Original subtitles

Next, Detective Tony Godwin

tracks down one of the most dangerous predators

he's ever encountered.

If that doesn't scream kidnapping, predator,

I don't know what it does scream.

Then, Tony teams up with the FBI to go on a manhunt

for a predator who wants to have sex with a ten-year-old.

And later, a cunning predator

uses role play to hide his desire

to meet up with a 14-year-old girl.

Get on the ground!

A team of police professionals

in North Dallas has one goal:

Get out of the car!

take down online predators

before they harm a real child.

- Child predators are everywhere. - Online predators

pose the biggest danger to America's children today.

Kids are being targeted at an alarming rate.

This team is opening its case files

for the first time to show you how it tracks them down.

All right, he's coming this way.

And brings them to justice by any means necessary.

Get in the car.

This is Detective Tony Godwin,

and his team is the Predator Hunters .

It's May 2022, and Tony is on the hunt

for one of the most depraved predators

he's ever come across.

Thank God it's me he sent it to

and not a real 13-year-old kid.

It's disturbing on every level imaginable.

But when he attempts to arrest him,

the predator throws Tony a curveball.

The fact that we have to move from plan A to plan B,

it elevates the risk level.

And when it's time to face justice,

he lays out his crimes in a letter to the victim's family.

It's rare that I pull this card and play it.

This is nothing but an evidence slam dunk for the case.

Juan Menchu.

This guy looks like a normal guy in his 30s,

but evil hides in plain sight sometimes.

This dude sent a video of himself masturbating

to what he thought was a 13-year-old girl

while she was in school. Unbelievable.

My two colleagues, Tavie Guthrie and Norma Gonzalez,

they helped me take this guy down.

On May 17th of 2022,

I began an online undercover proactive investigation

on an application called MocoSpace.

MocoSpace is a social media platform.

It allows users to share messages privately

or in a group.

So I started off by making a MocoSpace profile.

I set up the girl named Katie. She's 13 years old.

I use a profile picture of one of my colleagues

who's given me consent and permission

to use pictures from when she was that age.

I can't show that photo because it's part

of other ongoing investigations right now,

which could be compromised if I released it.

13 is a specific age that I picked because in Texas,

if you commit a crime online against a child that's under 14,

it's an enhancement.

It moves it from a third degree to a second degree felony,

which just gives somebody more time in prison if convicted.

Once I have the profile established, I get tons,

I mean, probably close to 100 friend requests.

I get instant messages coming to me.

One of them kind of stood out.

His name was Diablito, Little Devil,

and that really caught my attention.

"You're so beautiful."

It's a huge flag for me.

I go to Diablito's profile to document that for evidence.

It says he's a 31-year-old male from Austin, Texas.

On initial thought, I'm thinking,

hey, he looks like a normal dude.

I wanted to ensure that he remembered I am a kid.

I send him a message,

"Hey, I'm almost 14. Is that okay?"

And he replies back,

"It's okay with you, it's okay with me.

We don't do anything bad. We just talk."

The behavior itself is super shady.

This guy clearly knows he's talking to a 13-year-old.

He's clearly living up to his name, The Little Devil.

He then says, "How about you text me?"

And he gives me a phone number. Like, boom, just like that.

This is really predatory behavior.

Diablito sends me a message.

"Good morning. It's me, Vin, or Diablito from Moco."

I've got a phone number.

I've got a potential first name or a portion of a first name.

Things are rolling really quickly, and I like it.

I have my analyst, Tavie Guthrie,

to help me dig in and figure out who this guy is.

It's amazing that Tony's been able to get me this phone number

as fast as he has.

So now I've plugged this number into some of our databases,

and it's given me a lot of information back.

Tavie's research reveals Diablito's real name,

Juan Vicente Menchu Ajpacaja.

So now we know Vin's full name and date of birth, 9/20 of '90.

And we also found out that he lives about 180 miles

outside of Dallas in Austin, Texas.

He also does not have a vehicle registered to his name.

I'm going to need to let Tony know about that.

So over the next couple of weeks,

Vin and I, we are texting it back and forth a whole bunch,

and his texts are getting more and more sexualized.

He sends me this message.

"You just make me feel so horny right now."

Huh? What?

He said, "I just imagine

how I'm going to kiss your body and do it so slowly."

What a romantic, huh?

He asked me, "Where are you at right now?"

And I tell him, "I'm in class."

Within seconds of telling him I'm in class,

he sends me a video of himself masturbating.

Thank God it's me he sent it to and not a real 13-year-old kid.

I mean, it's disturbing on every level imaginable.

I could pursue with an arrest warrant,

but in order to get him across the line with a higher charge,

I need him to arrange a meeting in person

for a sexual relationship.

And when that happens, I need to have a ton

of my people behind me to get him in custody and arrest him.

I mean, a little less than three weeks later,

I get a message back from Menchu.

And what happens next is he says, "How about Monday?"

As soon as he gets here, I'm going to lock his butt up.

Tony brings in Detective Norma Gonzalez

for the takedown operation.

It's always been a passion of mine

since I was, like, five years old,

wanting to be in law enforcement.

I feel the satisfaction of working those kind of cases

is just the victims. They don't have a voice.

They're the most defenseless victims that are out there.

I'm usually part of Tony's takedown team.

And he posts us in different streets

around the apartment complex.

Once the vehicle come in the apartment complex,

we come in behind them.

We don't know what he's driving, but we know what he looks like.

So that's kind of what we're looking for.

The person driving the vehicle,

is this our offender coming into the apartment complex?

7:58 a.m. This is a investigation

of online solicitation of a minor.

A scheduled meet has been set by

the subject of this investigation,

Juan Vicente Menchu.

Biggest hurdle we have

is Menchu does not have a vehicle registered

in his name that we have found.

And that presents really big issues for us.

We are really, like, on a wing and a prayer.

Everybody's looking.

Everybody's calling out different vehicles.

It's so chaotic.

There's far more radio traffic. It's a lot to process.

We're at a little bit of a disadvantage,

but we have covert units all over.

Close by are more than a dozen

uniformed and plainclothes officers.

But when he's minutes away, he shifts the goalpost.

He just texted,

indicating he was 11 minutes away

and for who he believes to be a 13-year-old female

to meet him at the gas station next door to the apartments.

It's a nightmare scenario.

The fact that we have to move from plan A to plan B,

it elevates the risk level.

This predator is one slippery customer.

He could go there,

he could see someone, a child, that looks like Katie,

which really presents a very huge problem.

He could see the cops coming in

to get set up for the potential meet with him.

There's so many variables

I have to think about and consider.

Tony and his takedown team redeploy

to a gas station to intercept child predator Juan Menchu.

One problem, he won't tell them what car he's driving.

How do we know where to put people?

How do we know who to go approach?

How do we know when to move in

if we don't know what we're looking for?

Menchu sends me this message.

I ask him, yet again, "What color car?"

I'm flipping out at this point.

I'm wondering, is this guy ever going to tell me

what the hell kind of car he's in?

Finally, he comes back and tells me he's in a white car.

Why does that have to be so difficult?

Now, knowing what the vehicle looks like

gives us more an advantage.

We sit in our vehicle, try not to be seen,

and we just wait for them to give us the okay of,

you know, hey, we have eyes on them, everybody move in.

So right before me, as Katie, is about to walk across

from the complex to this gas station,

Menchu sends the creepiest message ever and says,

"I'll be at the gas pump. The door's unlocked.

"I need you to get in the back seat and cover up

with a jacket or blanket that's in the back."

If that doesn't scream kidnapping, predator,

I don't know what it does scream.

The weirdest, bizarre request

I've ever gotten from a predator, ever.

I give the order to take him down.

My boss hands me Menchu's cell phone.

That phone is really important in this case,

because that's going to hold all the chats between he and Katie.

When a motel key is found by the arresting officer,

you could pretty much glean from that that his intentions

the whole time was to take Katie back to a hotel

to perform whatever sex acts he had envisioned.

All right. We met out there at the scene for a moment.

My name's Tony. I'll give you my card.

Why do you think you're sitting here today?

What's her name? What's the girl's name?

But you don't remember her name?

Do you know how old she was?

You sure?

What if I told you she's 13?

She's 13.

Do you remember that?

I probably know more about this than you think I do,

because the way it was reported to us,

like, I've seen a lot of the conversations that you had.

Did you send her any nude pictures?

Did you ever send her a picture of your privates?

You sure?

Okay. So, some of the communications that I saw,

you talked about, obviously, having sex with her.

You told her you didn't want to?

Oh, you want to, but you don't want to.

He acknowledges that,

yes, he talked to this child about having sex.

I did, of course, I wanted to do it, but I'm nervous, I'm scared.

Yeah, you're scared.

If we hadn't showed up and that girl would have

got in the car, you would have taken her to the hotel?

Well, be honest now.

I have a hard time believing that,

but you're telling me

that wasn't going to happen today?

If the police hadn't come in and she showed up?

I don't know, man. I have a hard time believing that.

At the end of the day, I think he would have

happily followed through with his promises

had the cops not scooped him up.

Now, I do something kind of unusual.

If you could say something or write a letter to her parents

to say anything, is that something you'd like to do?

You wouldn't do it?

I mean, I can give you a paper and a pen

and you can write something out if you want.

It's rare that I pull this card and play it,

but I do because of the way

the interview was going and his back and forth,

you know, BS excuses for things.

I am surprised that he agrees to do it.

This is nothing but

an evidence-based slam dunk for the case.

In summary, this is what it says.

"Hello, my name is Juan. The reason for this letter

"is to apologize for inappropriate thoughts

"I have with children. I'm very happy

"that you guys are there to care for your daughter.

I ask for your forgiveness to be here in this situation."

After a forensic review of his device,

we found no CSAM,

and no other communications with other children.

I was really not pleased with the sentence.

I felt like he deserved far more time.

I have to sort of let it go and release it,

because I'm looking for the next guy to put in prison.

January 2023,

a predator tells an undercover FBI agent

that he wants to have sex with the agent's daughter.

The fact that he's interested in sex

with a ten-year-old child

catapults this guy to one of the highest risks possible.

When Tony catches up with him...

...he pushes to get to the truth.

Justin Peters, this case, this one really stuck with me.

This guy said he regrets

kind of going into these online forums, yet he was there

to engage in a sex act with a ten-year-old.

A ten-year-old.

Thanks to the work of a special agent

in Philadelphia who made a referral,

Jen and I were able to track this guy down

and stop him before he acted with a real kid.

It's January, 2023. This case begins

when FBI Special Agent Jennifer Mullican reaches out.

- Hi Tony. - Hey superstar, how are you?

I'm good.

So this is a lead that was sent to me

from an agent in Philadelphia.

He was an undercover persona on Kik.

Kik is a social media platform for mobile phones only

and it is littered with predatory types.

Not just in a chatting realm,

but in a child sex abuse material

being openly shared and traded.

So our undercover agent was a dad offering up

- his ten-year-old daughter. - Oh, dirty dad.

Offering up a child we know sounds shocking and sickening,

but it does happen.

That's a ploy we use and when it works,

it pays off with dividends.

Tony and Jen analyze the Kik conversation

between an undercover FBI agent and a suspected child predator.

This user is xpunk-trashx.

Pretty sick one.

Our undercover agent was a dad offering up

his daughter and xpunk-trashx jumped on it.

In a room or a group or something?

- It was a group chat. - Oh, okay.

Then they transitioned to one-to-one chat.

Oh, so that means it's going to be

really, really horrible stuff. Files, I guess, were exchanged?

Files were exchanged.

The first group that they were in was Lolita Caesars,

and then they transitioned.

Oh, look at that hashtag. "MapCPKids."

Man, I know where this is going.

In the child exploitation world, MAP stands for...

minor attracted person.

And Lolita is representative of a little sexualized girl.

They create these terms to avoid detection

from not only the platform,

to also avoiding detection by law enforcement.

So our undercover posts in the group chat,

and then he's immediately contacted by xpunk-trashx.

And they transition

to one-to-one chat messaging with each other.

"So you have stuff with your daughter?

That's pretty hot, not going to lie."

Our undercover says, "To clarify, I don't keep it.

I let others bang while I film."

Offering up a child we know sounds shocking and sickening,

but it does happen.

Remember, this undercover officer

is playing a role.

It's a tactic that works to find predators.

trash-punk says "I'd love to see you or be involved.

How young is she?"

And our undercover says 10.

How young is your daughter?

I guess that's a pretty telling thing

on what he's looking for or wanting to do.

So what comes next is,

"If you're legit and near Philly, it's all good."

And then that's when xpunk lets him know that he's in Texas.

I've got to get this guy identified.

Tony scours the chat transcripts for clues

that can reveal the identity of xpunk-trashx.

The FBI agent, he asked punk-trash to verify.

Verification when you're in a group means you have to

upload some sort of contraband

to be validated as legit and not law enforcement

before you're able to see and download

additional content offered by other members.

So the agent is expecting CSAM, but that's not what he gets.

He sends a photo of himself thinking that'll verify.

It kind of tells me this is probably our real guy.

As things stand right now,

this guy really hasn't committed an offense yet.

And so the agent needs to make sure

that this guy is the predator that he thinks he probably is.

And so he's like, "I don't want to see a picture of your face."

"I want you to verify the usual way."

"Think of the group that you're in."

punk-trash sends four images

of very, very graphic child sex abuse material.

I mean, really young stuff, toddler age. Horrible.

Under our penal code in Texas, that's a felony.

What the agent does next is really smart.

He asks punk-trash if he's ever played in real life,

which means, have you done a sexual offense with a real kid?

And punk-trash says he has.

He's done something with a 14-year-old boy.

That's the most crushing blow that could be given to me.

Somebody had an opportunity to prevent that

and failed to do so.

And as a result, a real kid is victimized.

The FBI agent, he sends a subpoena to Kik,

to get the subscriber information

on the punk-trash account.

The Kik return comes back with an email address.

I do an open source search on the email address

from the Kik return,

and I discover a Discord page and a Spotify account,

and both of those are under the name Justin Robert Peters.

Now I've got a name tied to punk-trash.

I run that name through a police database,

I come up with a physical address

and driver's license photo.

And that photo compared to the uploaded selfie

sent to the agent in Philadelphia are a 100% match.

In my mind, this guy is an immediate danger to children.

And now I have an idea of where he lays his head at night.

5:30 a.m. Tony and his team

prepare to raid the home of Justin Peters.

They must be ready to react

if the situation turns volatile.

We never know what we're going to encounter

on the opposite side of the door.

It's definitely heart-stopping

when you knock on the door and then you hear dogs barking.

The door is set back several feet, and what we

call that in law enforcement is the fatal funnel.

Because if you're going to get engaged with gunfire,

that's where it's going to happen.

And so the object is to knock and announce

and then get out of that fatal funnel.

Detective Tony Godwin hunts for

predator Justin Peters at his last known address.

Justin's mom comes to the door and talks to us.

We're not trying to give problems to his mom,

because she has nothing to do with this.

Where's Justin?

I need to know that he's not going to get tipped off

that the cops just went through his door.

And so time is of the essence for me.

Justin's mom doesn't know her son's whereabouts.

Tony's team shifts gears to trace him another way.

I get word back that Justin is in East Dallas.

I put a part of my team on finding Justin,

and they tell me, like, hey, we found the location.

He's not here, but he's told his friends

that he walked to a job interview.

He's inside of this local business

and he's filling out an application for employment.

So I tell him,

"Hold the front door, we're on our way."

As we're driving to the location,

Tony and I are developing a game plan.

We're trying to get there as fast as we can,

because we don't want the offender to look outside

and see that there's a cop in the parking lot.

Because you're ready for this to be done.

We're ready to get our hands on our target.

When I tell him he's under arrest

and he asks me what he did,

I so badly want to just tell him,

"You're a pedophile. I got you.

You wanted to go have sex with a child in Pennsylvania."

But I can't do that. He's oblivious at this point.

He doesn't have a clue.

Time to play nicey-nice with this guy, right?

Yeah.

Kind of soft-soap him a little bit,

see if he's going to open up and talk.

I need this guy to tell me exactly what he did

and what he intended to do.

I'm not going to give up until he does so.

And if I got to get mean and hard with him, I will.

In one realm, he's trying to seek out words

that do not make him sound like a pedophile,

when that's what he is. And the other side of him is

he's so shell-shocked that I know about this information,

he can't even formulate a thought.

He's trying to come up with these excuses.

This guy's an absolute pervert.

He's in a chat room trying to make arrangements to have sex

with a ten-year-old kid.

He's absolutely not looking for help.

He's looking for like-minded individuals.

Peter's case is very disturbing.

But one takeaway parents have is that online predators

have a tendency to use code words or little emojis

to represent certain things.

Something simple like a slice of pizza

is a representation for child pornography.

The term cheese pizza is also another code word

for child pornography. Educate yourself and your kids,

because things may not be as innocent as they appear.

Yeah, 10-4.

He is backing into a spot right by the mailboxes right now.

Detective Tony Godwin

is hunting a predator

who is advertising online for a daughter.

He calls it role play, but it's pure depravity.

And now...

He's about to face the full force

of Tony's takedown team.

There's a small group of predators

that are highly sophisticated and polished,

like this guy, Christopher Williams.

He presented as a model citizen.

We have to prioritize these types for investigations,

especially when we find out they have access to children.

On August 18th of 2011,

I'm online proactively seeking out the most deviant people

that are out there looking for children.

I'm on the market site Craigslist.

I go into the personal section called "casual encounters."

I know that this is where predatory types hang out,

looking for kids.

One particular ad grabs my attention.

This posting makes reference to role play, daddy/daughter.

But as you continue through the ad and he mentions

"Under 20 moves to the top of the line,"

indicates to me that he really has a propensity for kids,

but he's not able to articulate that in his ad,

because that ad would get flagged and tossed out.

He could be looking to target someone who's underage.

And he will probably land on a real kid

if I don't do something to intervene.

I'm using my 14-year-old persona, Britany,

who's from the Dallas area. I have used this profile

and arrested tons and tons of predatory types.

I respond, "Hey, I'm 14. Is that cool?"

Only 20 minutes later, I get a reply from a guy named CW.

"Yeah, your age is cool.

As long as you know how to be discreet."

The fact that he wants me to be discreet

right from the jump tells me that he is

very, very aware of what he's doing is illegal and wrong.

So it's game on. I'm now in pursuit of a real predator.

Detective Tony Godwin is working overtime

to reel in a child predator with the username CW.

So I start to engage with CW as Britany,

kind of talking in teen speak. He replies within minutes.

" That's cool.

"Are you looking to just chat and talk?

Or are you actually looking to meet and get some experience?"

He jumps right into how he has a role play fantasy

and that a young girl would fit perfectly into that scenario.

His role play suggestion is simply an excuse.

He's actually looking to

have a sexual relationship with a child.

I really want to catch this guy.

The next morning, he's messaging me through the app.

"Hi there. I'm turned on that you're so young

and wanting to explore. Chris."

So for the first time, he signed off with a real name, Chris.

Now I'm really excited,

because it's one more piece of the puzzle that I have

and hopefully we'll be able to get him identified soon enough.

Over the next three days,

Chris and Tony exchange dozens of messages.

We're communicating back and forth,

like an exhaustive amount.

The reality is he's telling this to

what he believes to be a child.

He knows this is a crime.

I have absolutely no doubt in my mind

that Chris is an absolute child predator.

I'm locked in at this point. I want to take this guy down.

Now he wants to know what I look like.

That's really a door that opens up for me

an opportunity to gather additional evidence,

because I'm going to ask him to reciprocate

and also send me photos of himself.

Next thing you know,

he sends me four different images of himself.

And what I have is a bald, middle-aged white male

with a pretty significant goatee.

I know your name, I know what you look like.

Now I'm coming after you.

I send two photos of what is being purported as Britany.

I do have the availability to do that

through one of my coworkers.

So she's provided me with plenty of photographs

to use from when she was 14.

And he replies, "Oh, wow, Britany, you're super cute.

You look a little older, almost 15."

What? Thank you, sir. He knows I'm underage.

Thank you for that admission, Chris.

I appreciate you admitting to a crime,

online solicitation of a minor.

But then Chris tells me something

that really alarms me.

He has a daughter, and she's nine years old.

Immediately, I know I need to escalate things

because he has access to a child.

And I really need to figure out who he is

and get him in custody.

So I decide I'm going to push the envelope just a little bit.

And I ask him if he wants to text me.

If I have his phone number, I can exploit that

and get all the intelligence I need about who he is.

He's nice enough to say, "Yeah, absolutely."

Now I have a cell phone number,

perfect information that I can use.

I'm going to pass this over to Detective Casteel,

let him dig in and figure out who the guy is.

Tony brings me a cell phone number,

and he asked me to run it through the police database.

Getting a cell phone number is a good piece of the puzzle.

We can generally develop

a suspect on a cell phone number.

I get a hit on Christopher Lance Williams of Dallas, Texas.

I find out that he works in dental technology.

I locate the driver's license of Christopher Lance Williams,

and I pull up the photograph.

And that photograph matches the pictures

that had been sent to Tony.

I'm feeling great. This is a positive identification.

So the next day, Christopher Williams

asks if Britany's available to meet in person,

and then suggests, "Hey, we can watch porn.

You can practice on me."

He's now indicated we're going to meet in person,

we're going to perform these sex acts.

He's just committed this crime for me.

I can issue a warrant for his arrest and pick him up.

Whenever Tony calls me, we get excited.

We like taking these guys down.

We like taking them off the street.

I set up surveillances on his home address.

And I set up surveillances on his work address.

It's a big step in our case.

We'll actually even watch them at their house

and actually follow them into the takedown location.

So we're on for a takedown tomorrow.

Detective Mark Casteel waits for

child predator Christopher Williams to show up.

Detective Godwin has been

in contact with this subject, we believe, here.

Christopher Williams.

Williams has made arrangements to come meet Detective Godwin,

who he believes is a minor,

to come here to have sex with her.

We do not know his vehicle for sure,

he has said it was a red Ford pickup, I believe.

And hopefully, he'll be showing up here very shortly.

I generally instruct the surveillance units

on what's going on.

And Tony will generally give the takedown signal.

So I position myself at the complex where

I have a good visual of where Williams is going to park.

I get a message from Williams

who tells me he's just leaving work.

My surveillance team tells me they watched him

leave the house in a red Ford pickup. He's on his way.

Now is the nerve-wracking part.

Let's see if he follows through with his promise.

Okay, we should be seeing a red Ford pickup.

Sorry, yeah, there it is.

Yeah, 10-4, he is backing into a spot

right by the mailboxes right now.

He also leaves the engine running, and that's concerning,

because he might try to pull out fast and cause a pursuit.

I have to really bide my time,

and wait until the absolute critical moment

to give the takedown order.

Williams just gives up.

He throws his hands up in the air.

He knows immediately he is caught and bought and paid for.

He doesn't give any resistance.

Pull him out, they handcuff him.

Okay, subject's in custody.

And we'll be signing over and off for now.

Three minutes ago, this dude thought that he had

as much game as he could to have sex with a 14-year-old girl.

Now he's in custody. He's in the back of a squad car.

He's about to be going to jail. Awesome.

Williams is arrested and transported to the jail.

Williams tells me that he does have

child sex abuse material on both a cell phone and a laptop.

In that conversation, he admits that he did initiate

the communications with Britany,

and he also indicated that had no police been involved,

he probably would have followed through

with his intentions of having a sex act with her.

Absolute proof that Christopher Williams is a child predator.

After forensics were done on his devices,

it was learned that Williams had engaged in communications

and sent nude images with a real 14-year-old girl.

I was able to track down this 14-year-old victim.

I did interview her, and she did confirm that Williams

asked her to produce nude child sex abuse material

of herself and provide it to him.

As I suspected, Williams was operating

in the real world with real minors,

which really highlights the importance

of taking a guy like this off the street.

Christopher Lance Williams was a wolf in sheep's clothing.

He looked normal, he acted normal.

Works in the dental industry.

He's using his status to earn the trust of a vulnerable kid.

I tell parents to let their kids know that it doesn't matter

how much someone earns, what sort of job they have.

They can still be a sexual predator.

And educate the child to tell a parent or trusted adult

that the behavior of someone they've encountered online

doesn't feel right.