Posted on 01/02/2003 12:34:22 PM PST by hoosierskypilot
TURLOCK -- Jerry Dock McClain drove 1,500 miles from Texas to Turlock with plans to rendezvous with a 13-year-old girl he met on the Internet and whisk her away to Mexico, police say.
Instead, the 65-year-old retired Navy veteran was whisked away -- to jail -- after his arrest by detectives with the Sacramento Valley Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force.
McClain's arrest was the 30th that Detective Ken Hedrick has made in the past 30 months -- a string that drew the attention of ABC Television's "Good Morning America." The show plans to profile the latest case Friday.
The investigation began in April when McClain met who he thought was a 13-year-old girl in an Internet chat room.
Only later would he learn that the teen-ager was Hedrick, who was playing the role of a 13-year-old as part of an electronic sting targeting pedophiles.
Over the months, Hedrick and McClain chatted regularly, detectives said. At one point, the two talked on the telephone.
"Hedrick uses a voice synthesizer that changes his voice to that of a young girl," said Sgt. Adam Christianson, Hedrick's supervisor on the task force. "We use it because often perpetrators want to talk to the victim to validate that they actually are talking to a young girl."
The two also exchanged items through the mail. McClain asked for some girl's underwear, and Hedrick sent him some, Christianson said.
McClain later e-mailed and told Hedrick he had framed and hung the underwear on his wall. And when police in Kerrville
Texas, searched McClain's home, that is exactly what they found.
Man allegedly meant to take teen to Mexico
The e-mail liaison stretched into October, when McClain unveiled a plan to come get the teen-ager, take her to Texas and then to Mexico, Stanislaus County sheriff's deputy Tom Letras said.
"He went so far as to tell the girl to get rid of all pictures of herself in the house so they couldn't issue an Amber alert, and said, 'We'll cut your hair and make you look like a boy,'" Letras said.
"The plan was they were going to meet at a motel in Turlock and have sex after school. Then after Thanksgiving she was going to run off with him."
McClain scratched the November rendezvous because of car trouble, Letras said. They rescheduled for Dec. 19, and he made the 1,500-mile trip from Kerrville.
"He showed up 24 hours early and drove by her junior high and the Burger King where they were to meet," Christianson said. "We had him under surveillance the whole time."
McClain had said he would be in the Burger King and would leave the doors to his car unlocked, Letras said. The girl was to get in his car and duck behind the seat. He would then come out and they would drive away.
Instead, McClain stayed parked across the street waiting for the girl, Christianson said.
"We have a female deputy who is very young-looking and small, who we dressed in the clothes he requested -- backpack, baseball cap and coveralls," Christianson said.
"She went into the Burger King and he pulled up from across the street, flashing his lights to get her attention, and into the Burger King parking lot. The moment he walked into the restaurant, we arrested him."
(Excerpt) Read more at modbee.com ...
Me too. It's good that this guy is in prison, but the ends don't always justify the means. In this case it doesn't sound like they crossed the line to entrapment, but they got pretty close. Actually it may depend on the specific contents of the chat logs, which I *really* don't want to see.
And I prefer citizens that don't molest and kidnap kids.
Why should FBI agents be any different than anybody else? Does anybody tell the truth on the internet?
Except for me. I really am Harrison Ford's much younger and more handsome brother. Richer too!
Sorry, I can't feel sorry for this guy. He damn well should have known better. It's one thing to talk about something on the internet. But he committed a crime when he went to the Burger King expecting to meet the girl and take her somewhere.
I don't buy the entrapment argument in this case. I can't feel sorry for somebody who can't exercise good judgement. If they can't keep it in their pants, that's their problem.
And thats how it should be. But thats not how it always works. There was a thread on here a while back about how the government would post the child porn pics on web sites and then go after the people who clicked on the link to them. That I find to be wrong. Especially since from what others said on the thread, one can stumble upon these pics by no fault of their own and they are then guilty of possesing child porn, regardless of intentions.
Oh I don't feel sorry for the guy at all. He is scum and will be locked away, as should be.
I just fear empowering the cops to use the tactics that they use in cases like this, because I know A LOT of people who think it's OK for them to go poking around in citizens' banking records or even into homes based on "anonymous" information, using the same "if you are not doing anything wrong" line of reasoning.
And I prefer citizens that don't molest and kidnap kids.
I prefer both.
With any luck, the sad sack of s*** will realise that he's a loser and do himself in while in jail.
Could well be. I didn't say it was wrong, I just said it makes me queasy.
If at any point he had just stopped communicating, or if he had not travelled 1200 miles to make the meet, or if he had not followed the officer into the restaurant, he could have walked away. The police did not act in this case until the moment when a child would have been endangered, had it been a real seduction. That strikes me as being about the right balance.
We had a local case where a guy paid young teens to make a porn movie. He was selling the DVD's online. The police bought one and arrested him. He claimed he didn't know what was on the DVD's. He was IN the movie. Then he claimed he didn't know their ages even though he specifically asked for minors. He then claimed the police should be arrested for possessing child porn that he made.
It's too easy to catch these guys.
"Within minutes, he gets contacted, usually with the phrase 'A-S-L,'" Christianson said. That translates to age, sex, location in Internet lingo.
"Hedrick never makes first contact," he said. "Instead, the offender always contacts him. They are looking for these girls."
What should happen, after Hedrick says that he is 13 or 14, is the man should back out of the conversation, Christianson said.
This help? It sounds as though they are pretty careful to not cross the line to entrapment.
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