Original subtitles

[Narrator] Next, a predator thinks he's meeting a woman

to have sex with her nine-year-old niece.

He has no idea that a police helicopter

is tracking his every move.

[Narrator] Then, Detective Tony Godwin searches

the home of a special education teacher...

[Narrator]... and makes a shocking discovery.

[Tony] It was the most disturbing thing

I have ever seen in my entire life.

[Narrator] And the team hunts down a predator

who makes a chilling admission.

[Narrator] The team of police professionals

in North Dallas has one goal--

[Male 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...

[Tony] All right, he's coming this way.

[Narrator] ...and brings them to justice

by any means necessary.

Put your hands on the car.

[Narrator] This is Detective Tony Godwin

and his team is the Predator Hunters.

[Narrator] May 2020, a police helicopter

tracks a pickup truck through Plano, Texas.

[Narrator] The predator behind the wheel believes

he's catfished this woman

to supply him with a minor for sex.

And I started recording him.

[Narrator] He thinks he's meeting

her nine-year-old-niece.

He has no idea that he's the one being catfished,

and that Detective Tony Godwin and his team

are about to take him down.

[Tony] This guy right here, John Ancelet,

this is a case I will never, ever forget.

He used a dating app to groom an adult woman who was there

just looking for a normal relationship.

He flipped that into a conversation about engaging

in sex with children.

To catch this guy, I had to catfish the catfisher.

[tense music]

[Tony] The case begins in January of 2020.

At its heart is a 44-year-old woman

named Shawnda Kulig.

She reported a man named Sven she met on a dating site

as a potential child predator.

I invite Shawnda to my office to discuss this,

and little do I know, this will be one of

the most complex cases I've ever worked.

How did you meet this guy, Sven?

[Shawnda] Yeah, I met him on Tinder,

and we started just kind of chatting.

Just very flirtatious.

Then he started sending me, like, a lot of pictures,

which I thought was nice,

'cause a lot of guys don't do that.

[Tony] He just looks like an everyday normal dude,

young, athletic, good-looking.

Everything up at this point

is looking really somewhat normal to me,

but then, tell me about this.

[Shawnda] And then all of a sudden,

it kind of took another really weird turn.

He started talking about how he was hooking up with his mom.

I was sitting there in shock, like,

I have no clue what is happening with this guy right now.

At first, I was wondering, like, is this a fantasy?

But then he went to another level.

He said, I know I will [bleep] my real daughter

when I have one.

And then he said at 11 to 13, they were so horny.

And then he said, yes, I have let one [bleep] me

that was 12. I'm a daddy to them.

And he was like, can you kiss the 11-year-olds

and help me train them?

I sat there shocked and went,

what the actual heck is happening right now?

If he's saying these things, is he doing these things?

I'm thinking, how can I hunt the sucker down?

I just flat out asked him, "What's your last name?"

And he just tells me, "Mallinson".

So I was like, perfect.

I'm downloading our chat.

I'm downloading the pictures that he's sending.

And then he tells me he has a friend

that he would love to introduce me to.

His name was John.

And then my phone is ringing.

[phone ringing]

I knew when I heard the phone ring

to grab my other phone and start recording.

I don't know how the heck I knew to do that.

[Shawnda] He says, hey, this is John.

I'm the friend of Sven.

And then his next words were like,

oh my God, your voice is so sexy.

The creepiness of his voice is a first thought.

Honestly, it made me never want

to be on the phone again for a while.

Yeah.

I know how difficult that call really was for you.

I could just see your reaction to it.

What happened next after the call?

[Shawnda] At this point is when I contacted the police.

[Tony] I'm really proud of what you did

and the perseverance you had trying to figure this out.

You'd be surprised how many people don't do that.

I begin my investigation

into Sven Mallinson and his friend John.

It's happened so fast, so quickly with two predators

with the same woman.

I'm wondering, have I latched on to some sort of underground,

perverted network of people?

The reality is that Sven and John

are grooming Shawnda

because that's the tactic.

They groom the adult first so they get access to the child.

I've got names.

I have phone numbers for both of these guys.

I give all of this information and intelligence that I have

right now to Tavie Guthrie.

She's the crime analyst in my unit,

and we're gonna build this case together.

[Tavie] Tony's given me a number for John.

And with that number,

I'm able to serve a subpoena to AT&T for their records.

AT&T does come back with records on that number

for a John Ancelet.

I run John Ancelet through

some police databases that I have.

What I found was really disturbing.

[Narrator] In 1997, detectives from Dallas PD

arrested Ancelet

for aggravated sexual assault of a child.

He pleaded guilty to the lesser charge

of assault causing bodily injury.

So now check out Sven Mallinson.

I find out that his phone number is a voice over internet line,

which means that it's using an internet protocol

instead of a cellular network.

This makes it hard to trace, but not impossible.

His internet IP address comes back to

an address in Pottsboro.

But shockingly, it's not just an address,

because it's actually John Ancelet's address.

We're not looking for Sven and John.

John is the guy,

and I think Sven is not anyone of importance to us.

[Tony] We dig deeper into Sven Mallinson's background.

We find no link whatsoever between him and John Ancelet.

[Narrator] John Ancelet used Sven Mallinson's name,

together with photos of another man,

to create the dating profile.

[Tony] That's super rare. I've come across

only one other predator in my entire career

who's done that.

The fact that he victimized a whole 'nother person

that had nothing to do with this is double trouble.

This guy, John Ancelet, he's a pretty smart predator.

I have a plan to catch him

the last way he would ever expect--

I'm gonna catfish the catfisher.

[Narrator] Shawnda gives Tony permission

to use her cell phone.

Tony picks up the conversation with John where she left it.

The predator messages around the clock seven days a week.

[Tony] So I continue to exchange messages

back and forth with John.

He quickly turns the conversation

really sexual about minors.

This is my opportunity to lure him in.

When John replies, you're going to see what his true intentions

really were from the start.

"Can I love her and have her sexually?"

How many people are gonna offer up a child

that they have access to?

And so I have to reply and be very cautious in what I say.

This is the beginning of a long waiting game.

[Narrator] Over the next two months,

Tony, posing as Shawnda,

exchanges thousands of messages with John.

Finally, Monday, April 27th, all my patience pays off.

John sends a message.

"I want to make love to her on the first meeting."

Holy moly.

He's now making it very clear that he wants the niece.

That's really huge.

I have to give him something really plausible.

I say, I'm dog sitting for a girlfriend in Plano.

I'm planning to keep my niece overnight on Friday.

This has taken me a couple of months to get to this point.

And I'm super excited because on Friday, May the 8th,

I'm gonna get my chance to arrest this guy

and get him into custody.

This takedown,

it's gonna happen in Plano, Texas.

This takedown is really unprecedented.

Covert surveillance. Air surveillance.

Takedown team.

There's so many moving parts.

[Tony] At 2.36 p.m., I get notified

that Ancelet has left his property.

I've got a live feed of this from a police helicopter.

[Tony] I'm glued to my phone watching this white truck

drive southbound on an eight-lane highway.

[Tony] When Ancelet's about a mile away,

the worst case happens.

I'm flipping out at this point.

It feels like 12 months is going by

in slow motion.

It's agonizing.

Ancelet keeps moving.

He's very, very close to our takedown location.

[Tony] And then out of nowhere, he takes a quick right

into this industrial area.

[Tony] I don't know what this guy is doing.

[Narrator] Tony's takedown of John Ancelet

hangs in the balance

after the predator makes an unscheduled stop.

I don't have a clue what Ancelet's doing.

He gets out of his truck,

and he walks around to the passenger side.

I'm thinking the worst case scenario possible,

he's got a long gun, pistols, plenty of ammo,

and he's setting up to hurt one of my guys.

[Tony] Ancelet changes clothes,

puts pants on, and immediately drives away.

[Tony] If you look at this for what it is,

this is a grown man who's getting himself dressed up

for a meeting to have sex with a nine-year-old female.

[Tony] When Ancelet pulls into the apartment complex,

he literally drives right in front of me

and has no idea that I'm there.

[Tony] When a marked police car from Plano PD

drives right past him...

...I think he's gonna punch the gas

and haul butt out of there.

The squad car does a U-turn...

[police sirens wailing]

...activates their lights and sirens,

and they initiate the stop.

[police radio chatter] [car chiming]

[Tony] Officers just descend on his vehicle,

and they pull him out.

[Tony] When Ancelet says he's just there to see a girl ,

he knows he's caught,

but he somehow wants to portray to these cops that,

hey, this is just a very innocent thing.

Like, what is going on?

My hope is that every bit of evidence

that has built this case

is right there on Ancelet's phone,

and that's something that we'll do a forensic exam on.

[Narrator] A forensic search of Ancelet's phone reveals

that the he used Sven Mallinson's name

and photos of another man.

[Tony] He admits that he did speak to a woman online,

to speaking sexually to this woman,

and talking sexually with her about her niece.

But he claims he was never gonna do anything at all about that.

I have my report here,

and I can tell you specifically what he said.

"I have a lady who is sending me sexual pictures of her.

"I sent no sexual pictures to her.

"I'm very clear I'm meeting her today that my intentions

were only to meet her."

No, John.

I have four months of communications with this guy

that speak very, very differently

as to the position he's taking.

If there's one thing that I could take away from this case,

is I'm gonna talk about Shawnda.

Her bravery, her vulnerability,

her ability to put herself on a different level,

to say, this is wrong, and I'm going to do something about it.

We always see and hear and preach,

"See something, say something," and she did.

[Narrator] May 9th, 2023.

[Narrator] Tony Grills, an online predator.

[Narrator] What will a lie detector test reveal

about his sickening admission?

[Tony] Russell Steadman.

This guy looks like every normal dude on the street.

This guy can write a master class

on how to groom a child.

He did everything he could to communicate and have sex with

a 13-year-old kid.

But at the end of the day,

I was able to get this guy into custody.

[Tony] The case starts on Christmas Eve, 2022.

Even though it's Christmas time,

I'm proactively hunting for predators

on an app called Chat Hour.

Chat Hour is a free site that anybody can download.

It allows you to enter chat rooms based on a category

that you have an interest in.

I established a new profile for the name Baylee,

a 13-year-old female from North Texas.

I list her age on the platform as being 80 years old.

It's definitely an icebreaker for sure.

Clearly, I'm not 80. I'm 13.

[Narrator] Tony cannot reveal Baylee's profile picture.

He uses it today in active investigations.

[Tony] I find a room called Flirting, and I just wait.

[message dinging]

[Tony] So within minutes,

I get a private message from a user,

and his name is Diveinit.

I look at this guy's profile picture.

He is definitely a middle-aged man.

I reply back, "Yeah, I do. I'm 13. Is that okay?"

He comes at me with this. "Are you alone?

Just wondering who is with you."

Why would he want to know this?

He really wants to know who's paying attention.

I tell him my mom and my aunt are here, and my little cousin.

This guy really has moved to the top of the list for me.

I want to figure out what's going on with him.

What I need is just a little bit of proof

that he's into more than just sending

a dirty message to a kid.

The best way for me to make that connection

is what happens if I ghost him.

It's Christmas Eve, and I can just leave it alone,

and then come back and say I was with family.

I stay off Chat Hour for three weeks.

The next time I log in, it's January 12th of 2023.

Within 20 minutes, Diveinit, he's right back to messaging me.

He's definitely into this.

I start reengaging with him.

[message dinging]

[Tony] And then he tells me how he was divorced in 2019,

and he wished we could talk more.

He's classically using a couple of different techniques.

Let's love bomb this kid,

but then also let's guilt trip this kid.

The reality is that kind of techniques

works very well with children,

because they don't have the bandwidth to really detect

that manipulation that's going on,

and so it's effective.

I'm 100% positive this guy's a predator.

[Narrator] Tony hunts for clues

that can unmask a predator with the username Diveinit.

I don't have an awful lot to go on.

I've got his username, Diveinit.

I've got these three different photographs

of this guy on his Chat Hour profile,

but I need a little more.

I offer up a cell phone number

and see if he wants to move over to regular SMS messaging.

And much to my surprise, he's okay.

Now I've got this phone number, I can now figure out,

is Russell a real name?

I've got the best person on the planet

that can help me do that deep dive.

I reach out to my colleague, Tavie Guthrie.

Tony gave me a first name and a phone number,

and my tools gave me exactly what I needed,

a full name for this guy, Russell Wayne Steadman.

His social media has just very normal photos.

He looks kind of like a regular, average Joe.

Just from what his conversations with Tony have been,

we know that this guy is dangerous.

So it's important for us

to go ahead and look at his criminal history.

And he does have two convictions that I can see.

And none of those actually have anything to do with

crimes against children.

They're all things like theft.

So I really need to tell Tony about this.

[Tony] The longer this chat goes on,

the more frequent Steadman is messaging me.

[message dinging]

[Tony] The disturbing part is that he puts pressure on her.

Don't tell anybody.

And then Steadman drops a bombshell on me.

This guy tells me that he's had a three-month

sexual relationship with a 16-year-old kid.

Holy moly.

This is crazy. This changes everything for me.

Even though Steadman doesn't have

a prior conviction for something like this,

it's really grounds for serious concern for me

because he could have gone unnoticed

and nobody knows about this case yet.

I'm really worried.

Steadman ramps it up.

He wants to use her bedroom.

Oh my God, really?

I respond and I tell him that she works on Tuesdays,

Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

He doesn't miss a beat.

That tells me that his impulse control is gone.

I might not have much time to get this guy before he grabs

a real kid or does something with a real kid.

I text back and tell him, tomorrow?

Totally fine.

[Tony] So the meet is set for May 9th.

My team and I are in place by 6:45 in the morning.

We are set up on an online solicitation of a minor case.

Russell Wayne Steadman has agreed to show up to engage in

sexual activities with what he believes to be

a 14-year-old girl.

I'm at the back of the complex,

where I have a visual of where Steadman is going to park.

With me on this takedown is Jen Mulligan from FBI.

I'm trying to take the case federal

to have it charged as an attempted enticement case

versus an online solicitation, which is a state charge.

It's a different level of proof--

he has to show up

in order to be charged federally--

but it also is a major sentencing difference.

[Tony] I'm continually texting him,

letting him know, hey, my mom just left.

He replies back, "I just don't want us to get in trouble."

Immediately, I get a sick feel in my gut,

like, ugh, this guy's gonna back out.

Tony sends a message saying, don't bother coming.

That's absolute textbook.

It's giving him an out, and oftentimes,

they don't want to possibly lose a real thing.

So they show up.

I get a notification from the team on the outside that says,

hey, we see his truck.

[Narrator] 7:35 a.m.

Tony's team lies in wait for Russell Steadman.

[Tony] Okay, looks like our subject just arrived.

[Tony] Yes, next to the tree, by the mailbox.

He's getting in.

He's out.

[sirens wailing]

[Tony] Officers are able to get onto that car,

and they find a bunch of great evidence.

They find his cell phone.

They find condoms and Viagra.

The cell phone's unlocked, and on the screen are

the messages with Tony's undercover persona.

That's the greatest evidence you can possibly wish for.

[sighs]

And he's thinking, am I gonna lie?

Am I gonna tell the truth?

[Tony] Obviously, this guy's lying.

I'm never gonna let him get away with this.

[Tony] I call in a friend of mine

with the Department of Public Safety.

He's one of the early guys that I cut my teeth with

when I was a new Internet Crimes Against Children guy.

He is one of the best interviewers

that I've ever seen.

[Interviewer] Okay.

The results were inconclusive.

I do as much investigating as I possibly can

to determine if that claim of sex with a 16-year-old

was legit,

and I'm not able to find anything to substantiate that.

However, based on

my investigation up to this point,

on September 23rd of 2023,

Steadman is indicted federally.

[Tony] The Steadman case highlights just how devious

a predator can be when they groom a child.

Children can be easily manipulated.

A predator will gain their trust

and build a relationship with them over time.

Fortunately, Steadman wasn't talking to a real child.

He was talking to me.

[Narrator] August 2017.

Tony is in a race against time to snare a predator teacher

before the start of the school year.

[Tony] We've got to get moving

before this guy does some real harm.

I'm Detective Godwin.

I have a search warrant for your residence.

[Narrator] Tony and his team discover the predator

is a prolific collector of illegal material.

But they are about to stumble upon something

that none of them are prepared for.

[Tony] It was the most disturbing thing

I have ever seen in my entire life.

[tense music]

Kirk Keshler, this guy was downloading

so much horrific child sex abuse material.

The scary part was that he's a teacher

with special education students.

My team and I, we had to act super fast

to get him into custody and deny him access to any kids.

This case kicks off about a month earlier,

when I get contacted by two of my colleagues

from different agencies.

They tell me that they have a suspected IP address

that's targeted in my city that's downloaded about

192 child sex abuse material files.

And then I pull five of those files out just randomly

to kind of spot check and verify if

what that is is actually child sex abuse material.

And it is.

My next course of action is determine does this IP address

actually belong to someone that lives in my jurisdiction.

And it came back to a suspect, and his name is Kirk Keshler.

I start to do a social media dive on him.

It shows that he's a special education teacher.

It absolutely rockets that case to the top of my stack of work.

And there's no waiting.

The school where Keshler teaches is out for the summer.

Right now, it's July 19th.

School starts on August 17th.

That gives me four weeks to figure out where this guy is,

track him down, and get him into custody

before school starts.

So that's a tight deadline

for a really complex investigation.

We've got to get moving before this guy does some real harm.

[Narrator] Tony has only four weeks

to track down Kirk Keshler

before he returns to a classroom full of vulnerable children.

For me and my team, the clock is ticking.

I want to find out as much as I can about Kirk Keshler.

So I reach out to my colleague, Mark Casteel,

in our intelligence unit to help me.

I run a DMV check on Keshler,

and I find out that he's got a silver Chevy truck,

a black Lexus, and a red Chrysler vehicle.

I learn that he is a divorcee,

that he has three grown children,

and then I find out a real bombshell.

I locate a 1998 report from Garner, North Carolina,

showing that he had been investigated for child porn.

A person reported to the police department

that they'd actually seen child porn on Keshler's laptop.

Garner PD went out and investigated it.

Unfortunately, they were not able to locate any child porn

or any reason that they could arrest him.

So he walked away.

This just adds to my stress level

because of this history that Mark has found out.

I need to move on this guy right now.

Now that I know who Kirk Keshler is and where he works,

I've got to put a surveillance team on his house.

I know that he's got three vehicles and a boat

that are registered to him,

so the surveillance team goes out there,

gets some photographs, and this is what they give me.

What's missing is one of his vehicles,

so what I do is reach out to the school district.

What they tell me is that he's out of state.

He's not due back until August 16th.

The troubling part is the new semester

starts the next day,

August 17th.

I have no authority whatsoever or jurisdiction to arrest him

when he's out of state.

I need to get to Keshler before

the start of that class on the 17th,

which means I have to arrest him on August 16th.

Today's a big day. This is our takedown

of Kirk Keshler.

The problem is, we don't know if he's there.

He's supposed to be coming back from vacation.

He has no idea that we're looking at him.

I've got a team set up at his house,

and they're there to tell me, hey, do you see him or not?

We're on a window.

We've got a couple of hours, and the next thing you know,

it's going to be dark.

It's going to make things much harder for us.

I can't run the risk of this guy slipping through

and even attempting to try to go to work tomorrow.

Now this is a two-pronged takedown.

One is a team that's going to arrest Keshler.

I'm part of that team.

Two is a search team that's going to find that evidence.

We can't allow Keshler to delete evidence,

and so we want to make sure that he is secure

so the other team can find all of his electronics.

[Tony] Hello?

I arrive at Keshler's house.

The lights are on inside. I know it's go time.

[Tony] Hey, sir.

[Tony] How are you? What's your name?

[Tony] Kirk, I'm Detective Godwin.

I have a search warrant for your residence.

There's going to be some other guys coming in here.

We will kind of get kicking.

I'll kind of tell you what's going on,

why I have the warrant and all that.

[Tony] I have a search warrant for your house.

Keshler is coming off very arrogant.

It's kind of annoying.

You've been home all day or what?

[Tony] What do you do for a living?

[Tony] How long have you been a teacher?

Three decades of teaching special needs kids.

In my mind, there are potential victims all over the place.

I'm really taken back by that.

Did you have any reason to believe why we would be here?

[Tony] Okay.

I see right through Keshler.

He knows exactly why we are there.

I work what's called Internet Crimes Against Children,

and that's what brought me here today.

You have the right to remain silent

and not make any statement at all,

and any statement you make

may be used against you at your trial.

Do you understand that?

[Tony] Do you knowingly, intelligently,

and voluntarily waive those

so that we can have a conversation?

[Tony] Okay. No sweat.

He's not having a conversation with me,

but we're not done.

We still have to search this entire house.

[Tony] You can call a lawyer,

but that's not going to happen until we're done.

[Tony] So once we're done, you can call whoever you want.

- [Tony] Okay? - [Kirk] Okay.

[Tony] All right.

So she's going to get some pictures.

I'm going to get my big ugly mug out of the way,

and we'll go from there.

[Narrator] Detective Tony Godwin and his team are searching

the house of Kirk Keshler.

[Tony] The reason we start in his bedroom is because

it's very obvious this guy lives basically

24-7 out of this room.

It's dirty.

It looks like the sheets haven't been washed in a decade, maybe.

It stinks. It is disgusting.

I see in the master bedroom a laptop with the lid down,

and I walk over to it. I open it up.

And there's a child sex abuse material file playing.

[Narrator] But nothing can prepare them

for what they discover next.

[Tony] Well, there's a closet with bifold doors

inside Keshler's master bedroom.

One of my colleagues opens up these bifold doors.

Inside is a child-size sex doll.

The doll has hair, like a wig on, but it's completely nude.

It was the most disturbing thing

I have ever seen in my entire life.

We found loads of children's underwear,

clearly sized to the size of that sex doll.

There were outfits and dresses and all kinds of stuff.

I've run so many other warrants

where there are certain things you find,

but nothing to this level of depravity.

Keshler is done. This dude is toast.

[Narrator] Tony scans Keshler's devices

for child sexual abuse material.

[Tony] My preview tools complete their scan,

and it finds 661 contraband files

of child sex abuse material.

I've got everything I need to arrest Keshler.

[Tony] Knowing that had we not got him arrested tonight,

he would have potentially been in a classroom

with special needs kids the following morning,

it is a great feeling.

We seize all of his electronic devices,

and we send them in for a forensic exam.

We get Keshler to the police department,

and he's already invoked his Miranda right,

meaning he's not going to talk to us without a lawyer,

and that's totally fine. That's his right.

I have another way to get to hear what he's talking about.

[Narrator] Keshler calls his son from jail.

What it sounds like to me in that call is a guy getting

all of his personal affairs in order

as though he is never returning home.

I contact Keshler's school to tell them what's happened,

and they suspend him.

It's a good thing they did suspend him,

because a few days later, a judge grants Keshler bail

until a hearing can be held.

Keshler's freedom, it doesn't last long.

On September 8th,

I get the results back from the forensic exam,

and they find loads of child sex abuse material.

[Narrator] The forensics team finds

over 10,000 images and 3,000 videos

of child sexual abuse material on Keshler's devices.

Keshler shared this CSAM electronically

across state lines.

Now federal prosecutors charge him with

transporting and shipping child pornography.

I send officers out to arrest him.

Based on his bail conditions, he's required to be at home.

So they're gonna go straight away to his house,

knock on the door, and take him into custody.

[Tony] I'm delighted that Kirk Keshler's

going to spend the rest of his,

hopefully, natural life behind bars in prison.

[Narrator] A later investigation concludes

there is no evidence that Kirk Keshler abused children

from the school where he taught.

[Tony] The Keshler case reminds us

that perpetrators come in all forms

and all walks of life.

Keshler worked with vulnerable students

and had done so for years.

A message to you predators.

There's no cookie-cutter way to the way we do things.

There's nothing we won't do to find you and catch you.

We will adapt if needed, and trust me, we are the best.

We will find you. We will get you.

You will go to prison.