Enemies in Your Home
Since Dateline reports have aired, the show has exposed over 200 hundred potential child predators in its stings. Chris Hansen's new book takes you beyond the broadcast into a shadowy world.
Sometimes you get lucky. Every detective knows that, and Lt. Jake Jacoby and Detective Peter Charles of the Fairfax County Police Department, despite their years of training and experience, never take their luck for granted.
Their wake-up call to the dangers of sexual abuse cases driven by social networking sites like MySpace, cracked wide open for these two detectives because a 13 year-old was stuck by a bolt of fear and balked at getting into a car with a man she met online. |
| “Marisa” (the detectives asked that we protect her identity) was at a swimming pool in a Virginia suburb of Washington, DC, on August 24, 2005.
She had agreed to meet a man named Joey Dobbs—whose screen name was buttsecks just outside the pool. He was waiting for her in his car, but when she saw him, she panicked and handed her cell phone to a lifeguard saying, “Tell him you’re my mom and that he should never call me again.” |
Police were called to investigate and after a few days, the case was turned over to Detective Peter Charles who was with the “PCASO” team, an acronym for the Protecting Children Against Sexual Offenders unit at the Fairfax County Police Department. The unit was not yet up to speed on the dangers of social networking sites like MySpace because it hadn’t hit any cases. “If you told me ten years ago that someone could go online and have access to information about thousands of kids, I’d never have believed you,” Charles said. Charles has years of experience with sexual abuse cases and crimes against children. He was aware of the trouble kids got onto with chat rooms and he knew about the peril of online sexual predators. What he didn’t know was that social networking sites were giving them unprecedented access to teens. MySpace, Xanga, Facebook, Bebo, had not really crossed his radar screen yet. Just after Labor Day, 2005, that all changed. Hansen's new book
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This “To Catch A Predator” special takes a look back at Chris Hansen's earlier investigations as well as a look forward at some critical areas involving online predators we’ve yet to explore. More important, it’s told in a unique way. Producer Lynn Keller interviewed me, Del and Frag from the online watchdog group Perverted-Justice, some of the law enforcement officers who ran parallel investigations to arrest the men we confronted, and a prosecutor.
The story is told in essentially our own words. It will take you behind the scenes, going back to our very first investigation in Long Island, New York. You’ll see how the investigations developed and became more sophisticated. There are moments that are startling, disturbing and in a few instances even humorous. We’ll answer some of the questions you’ve raised here on the blog.
You may know that I recently wrote a book called “To Catch A Predator” in an effort to explore several important aspects of this subject that we’ve not had time to flesh out on television. One of those areas is that of collateral damage-- what happens to the wives and children of the men who are arrested. You’ll meet Darlene Calvin who appears in the book and you’ll hear the inspirational story of how she put her life back together after her husband’s arrest. You’ll also hear the unique prospective of Bob Shilling, a Seattle Police detective who investigates sex crimes against children, who himself was the victim of sexual abuse as a child.
Take a look at the program. I think you’ll find it interesting and insightful. Hansen: 'Predator' in our own words
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