working with Tony
07:02for about five years now. Tony gets in touch with me to do some research on the social media handle
07:08Barnflyer 55. I do some digging through our law enforcement databases and discover one name,
07:16Christopher Holloway. I 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
07:35driver's license, which matches the photo that he sent to Tony.
07:43The vehicle that is registered to Holloway is a black Ford pickup. Once I've confirmed who
07:49Christopher Holloway is, I discover something very serious. In 1989, he was sentenced to a five-year
07:57prison sentence for aggravated sexual assault of a child. He's on the sexual offender registry for the
08:05rest of his life. The fact that a guy who's been through this system, has been convicted,
08:13went to prison, is now a registered sex offender for life, is right back at it. This guy is clearly
08:20ready to offend again. It's unacceptable on every human level. In a best-case scenario for me, this guy
08:30travels from where he's at in Houston to where I'm at in North Texas. I want to build a good
08:35solid case
08:35for prosecution. So now I just need him to make the date and time and make it happen. In my
08:43undercover
08:43capacity, I work sometimes 24-7, on duty, off duty, at the house. It's the necessary evil for this job.
08:52We've been talking for like a couple of months now. This 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,
09:02SMS messaging between phones. I give him my phone number for Sarah, and that's just one of my
09:08undercover numbers that I use for this job. All of a sudden, I get thrown a curveball that kind
09:13of has me scrambling. He wants a video call because he wants validation. He wants to know,
09:19in his own mind, I really am talking to a 13-year-old girl. But I completely ghost him, and
09:25I go right
09:26through that, and I tell him, well, you do that first. You show me around your place. And guess what?
09:32He does.
09:38He starts to send me videos showing me every part of his house. It's unbelievable.
09:48This video gives me really good evidence. I mean, one, I hear the guy's voice.
09:52It's kind of gravelly or growly. I don't really know what's going on with that.
09:59It shows his bed. And then the biggest thing I take away from this is this TV. Huge TV on
10:06the wall,
10:07probably 65 inches. And all I see are cameras.
10:11The black truck is super helpful. This is just confirmation on what Nick found on the DMV
10:16search for this guy. This is gold. This video ends in the bathroom, and his camera's pointed
10:24right at the mirror, which shows him with no shirt on and black shorts. If only this guy knew who
10:32he was
10:33sending the videos to, don't worry. He'll find out soon enough.
10:38After three months of determined catfishing, Detective Tony Godwin finally gets Christopher
10:45Holloway to bite. Holloway 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. Legally,
11:01he just committed a crime. That's great evidence for me to give to a prosecutor.
11:06The problem is he's still super paranoid. The next thing he says,
11:11promise me you're not some police. I mean, sure, you want me to promise I'm not a cop?
11:15I'm not a cop. The next thing he says, I mean, yeah, you're young, but you asked me to do
11:22this.
11:23Now he wants to shift the blame over to this child. You asked me to do this. What an absolute
11:29depraved,
11:30disgusting, creepy, nasty, evil human being. I 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 PM, I can see him on the CCTV for the hotel and he's clearly intoxicated.
11:58I'm questioning whether this guy is going to have the wherewithal to wake up
12:02and drive to the meeting tomorrow. He's baked. I get the whole team spun up and in place and let
12:08them know what's going on. I'm tired of talking to this guy. I'm ready to get his ass in jail.
12:17Holloway sends a message and asks for the address of where Sarah lives. But then he's so cautious
12:22and paranoid. He's like, how are we going to get away without your nosy neighbors seeing things? So
12:27I 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're, we have a chance to take someone down
12:44that 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. I ordered the team, move in, make the arrest.
12:58You guys about to move in?
12:59Yeah, we're moving now.
13:02Are you safe, man? Get on it right now.
13:21Turn off your car right now.
13:23Get that car. Turn off the car.
13:25Turn off the car.
13:26Turn off the car. Now.
13:43Let's move so we're not in front of it.
13:59Get out of the car.
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.
14:15Get 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. It's great.
14:36We get him handcuffed.
14:37We finally get him stood up.
14:40Hey, calm down.
14:42You're hurting me.
14:43You're under arrest.
14:44No.
14:45I know you're saying I'm under arrest for what?
14:47No.
14:47You're under arrest for me.
14:49What?
14:50You hurt me.
14:50I'm not supposed to say you're in my life.
14:54I'm not supposed to say you're in my life.
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
15:04of where Sarah lived.
15:06In addition, they find condoms, Viagra, and lubricant.
15:11When I see this guy getting escorted away in handcuffs, like, I immediately have this
15:16like 5,000-foot view of it and think, this 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
15:31he could bring to a real kid.
15:33You're sitting there.
15:34I know what you said, but I haven't done anything wrong.
15:36OK.
15:37Honestly.
15:38I haven't done .
15:39Detective, we'll be down here with you in a minute, all right?
15:42I'm a truck.
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 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
16:00an 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 part of school.
16:21Yeah, you'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,
16:37he's always targeted 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.
16:44About what?
16:45Honestly?
16:46No.
16:46OK.
16:47That's good.
16:47Because he's all all BS.
16:49OK.
16:50And I'm always going to get it out, throw it out, I'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, know 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 adolescents.
17:38You, sir, are a pedophile.
17:41He thinks he's meeting a 14-year-old for ice cream and sex.
17:46Markle 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, I knew he was a danger to real kids.
18:11We moved super quick, and within 48 hours, we had him in cuffs.
18:23This 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, especially 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 Anna Lisa, and 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.
19:02So 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, because 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, but 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?
19:43A woman.
19:43If 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.
19:57He'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.
20:11He 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,
20:28who 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.
20:5730 minutes into this conversation, and this guy has already turned the conversation sexual.
21:02Well, 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, and 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 to be in a school around small
21:51children?
21:53Wow, huge red flag.
21:55Does he have access to real kids? Are real kids endangered?
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 that have come in from
22:27this guy.
22:29I mean, this guy's really desperate, so I'm going to throw him a bone, try to keep him on the
22:34hook.
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. He'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, and then bingo, it comes.
23:18I suggest that he can come over and meet me at my apartment, but this seems to kind of spook
23:22him.
23:25So I suggest the movie theater, then he offers to buy me ice cream.
23:30This guy's kind of sickening, right? He's going to lure a child to buy her an ice cream cone?
23:35Ooh, super creepy.
23:38He's moving really fast. We've been chatting 48 hours, and we're now at this stage.
23:42I've got to scramble to get a team together.
23:44Before the chat ends, he gives me some vital information.
23:47He 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. Now we know what to look for. Awesome.
24:07Tony enlists Detective Clint McNeer to help unmask the grade school ghoul.
24:14So Tony tells us what we have so far. We've got a name of John. We know that he's a
24:20janitor.
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. John was born in 1950.
24:31So I run these two key pieces of evidence through the police database, and we get a hit.
24:37John George Markle, 59 years old. Date of birth, October 26, 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.
24:55With 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,
25:09who believes he's meeting a minor for ice cream and sex.
25:15This is Detective Godwin. We 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
25:31staged inside the movie theater itself. Mr. Merkel is believing to come to the theater to meet up with
25:38a 14-year-old female for the purposes 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. We're here in front of the movie theater.
25:55It's Mr. Markle sitting in his vehicle. You can see that he's looking down the street towards
26:03Cold Stone Creamery, which is one of the places he had mentioned visiting or meeting the
26:11victim at. Is he watching the store or us? He's looking both directions.
26:21We have eyes on him. Yeah, I think internally his little hamsters run in 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
26:30and I'm going to do something sexual to her. That's what I think is going on in his mind.
26:35Takedown moments are the most stressful part for me because there's so many things that could go wrong.
26:40These are really unknown situations. Like, granted, we can see this guy sitting in a car
26:44smoking a cigarette, but we don't know what kind of threat he is. Like, he could have a gun in
26:48there.
26:48He could have a knife. So I'm continually communicating with my takedown team. And once I know everybody
26:53where they are in position, I give the order to take him down. I've got my gun out. You've got
26:59to be ready.
27:06This is Detective Godwin. This is the arrest of Mr. Merkel.
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 Markle with his OODA loop all jacked up. He's so off guard,
27:24he has no idea what's going on. Now he's swarmed 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. You'll be lucky if you get in time to get a bologna sandwich.
27:53In the interview with John Markle, 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.
28:28Now 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.
29:08We 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
29:34deleting message feature. It is designed to keep a user anonymous and that tends to lend itself very
29:42well for someone who's a predator looking to harm children.
29:45I log in to my profile, which is kyleegirl13tx.
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.
30:08Right away, he wants to know how old I am. And I tell him I'm 13 years old.
30:15It certainly sends up a red flag because the normal people we talk to in those circumstances
30:21tell us, you're way too young. Don't ever message me again.
30:25And then he wants to know if I like talking to old men.
30:29And 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.
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. And in order to do that,
30:53we 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. I 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, I 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.
32:35He'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 KB 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 is also giving 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.
33:25And I find one of the most shocking and perhaps worst things that I can find out.
33:30As 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.
34:05He's got access to kids.
34:06And with what he's talked about watching girls at the pool, that's a huge problem for me.
34:13On July 20th, 2020, I'm talking about normal, everyday life.
34:22And 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.
34:37And so 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.
34:53Brandon 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
35:46are about to swoop in on the home of 60-year-old preacher predator Greg Barnes.
35:57Police! Search warrant! Come to the door!
35:59Nobody's answering the door.
36:01They're banging loudly.
36:02They'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. Come out.
36:18Open the door.
36:19Come here. Come here.
36:20Step outside.
36:21Step out. Step out.
36:22Right now.
36:24Who else is in the house?
36:26Yeah, eventually 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.
36:46We'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
37:02while 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, so I'll be having a talk with you here in a few
37:11minutes.
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.
37:21I'm not worried.
37:23I really want Barnes to talk to me and open up.
37:25And 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,
37:42but 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?
37:57My 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?
38:12Okay, like nude photos.
38:16You sent her pictures of your penis.
38:17Did you have an erection?
38:20Okay.
38:22I mean, listen to what this guy's saying.
38:25He just admitted to a crime.
38:27Transferred obscene material to a minor?
38:29Kids became a bit of the fixation, it sounds like, just from communications and whatnot.
38:35For pleasure, I try to talk to kind of many of the matrixes and that kind of thing.
38:41Okay.
38:42Sometimes if you can talk to somebody that's more innocent, it kind of makes you think,
38:49if you can tell them you've done something, they don't judge you for it.
38:52It somehow makes you feel like maybe you're not such a horrible person.
38:55You're just going to say you're a nice guy.
38:58Think 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.
39:10Like, what kind of paradigm is this guy operating in, that he can do this and then out of,
39:16like at the flip of a switch, go right to church and 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? Really? Like you never intended to send her deviant,
39:34sexually graphic videos and images with 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
39:51so I could see a little bit of her eyes.
39:53Oh, I got you.
39:54You know, just to say she did something,
39:56something she wanted to do to show that to me she was a real person and that was who she
40:00actually was.
40:00I got you.
40:01And 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.
40:05Meeting for sex though.
40:07Because that's what we talked about and that's what she wanted to talk about.
40:10Sure, yeah.
40:10We now have a full admission of the true intent of Gregory Barnes
40:16to come and show up and have sex with a minor.
40:19Can we make this day go away? It never happened.
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,
40:28that is simply not going to happen. It's never going away.
40:40If we need you to go away.
40:42Immediately after questioning Gregory Barnes, Tony and Brandon visit the leader of his church
40:47to inform him of the situation.
40:51So what we investigate is online investigations that have to deal with like child solicitation,
40:58child pornography, any sort of exploitative thing.
41:01So I've been conducting an investigation that involves Mr. Barnes and we've just come from his
41:06house where we executed a search warrant.
41:08From what I've seen, been involved in what's going on.
41:11But there have been certainly some components that have been going on an awful long time.
41:17I'm going to have to tell her stay.
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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