Guest Author: "Wanna Watch me Shave?" Part I

By Det. Kevin Cronister *Warning: Content and Language

Editor’s Note: These stories are real life law enforcement issues that has information and language that is not suited for all persons. However, the importance of grooming and child predators through social media is so important that we must bring light into the tunnel for all parents to understand. Names and some information have been changed to protect the innocent. Original Story on LinkedIn with author’s permission to feature.

Within the law enforcement community, we tend to hold information pretty close to our chests. A lot of agencies don’t share well with other agencies and the Feds tend to not trust local departments with information, even if it’s occurring in their backyard. But the one thing we never hesitate to disseminate is information about pedophiles. Especially if said pedophile lives outside of our jurisdiction.

Jurisdictional boundaries can ruin an investigation. However, the courts saw the wisdom in allowing undercover officers to prosecute pedophiles who live in outside jurisdictions because “technically” the crime also occurred in the undercover officer’s jurisdiction. After all, they were exchanging messages with 50% of the messages occurring in the undercover detective’s office. Makes sense, right?

Especially since the advent of the internet and technology have given child predators access to not just their local children, but children all over the world. For example, let’s say I’m sitting in my office in Kansas and create an undercover profile as a 14-year-old child on Snapchat. An adult male who lives in Michigan contacts me asking for nude photos. I can still charge him with a crime in Kansas because the phone that received his illegal solicitation of a perceived child was in my county.

The word “perceived” is key here. The way the Kansas Statute is written for Electronic Solicitation of a Child (KSA 21-5509) states, “Electronic solicitation is, by means of communication conducted through the telephone, internet or by other electronic means, enticing or soliciting a person, whom the offender believes to be a child, to commit or submit to an unlawful sexual act.” (Italics are mine.)

This gives me permission as a law enforcement officer to go undercover as a child to catch predators before they stumble across a real child. As long as they believe I’m a child, I don’t have to actually be one. Most other states have similar language in their statutes. Unfortunately, the reality is the child predator has already victimized a large number of children by the time they contact my undercover persona but it’s at least something proactive we can do, as opposed to reactively waiting for a report to come in from a panicked mother.

This case study is a perfect example of how good undercover work, positive communication, and simple collaboration between two agencies lead to a huge prison sentence for a prolific sex offender who happened to live down the street from my office.

On 11/02/2020, I received information from a Detective with a small police department in Minnesota regarding a suspect in Kansas who was soliciting sexually explicit photos from underage females.

The Detective had been conducting a proactive undercover operation on multiple social media platforms. On 10/27/2020, he was posing as a 15-year-old female on the social media application “Say Hi”. At approximately 10:35 hours, the Detective received a private message from the user “Redneckinit.” The message simply read, “Hey im in the shower u wanna watch me shave and then have some fun with me when I’m dun?”

Now, I want to take a minute to address the ridiculousness of that statement. First of all, THAT’s the opening line you came up with? Of all the things you could say to a 15-year-old girl, you go with THAT? No foreplay, no warmup, no small talk. Just watch me shave my balls? Secondly, has anyone ever WANTED to watch you shave? That seems super weird in and of itself. Lastly, this guy clearly is not winning a spelling bee or helping his nephews with their grammar homework. Anyway, I digress.

During the conversation, the Detective introduced his undercover persona and specifically told the suspect he was a 15-year-old female. This is very important because, as I mentioned earlier, the suspect has to KNOW the perceived child is underage. Oftentimes, I will remind the subject repeatedly during our conversations until he acknowledges my age so I have proof in court. I’ll even say things like, “Are you sure you want me to do that, lol? You remember I’m 14 right?” This usually elicits a response of, “It’s fine. As long as I don’t go to jail lol!”

You might be thinking it’s risky to continuously remind the suspect of how underage I am because he might have second thoughts and quit the communication. Spoiler alert, they never do. Throughout my career, I’ve handled close to 100 undercover chats and only ONE suspect has ever decided to end the conversation because he had a brief moment of clarity and common sense. And then, after a year, he messaged me again and went to prison… I’m telling you. This is a compulsion for child predators. They can’t help themselves.

Anyway, the subject identified himself as a 20-year-old male who resided in my county. He was kind enough to provide shirtless pictures, giving us photos of his chest tattoos to help in identifying him. The Detective from Minnesota provided the subject with his cell phone number to encourage him to move the conversation to SMS (text) messages instead of the “Say Hi application. This is another important phase of undercover chatting. We always move them to cell phone messaging. It’s way easier to identify someone based on a phone number than it is to identify them via a social media username.

The subject contacted the Detective via his cell phone by SMS message stating he was masturbating and offered to show the Detective’s undercover persona a video of said masturbation… They exchanged messages throughout the week.

On 10/29/2020, the subject contacted the Detective again, this time sending three nude photographs of himself. One was a full body image in the mirror showing the same chest tattoo he provided in the “Say Hi” chat. The last photograph was of a penis which had ejaculated. The subject then requested nude photographs of the 15-year-old female undercover persona, instructing her to go to the bathroom. Obviously, the middle-aged male Detective could not provide the imagery our suspect was looking for… So, he didn’t respond. The suspect attempted to contact him numerous additional times asking for nude photos.

On 11/02/2020, even after receiving gross photos, the Detective contacted the subject again in furtherance of the investigation. During this conversation, the subject again indicated he was masturbating and provided a 15 second video clip of his right hand stroking an erect penis. Isn’t our job wonderful?

Arrangements were made with the subject to conduct a Skype call and he provided his contact email address. Our brilliant Detective did some background work using open-source information and found this email to be associated with an old MySpace account belonging to our suspect under his real name. Bingo! A positive identification. For our purposes, we’ll call him Drew Peanuts.

Our Detective wasn’t done there. In a brilliant display of investigative genius, he also located a pawn record in which Drew had utilized an Eco ATM at a Walmart in my jurisdiction on 01/29/19 to sell an iPhone6s. Photographs were captured during the transaction at the ATM and the Detective was able to identify this subject as the same individual who sent photos during the chat with his undercover persona.

A criminal history query showed Drew had been in MY agencies custody on 09/10/19 so the Detective requested booking photographs from that date. It is clear from the photographs that the subject who sent photos and videos to the 15-year-old female undercover persona is the same subject in both the booking photos and the ATM surveillance photos. One booking photo even shows the chest tattoo observed in Drew’s full body nude photo.

My Involvement Begins

This is where I come in. On 11/02/2020, I received an email from the Detective explaining the case and advising Mr. Peanuts most likely lived in my county. Now, I cannot explain to you the excitement and joy that comes from being handed a case with an already identified pedophile who has already committed multiple felonies. It’s sheer pleasure as there’s nothing I love more in life than stacking more felonies on top of other felonies for these dirt bags.

On 12/11/2020, I located Drew’ current address and phone number in the Johnson County District Court Records, since he had just been in our custody. His current address was down the street from my office! Could it have been any easier?

I immediately created an undercover persona of a 14-year-old female named Lacey. I placed a profile on the application “SayHi!” where Drew had previously contacted our Minnesota Detective. My profile contained only a single profile picture, which was obtained from a Sheriff’s Office employee with a signed consent form and then age regressed using some pretty cool software to make her look 14 years old. Mr. Peanuts contacted me, completely unprompted, that very DAY. I don’t think I need to explain to you how crazy that is. Of the thousands of profiles on “SayHi!” my suspect stumbled across my profile and contacted me the very day I made the profile in hopes of snooping around to gather information on him.

On 12/22/2020, I responded to Drew as the 14-year-old female and made sure to explicitly state I was 14 years old. I believe my exact words were, “Promise not to be mad if I tell you something? I’m only 14. I understand if you don’t want to chat with me anymore.” He had zero qualms about continuing the conversation. They never do. Later in the conversation I reminded him of my age by asking if he was absolutely sure he wanted to talk to me. He had begun making sexual comments and I wanted there to be no chance he could use ignorance of my age as a defense in court. Drew said, “I’m sure.”

At this point, I gave him my phone number in an attempt to move the conversation off of “SayHi!” and on to SMS messaging. This is an important investigative step. Typically, applications like “SayHi!” save very little information about their users and make it difficult to obtain messages, IP addresses, or other biographical information. Once a suspect sends me a text message, however, a simple subpoena will do two things for me.

First, it links the phone to the suspect “officially”. In our current legal system, if someone identifies themselves online by giving their name, sends you pictures of themselves, and the account clearly shows their identity, it’s still not enough to say that person is actually “behind the keyboard.” Essentially, the court has ruled it to be a valid defense that “someone else was using his account to communicate those terrible, illegal ideas.”

However, if you move the conversation to text message and subpoena the phone carrier, the phone carrier will tell you the subscriber information for that phone, which includes the name of the account’s user. And it’s much harder for a defendant to claim someone took their phone and communicated illegal ideas. Especially if I’ve been chatting with them for months or a year. Do you let a friend borrow your phone for six months at a time? Me neither.

The second thing a subpoena to the phone carrier will give me is the full subscriber information. In addition to name of the subscriber, the phone carrier will give me their home address, any other phone numbers associated, email addresses, and IP addresses. This is incredibly valuable information, as it also links the suspect to a residential address which can be searched for evidence with a search warrant later.

On 12/22/2020, at 16:21 hours, Drew texted me at the phone number I provided him, stating, “Hey its me form sayhi.” The phone number utilized by the suspect was the same number I identified as belonging to him according to County District Court Records. Another check on my list of ways to solidify the identify of a suspect.

During the conversation, Drew identified himself as “Redneckinit.” which is the profile name utilized by the suspect on the application “SayHi!” He then decided to try and blow my socks off with two unsolicited images of his erect penis. I should expect this by now, as these conversations typically go as follows:

Me – “Hi! I’m Lacey!"

Suspect – “Hi, Lacey! Have a look at my DICK!”

Bam! Unsolicited pictures of weird looking erections. No warmup or introduction at all. So, it shouldn’t surprise me anymore. But it still does occasionally. Especially when Drew followed the two dick pics with two unsolicited videos of him ejaculating. Yes, this is what your 14-year-old daughter may be exposed to while on social media. It’s not pretty. They don’t have to seek this stuff out to be on the wrong end (pun intended) of an unsolicited penis image.

On 12/23/2020, after an extended period of me ignoring his erection pictures, Drew requested an “image” of me in return. We all know what type of image he wanted but I have to make this idiot proof for the court system. I have to ask.

Me – “Lol! What kind of pic?...”

Drew - “What ever ull show but I would enjoy pussy the most. And do you want to see me bust one off?”

Yes, Drew. I’d love nothing more to see ANOTHER video of you ejaculating…

At this point in the investigation, I already have multiple felonies stacked up for Mr. Peanuts. Soliciting sexually explicit images of a child is a felony. As is providing sexually explicit images of yourself to a child.

To summarize so far, Drew initiated the conversation through both the “SayHi!” application, as well as SMS text messaging. He was positively identified as the sender of the messages from the above-mentioned phone number through jail booking photos, pawn receipts, photographs he sent to the undercover persona, and the subscriber information from T-Mobile. He acknowledged my undercover persona was 14-years of age and asked for pictures of my “pussy,” insisting he was okay with her being under age when asked.

Additionally, Drew initiated a conversation with our Minnesota Detective who was undercover as a 15-year old female on the same application, “SayHi!”. He also initiated SMS text messaging after being told his persona was 15 years of age. After acknowledging the undercover persona’s age, Drew asks for nude “images/videos”. He also states he’d be willing to travel to Minnesota to “meet up.”

It should be noted here that I have the ability to charge Mr. Peanuts with the felonies committed against my undercover persona AND the felonies committed against our Minnesota Detective’s undercover persona. This is because Drew was present in my jurisdiction when he sent all of the above messages, establishing my control over both crimes.

The last step in these investigations is to attempt to interview the suspect. Most District Attorney’s Offices will not charge someone with a crime unless they have the opportunity to speak to a Detective and offer an explanation or a defense. What defense this moron could have offered for his actions, I have no idea. But unfortunately, I have to give him the opportunity to bore me with excuses. Multiple attempts were made to contact him at his address and even his place of employment, but I could never find him. So, I considered this to be sufficient and sent this case up for charging.

Case closed! Another great investigation completed by yours truly. Right? Wrong. Almost a full YEAR after I sent this case up to be charged by the DA’s Office (and scratched it off of my case load, by the way) I received a very concerning phone call.

In the next edition of the “The Epidemic”, we'll dive into this phone call and the spiral of events that led to dozens of additional felony charges and evidence of human trafficking in my own backyard.

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