[Narrator] The following program documents real law enforcement
investigations of child sexual predators.
This deeply disturbing content may be triggering
for some viewers.
Please watch with care.
[dramatic music]
Next, Detective Tony Godwin zeroes in
on a horrific repeat offender.
[dramatic music continues]
This dude's a predator.
-[groaning] -[dramatic music continues]
[Tony] Now this weirdo is asking if a 13-year-old girl
is a virgin?
Holy crap.
[Narrator] Then the team pursues a predatory school janitor.
This guy's kinda sickening, right?
[Narrator] Who thinks he's arranged
to meet a child for sex.
But I'm on this case, and I'm determined to take him down.
[dramatic music continues]
[Narrator] And detectives join forces to snare a pastor
with unholy fantasies.
-[dramatic music continues] -[knock pounding]
[Officer] Police search warrant! Come to the door!
[dramatic music continues]
-Get on the ground! -[dramatic music continues]
[Narrator] A team of police professionals
in North Dallas has one goal--
[Officer] Get out of the car!
[Narrator] Take down online predators
before they harm a real child.
Child predators are everywhere.
[Narrator] Online predators pose the biggest danger
to America's children today.
Kids are being targeted at an alarming rate.
[Narrator] This team is opening its case files
for the first time
to show you how it tracks them down.
[dramatic music continues]
[Tony] All right, he's comin' this way.
[Narrator] And brings them to justice by any means necessary.
- [dramatic music continues] -Get in the car.
[Narrator] This Detective Tony Godwin, and his team is...
the Predator Hunters.
[suspenseful music]
January 2024: Tony and his team stop a dangerous predator
in his tracks.
What a deviant. What a twisted deviant!
[Narrator] He thinks he's meeting
a 13-year-old girl for sex.
- [Officer] Get out of the car! -[groaning]
[Narrator] Even after his fantasy is smashed...
[overlapping voices]
[Narrator] ...this repeat offender
refuses to face up to his crime.
[Officer] Okay.
-[punch thuds] -[sighing]
[Tony] They say lightning doesn't strike twice.
I know different.
This guy, Christopher Holloway,
he had a prior hands-on offense with a real child,
and he was already on the registered sex offender list.
He wanted to offend again, and I wasn't gonna let that happen.
[suspenseful music]
In January of 2024,
I'm online in an undercover capacity trolling a platform
called Chat Hour,
which is where a lot
of predatory types seem to congregate.
I start on Chat Hour with an undercover profile
of a 13-year-old female named Sarah from North Texas.
The profile picture that I use for this Sarah account is
from one of my colleagues,
who allows me to use her images from when she was 13.
My profile creation makes it very,
very clear this is a 13-year-old girl.
Once my profile is established,
I enter into a room for Texas and I just simply sit and wait.
[dramatic music]
I don't have to wait too long at all.
At 1:36 p.m.,
my Sarah profile gets an instant message
from a user named barnflyer55.
"Are you into older guys?"
I mean, I can't believe this guy.
Like, right off the bat, he's just jumpin' in that quick?
What a huge red flag.
I don't have any option but to just kind of stay in character
and I just reply back,
"Yeah, I'm interested in older guys."
[suspenseful music]
I tell him I'm 13, almost 14.
He tells me that he's in his 50s.
He acknowledges that my Sarah profile... kinda young... Duh.
40 years younger! What a deviant.
What a twisted deviant!
So this creepy guy has got my attention,
but I'm gonna give him a chance to do the right thing.
So I tell him: "We don't have to talk if you don't want to.
It's cool."
He probably should have walked away, but he doesn't.
Then he hits me with a really creepy question.
-[dramatic music continues] -[computer beeps]
I mean, what kind of response is this?
We've barely been chatting
and now this weirdo is gonna jump right into
this sexualized content,
asking if a 13-year-old girl is a virgin?
Holy crap.
Make no mistake,
the fact that this guy is steering
that conversation sexual, this dude's a predator.
He is the poster child for predator.
You look that up in the dictionary,
you're going to find this guy.
We keep talking, just tryin' to keep his interest going.
And what he says in return is unbelievable to me.
-[dramatic music continues] -[computer beeps]
It's disgusting to think that in five minutes,
this guy is already talking about pleasuring himself
or playing with himself.
This guy is really classic predatory
moves so far, really fast.
I need to get a better look at who this guy is.
When I click on his profile,
it shows me that he's got three publicly available photographs.
[tense music continues]
This is the dude
that just told a 13-year-old girl that he's masturbating?
What a creep!
It's an older, very overweight white male.
So I take a look at his profile,
and it gives me really specific stuff,
and he's in the Houston area.
[suspenseful music]
While all this information is really helpful
and it's documented for evidence, I need more.
I'd love to know this guy's name.
So for that,
I've gotta keep this thing goin' and chattin' with him.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[computer beeps]
Barnflyer's messages, they just keep coming
in and it's all really great evidence.
But then it turns sexual again.
He's referring to a man's genitals,
and I tell him: "Absolutely not. I'm 13."
I mean, what an absolute pig this guy is.
But I'm gonna to use this as an opportunity to test
and see if he's willing to travel.
[suspenseful music continues]
And he says, "Yeah, I am."
Later that day, about 5:51 p.m.,
I get a message from him on Chat Hour.
The message he sends is a friend request.
And now I can see those private photos.
[tense music]
What I see is utterly disgusting.
It is naked photos of the same dude doin' a selfie in a mirror,
thinking that it looks somehow sexy or cute
to show his genitalia off.
He's just committed a crime.
He just transferred obscene material to a minor.
I wanna get this guy identified and figure out who he really is.
So I reach out to my coworker,
Nick Sherry, to help me out with that.
[Nick] My name is Nicholas Sherry.
I'm a neighborhood police officer,
and I've been workin' with Tony for about five years now.
Tony gets in touch with me to do some research
on the social media handle Barnflyer55.
I do some digging through our law enforcement databases
and discover one name: Christopher Holloway.
I researched all the Christopher Holloways
in the state of Texas,
and I discovered a Christopher Holloway
with a date of birth of 11/23/1969.
I do a search on Christopher Holloway with that same date
of birth and discover his photo on his driver's license,
which matches the photo that he sent to Tony.
[tense music]
The vehicle that is registered
to Holloway is a black Ford pickup.
Once I've confirmed who Christopher Holloway is,
I discover something very serious.
1989, he was sentenced to a five-year prison sentence
for aggravated sexual assault of a child.
[suspenseful music continues]
He's on the sexual offender registry
for the rest of his life.
[dramatic music]
[Tony] The fact that a guy who's been through this system,
has been convicted, went to prison,
is now a registered sex offender for life, is right back at it.
This guy is clearly ready to offend again.
It's unacceptable on every human level.
In a best case scenario for me,
this guy travels from where he's at in Houston
to where I'm at in North Texas.
I wanna build a good, solid case for prosecution.
So now I just need him to make the date and time
and make it happen.
[suspenseful music]
In my undercover capacity,
I work sometimes 24/7, on duty, off duty, at the house.
It's the necessary evil for this job.
We've been talkin' for, like, a couple of months now.
This guy's paranoia is, like, through the roof.
[suspenseful music]
The next thing that he tells me is that he wants
to start talking by regular messaging,
SMS messaging between phones.
I give him my phone number for Sarah,
and that's just one of my undercover numbers that I use
for this job.
All of a sudden,
I get thrown a curve ball that kinda has me scrambling.
He wants a video call because he wants validation.
He wants to know, in his own mind,
I really am talking to a 13-year-old girl.
But I completely ghost him. And I go right through that.
And I tell him, "Will you do that first?
You show me around your place."
And guess what? He does.
[Tony] He starts to send me videos showin' me every part
of his house.
It's unbelievable.
[Tony] This video gives me really good evidence.
I mean, one, I hear the guy's voice.
It's kinda gravelly or growly.
I don't really know what's going on with that.
He shows his bed.
And then the biggest thing I take away from this is this TV.
Huge TV on the wall, probably 65 inches.
And all I see are cameras.
[Tony] Black truck is super helpful.
This is just confirmation on what Nick found
on the DMV search for this guy.
This is gold.
This video ends in the bathroom,
and his camera's pointed right at the mirror,
which shows him with no shirt on and black shorts.
If only this guy knew who he was sending the videos to.
Don't worry, he'll find out soon enough.
[Narrator] After three months of determined catfishing,
Detective Tony Godwin finally gets
Christopher Holloway to bite.
Holloway suggests that he and Sarah meet for a date.
-[suspenseful music] -[computer beeps]
At this point,
he crossed this line to say he wanted to meet
in person for sex.
Legally, he just committed a crime.
That's great evidence for me to give to a prosecutor.
[tense music]
The problem is, he's still super paranoid.
The next thing he says:
"Promise me you're not some [bleep] police."
I mean, sure.
You want me to promise I'm not a cop?
"I'm not a cop."
The next thing he says: "I mean, yeah, you're young,
but you asked me to do this."
Now he wants to shift the blame over to this child.
"You asked me to do this."
What an absolute depraved, disgusting, creepy, nasty,
evil human being.
I am hyperfocused to put Holloway away.
[suspenseful music]
The next day, much to my surprise,
he tells me he's on his way to Dallas.
He lets me know in his text which hotel he's staying in.
[suspenseful music continues]
At 10:37 p.m.,
I can see him on the CCTV for the hotel
and he's clearly intoxicated.
[suspenseful music continues]
I'm questioning whether this guy is gonna have the wherewithal
to wake up and drive to the meeting tomorrow.
He's baked.
I get the whole team spun up and in place
and let them know what's goin' on.
I'm tired of talkin' to this guy.
I'm ready to get his ass in jail.
[tense music]
Holloway sends a message and asks for the address
of where Sarah lives.
But then he's so cautious and paranoid, he's like,
"How are we gonna get away without your nosy
neighbors seein' things?"
So I just simply reply:
"Why don't we meet at the gas station right next door
to the apartment."
By 9:30 in the morning, on that Friday,
we've got everybody in place surrounding that gas station.
We're ready to go.
The adrenaline's pumping because we have a chance
to take someone down that needs to be arrested.
[GPS] You just turn on Glenbrook.
[Tony] I can't tell you how excited I am
to get this guy under arrest.
It's time to go.
I order the team, move in, make the arrest.
[Tony] Yeah. We're movin' now.
-[siren blares] -[indistinct chatter on radio]
[Officer] [Indistinct chatter]
-[Tony] Get that car! -Hands up!
[tense music]
[Tony] Hold on... Hold on.
[Officer] Let's move so we're not in front of it.
So I use my window punch to shatter the window.
-[tense music continues] -[groaning]
[Tony] When they pull him outta that truck,
they have to do so with violence.
This guy's big, right?
-[groaning] -[tense music continues]
[Tony] He hits the ground like a sack of 400 pounds of potatoes.
Bam! He's on the ground. It's great.
[groaning]
[Tony] We get him handcuffed. We finally get him stood up.
-Let's go. -For what?
[tense music continues]
[Tony] The team executes a search warrant
on Christopher Holloway's truck,
and in that truck they find a slip of paper
with the address written down of where Sarah lived.
In addition, they find condoms, Viagra, and lubricant.
When I see this guy getting escorted away in handcuffs,
like, I immediately have this, like, 5000-foot view
of it and think, "This is a really bad guy.
This is a dangerous guy."
This guy is a sexual predator, now two times over.
If I hadn't got him into custody,
there's no telling what kinda harm he could bring
to a real kid.
[wincing]
[Tony] Holloway is escorted to a patrol car,
where he's going to be transported down to the jail
for an interview.
[tense music]
[Tony] I hand over the interview duties
to my colleague, Detective Sanger.
Holloway openly talks about being a registered sex offender.
[Tony] He starts to play the blame game,
that because he's a registered sex offender,
he's always targeted, so woe is me.
"I'm the poor, wounded sex offender."
[Tony] This guy is living in an absolute fantasy land.
He has no idea what we've got on him or the fact
that that ain't happening.
He ain't gettin' none of this tossed.
[intense music]
This guy, Christopher Holloway,
was already a registered sex offender.
There are publicly available sites
that tell you where registered sex offenders do live.
Be diligent.
Look at those websites,
know who lives around you and in your community,
and be aware of that.
[Narrator] August 2010: Tony pursues a high school janitor
with an appetite for adolescents.
[dramatic music]
You, sir, are a pedophile.
[Narrator] He thinks he's meeting a 14-year-old
for ice cream and sex.
[Tony] Markle's sittin' in his vehicle.
[Narrator] But this is not going to be
the date he was hoping for.
[Tony] You're not gettin' ice cream today, John.
[tense music]
I've been doin' this job a long time.
I've got hundreds of these guys.
This guy, John Markle, he's one I remember.
He was so shameless in his approach.
I knew he was a danger to real kids.
We moved super quick, and within 48 hours, we had him in cuffs.
[tense music continues]
This case started in August of 2010.
Back then, the internet was a different beast.
Social media platforms, chatting,
they were just in their infancy stages.
Yahoo! chatrooms were really popular,
especially kids loved being on there.
But what that means is: where kids are, predators are.
I set up an undercover profile for a girl named Anna Lisa,
and she's 14 from North Texas.
I still have the screen recording
from that group I'm messaging on Yahoo!
[suspenseful music]
Once I got the profile established,
I go into the chat rooms.
I don't initiate anything because I need a predator
to set the tone and pace,
so I just sit and wait to be contacted.
You know, before I know it,
I've got multiple conversations goin' on
with multiple different users.
Most of those end as soon as I let them know that I'm 14,
because guess what?
That's the right thing to do.
Don't talk to children. But one... he keeps talking.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[computer beeps]
It's clear to me that he responded to my username based
on the age that I have in the username itself.
He doesn't get deterred at all.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[computer beeps]
I make it very clear that he's as old as my grandfather,
but it still doesn't deter this guy.
He clearly knows now, in his own mind,
that he's talkin' to a 14-year-old girl.
And so I ask him, like, "What are you doin' here?"
-[suspenseful music continues] -[computer beeps]
A woman?
If he's lookin' for a woman,
why is he talkin' to a 14-year-old girl?
-[suspenseful music continues] -[computer beeps]
This guy's already givin' me the creeps.
But then, without prompting,
he just tells me what his location is.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[computer beeps]
He's definitely layin' the groundwork
for wanting to meet.
I mean, based on our conversation now,
I really wanna get an eye on what this guy looks like.
So I ask him, "How come you don't have a profile pic?"
-[suspenseful music continues] -[computer beeps]
This guy does a reversal.
He does what I would normally do to him.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[computer beeps]
He really wants to know that he's talkin'
to a kid before he gives up what he looks like.
The profile pic I have is really small on Yahoo! chat,
so I need to send him some more.
I already have photos in place with this profile
from one of my colleagues,
who has graciously given me her permission to use her photos
from the ages I'm purporting to be for these undercover cases.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[computer beeps]
As soon as he tells me how good I look,
he sends one of himself to me.
[suspenseful music continues]
He's got a scorpion tattoo on his arm.
[suspenseful music continues]
That's something really pretty unique.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[computer beeps]
Yeah, you really could get in trouble.
I'm trouble for you.
You just don't know it yet.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[computer beeps]
30 minutes into this conversation
and this guy is already turnin' the conversation sexual.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[computer beeps]
Well, sir, that's really pretty forward.
You do know I'm only 14, right?
-[suspenseful music continues] -[computer beeps]
What a romantic.
[suspenseful music continues]
I just have to play along with it, and I do.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[computer beeps]
The fact that he specifically mentions he's not a pedophile?
Everything I've seen over the last hour tells me
quite the opposite.
You, sir, are a pedophile.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[computer beeps]
So to keep it goin', I ask him what he's doin' today.
His reply causes me a lot of concern.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[computer beeps]
And immediately alarm bells are goin' off in my head.
I'm thinking here I have a child predator
who's arranged his work life
to be in a school around small children?
[suspenseful music continues]
Wow. Huge red flag.
Does he have access to real kids?
Are real kids in danger?
Like, the urgency for me just went to the top of the list.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[computer beeps]
A couple hours into this conversation,
and now this guy wants to go on a date.
I mean, what does this guy think?
A 59-year-old dude with a 14-year-old girl and he wants
to go on a date?
But I'm on this case and I'm determined to take him down.
[suspenseful music continues]
The morning after our first day of chat,
I'm working from home for a little while.
And when I open up my computer,
I see this barrage of, like,
unanswered messages that have come in from this guy.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[computer beeps]
I mean, this guy is really desperate,
so I'm gonna throw him a bone, try to keep him on the hook.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[computer beeps]
That's my verbal seduction tactic right there.
I envision he's like, "She loves me."
-[suspenseful music continues] -[computer beeps]
Right away, he's right back at me.
So later that day,
I decide to ask him about that scorpion tattoo on his arm,
and he tells me it's a star sign.
He's a Scorpio.
So I ask him about his birthday and he tells me October 26th.
If, in fact, that's true,
havin' a date of birth like that is gonna go a long way
to help get this guy identified.
At this point,
I need him to arrange a meeting in person
and then bingo, it comes.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[computer beeps]
[Tony] I suggest that he can come over and meet me
at my apartment, but this seems to kinda spook him.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[computer beeps]
So I suggest the movie theater.
Then he offers to buy me ice cream.
This guy's kinda sickening, right?
He's going to lure a child to buy her an ice cream cone.
Ooh-hoo-hoo... Super creepy. He's movin' really fast.
We've been chattin' 48 hours, and we're now at this stage.
I gotta scramble to get a team together.
before the chat ends, he gives me some vital information.
He gives me his name.
That'll help us get you identified properly.
[suspenseful music continues]
Since this guy's willin' to give out useful information,
I'm gonna ask him for some more.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[computer beeps]
He tells me a silver Hyundai Santa Fe.
Now we know what to look for... Awesome.
[Narrator] Tony enlists Detective Clint McNear
to help unmask the Grade School Ghoul.
So Tony tells us what we have so far.
We've got a name of John. We know that he's a janitor.
We know that he's 59 years old,
and he gives us a date of birth of October the 26th.
That's gonna give us his year of birth.
John was born in 1950.
So I run these two key pieces of evidence
through the police database, and we get a hit:
John George Markle, 59 years old.
Date of birth: October 26th, 1950.
The photo on the driver's license matches the photo
that he sent to Tony.
The address on his driver's license comes back
at Lake Ray Hubbard.
He also told Tony he lives near the lake.
With this hit, we've got our guy, and I'll let Tony know.
[suspenseful music]
[Narrator] Tony and his team are in position
to take down a school janitor who believes he's meeting
a minor for ice cream and sex.
[Tony] This is Detective Godwin, we are at the movie theater.
We are here to effect the arrest of one John Markle.
This is a photo of a vehicle similar to what he described
in an internet chat log.
We will have units parked all around the theater,
unmarked, as well as
officers staged inside the movie theater itself.
Mr. Markle is believing to come to the theater to meet up
with a 14-year-old female for the purposes
of a sexual relationship.
[Tony] Clint and I are set up
in the parking lot where Markle arrives.
It's 3:32 p.m.
We're here in front of the movie theater.
That's Mr. Markle sitting in his vehicle.
You can see that he's lookin' down the street towards
Cold Stone Creamery, which is, uh,
one of the places he had mentioned visiting
or meeting the, uh, the victim at.
Is he watching the store or us?
[Clint] Uh, he's... lookin' both directions.
[suspenseful music]
[Tony] We have eyes on him.
Yeah, I think internally,
his little hamster's runnin' full speed, and he's like, "Man,
I'm gonna meet this girl and I'm gonna get her ice cream,
and then I'm gonna take her home
and I'm gonna do somethin' sexual to her.
That's what I think is goin' on in his mind.
[suspenseful music continues]
Takedown moments are the most stressful part for me
because there's so many things that could go wrong.
[suspenseful music continues]
These are really unknown situations.
Like, granted, we can see this guy sittin'
in a car smoking a cigarette,
but we don't know what kinda threat he is.
Like, he could have a gun in there.
He could have a knife.
So I'm continually communicating with my takedown team,
and once I know everybody, where they are in position,
I give the order to take him down.
[tense music]
I've got my gun out. You've gotta be ready.
[tense music continues]
[Tony] This is Detective Godwin.
This is the arrest of Mr. Markle.
[tense music continues]
I enjoy snatchin' a sick person outta their car
and stoppin' them from what they think they're about to do.
[tense music continues]
[Tony] We've definitely caught John Markle
with his Ooda loop all jacked up.
He's so off guard, he has no idea what's goin' on.
Now he's swarmed by cops.
[tense music continues]
The vehicle he drove is exactly what he said he'd be driving:
a silver Hyundai Santa Fe.
[tense music continues]
I'll get a license plate on it here in a moment.
He'll be transported to the police department
and booked into the jail at that location.
You're not gettin' ice cream today, John.
You'll be lucky if you get in time to get a bologna sandwich.
[tense music continues]
In the interview with John Markle,
he freely admits he was there to meet a minor.
I believe if he had not got taken down by the cops
and a real kid would have shown up for that ice cream,
he would have absolutely, 1,000%,
bought her the ice cream, took her somewhere,
and sexually abused her.
[intense music]
[Narrator] The team's next case focuses on this man.
[suspenseful music]
I'm glad you chose to join us here for worship.
[Narrator] To his congregation, he's their devoted pastor.
Now, let us celebrate Christ's resurrection
as we worship together.
[suspenseful music continues]
[Narrator] Online, he's sending pornographic images to a child.
He sends pictures of himself,
and his genitals are visible in every picture.
[Narrator] And when his crimes catch up with him...
-[suspenseful music continues] -[knock pounding]
[Narrator] ...this predator begs for forgiveness.
[suspenseful music continues]
[Tony] Many predators lead a double life.
They have a public persona that seems completely normal,
but then they have a darker side.
That was never more true than with this guy, Gregory Barnes.
This guy had access to real children.
We had to act fast and take him down.
[suspenseful music continues]
My colleague, Brandon Poor, he ran point on this case.
He drove it and brought me in to help.
[suspenseful music continues]
[Brandon] In July of 2020,
I go on an application called AntiLand,
which is a chat platform
that has a deleting message feature.
It is designed to keep a user anonymous,
and that tends to lend itself very well
for someone who's a predator looking to harm children.
I log in to my profile, which is KylieGirl13TX.
I get a message
from a user named Greg who says: "Hi, Kylie."
[suspenseful music continues]
I click on his profile. It tells me a little bit
of information about him.
And what I see is he's in the 55-plus age range.
Right away he wants to know how old I am,
and I tell him I'm 13 years old.
[suspenseful music continues]
It certainly sends up a red flag,
because the normal people we talk to
in those circumstances tell us, "You're way too young.
Don't ever message me again."
And then he wants to know if I like talking to old men.
And, pretty quickly, he turns things sexual.
[suspenseful music continues]
It's clear in my mind now.
He's a degenerate sexual predator looking
for a kid to harm.
And now it's my job to take him out of circulation.
[Narrator] Detective Brandon Poor is in pursuit
of a 60-year-old predator.
[suspenseful music]
[Brandon] He asked me for a picture of myself.
And in order to do that,
we have to do it somewhere off of the AntiLand platform.
So he sends me his cell phone number.
[suspenseful music continues]
A cell phone number sometimes gives us a way
to track down who this person really is.
I send a photo of a colleague of mine that's given me permission
to use her pictures.
And the benefit of that is I actually get one
in return from him.
[suspenseful music continues]
He's a middle-aged guy with a gray beard and glasses.
I now have a clear idea of who I'm talking to.
[suspenseful music continues]
What's concerning is he's telling me
that he's already talked to younger girls like me before.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[phone beeps]
Yeah, I think you're a bad guy.
I think you're the definition of a predator.
You're someone who's 60 years old,
talking in a sexual way to a kid.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[phone beeps]
And then, unexpectedly,
he reveals something that I would have never thought of.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[phone beeps]
He tells me he's talking to a guy who likes sissy men.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[phone beeps]
What?
-[suspenseful music continues] -[phone beeps]
What 13-year-old knows what a sissy man
and a dominant man are?
I think he's just lost it.
[suspenseful music continues]
Then he sends me pictures of himself in lingerie.
[suspenseful music continues]
For the most part, his genitals are visible in every picture.
[suspenseful music continues]
And if I didn't think it could get worse,
then he sends me pictures and videos of sex toys
and videos of the use of these sex toys as well.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[phone beeps]
He's sending me all of these extremely graphic pictures.
At this point, it's a good idea to get an analyst involved,
and that's where Tavie can come in,
tryin' to find out who this person really is.
[suspenseful music continues]
[Tavie] So Brandon gives me a phone number,
and he's hoping that I can run this phone number
in our database and get him some information back.
And I do get full subscriber information
for this cell phone number.
[suspenseful music continues]
What I get is a Gregory Kent Barnes,
and he's a 60-year-old white male.
He lives in Glen Rose, Texas,
which is about 75 miles southwest of Dallas.
Our database has also given me a good photo back.
[suspenseful music continues]
This photo does match the photos
that he has sent to Brandon in their chats.
[suspenseful music continues]
[Brandon] I do an internet search on Gregory Barnes
and I find one of the most shocking
and perhaps worst things that I can find out.
As we begin our Palm Sunday service,
Let me share a few verses out of the Psalms with you.
He's actually a minister at a local church.
These online services would--
[Brandon] Talk about a hypocrite.
I think of him as a wolf in shepherd's clothing.
He is risen.
He's supposed to be a man of God.
I'm glad you chose to join us here for worship.
And he's talking to a 13-year-old
in indescribable ways.
[suspenseful music continues]
There's one message that really concerns me.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[phone beeps]
He's got access to kids.
And with what he's talked about, watching girls at the pool,
that's a huge problem for me.
[suspenseful music continues]
On July 20th, 2020, I'm talking about normal everyday life.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[phone beeps]
And he suggests that maybe he'll come pick me up,
[suspenseful music continues]
I think, "Okay,
this is gonna be a meet and we're gonna plan a takedown."
-[suspenseful music continues] -[phone beeps]
But then he expresses to me that he's always a little nervous
about meeting someone online in real life,
and so he requests something that is pretty common:
a proof pic.
He wants me to hold up a sign with his name on it.
My coworker has given me pictures already and agrees
to take this picture to prove that I'm a real kid.
[Narrator] Brandon is unable to reveal the photos
of his fellow officer.
He uses them today in ongoing child predator cases.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[phone beeps]
[Brandon] He's very excited.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[phone beeps]
He's absolutely convinced he's grooming and talking
to a real child.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[phone beeps]
His intentions are clear.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[phone beeps]
Then he tells me he's going to come to Dallas.
[suspenseful music continues]
[Brandon] I know that he's a danger based
on what he's been sending me,
but also he has access to real kids.
I make one last decision.
I'm not gonna wait for him to come to me.
I'm gonna go to him.
[suspenseful music continues]
[suspenseful music]
[Narrator] Detectives Tony Godwin
and Brandon Poor are
about to swoop in on the home
of 60-year-old preacher/predator, Greg Barnes.
-[suspenseful music continues] -[knocking pounds]
[Tony] Nobody's answerin' the door; they're bangin' loudly.
They're announcing, "Police, search warrant."
[suspenseful music continues]
That really kind of ups the anxiety for everybody there.
We have no idea what's goin' on behind closed doors.
They could be deleting evidence.
They could be retrieving weapons.
So it's really a tense moment.
[knock pounding]
[Tony] Yeah, eventually the door opens and there's Barnes.
He's kinda lookin' a little haggard and bewildered.
[suspenseful music continues]
We pull him and his family out before we go in
and start conducting a search.
[suspenseful music continues]
[Brandon] What's that smell in there, garbage?
Unbelievable.
We're able to recover nine devices capable of connecting
to the internet and a bag of goodies:
women's underwear, lingerie, sex toys.
[suspenseful music continues]
I start conducting on-scene forensic examinations of some
of the electronic devices while Tony's interviewing Mr. Barnes.
Barnes is wearin' a mask because it's 2020,
and we're right in the middle of the pandemic.
[Tony] I really want Barnes to talk to me and open up.
And so I just kinda play it slow and see how it goes.
It's a little hard to read because he's behind a mask,
obviously, but look at his eye.
Like, this guy's blinkin', like, 100 times a second.
All I see initially here is fear.
[Tony] I mean, listen to what this guy's saying.
He just admitted to a crime:
transfer of obscene material to a minor.
Think of what this guy just admitted to:
that he sends his penis pictures to a 13-year-old child
and all of the sexual content,
so that he seems like less of a horrible person in his own mind?
Like, what kinda paradigm is this guy operating
in that he can do this, and then out of... like,
at the flip of a switch,
go right to church and preach in front of a congregation?
[Tony] He never intended to, really?
Like you never intended
to send her deviant sexually graphic videos and images
with sex toys?
[tense music]
Bro, you are unhinged.
We now have a full admission of the true intent
of Gregory Barnes to come and show up and have sex
with a minor.
While you would love to hit that rewind button
to make this day go away, that is simply not going to happen.
It's never going away.
[intense music]
[Narrator] Immediately after questioning Gregory Barnes,
Tony and Brandon visit the leader of his church
to inform him of the situation.
So what we investigate is online...
um, investigations that have to deal with, like,
child solicitation, child pornography,
any sort of exploitative thing.
So I've been conducting an investigation
that involves Mr. Barnes,
and we've just come from his house,
where we executed a search warrant.
From what I'm seeing, being involved in what's going on,
there have been certainly some components that have been goin'
on an awful long time.
Im going to have to tell our staff
A warning to you predators: no two of you are alike.
It's my goal in life.
As long as I'm a cop, I will find you and track you down.
[suspenseful music continues]