Missouri Pedophiles
Cop poses as teen girl, 13, gets mayor online
There are so many pedophiles out there, it is truly scary. Could be your neighbor, brother, nice guy from Church and even your babysitter.
DIAMOND, Missouri (AP) -- No one will ever confuse Jim Murray with a teenager. His tall frame, broad shoulders and clipped gray hair give him away for the grandfather he is.
But the 69-year-old retired police chief of this small Missouri town cuts a credible figure as a 13-year-old girl surfing the Web, looking for friends. He knows all the instant-messaging shorthand, the emoticons.
Murray's retirement job from a rural home office has netted 20 arrests since he started in 2002.
His latest catch was the biggest: four felony enticement charges against a town mayor, who after his arrest called Murray up and begged him to make the case go away.
Nineteen other defendants have included a Missouri furniture company executive, an Arkansas professor and a Tulsa, Oklahoma, school security guard. Ten of those men have been convicted and sent to prison. One was deported. The other cases are still pending.
The defendants ranged in age from 24 to 62, with an average age of 39.4 years, and mainly come from Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma, Diamond police said.
Internet child safety experts say police officers like Murray are heroes who do good work at the cost of wading through the muck of online pedophile fantasies.
"He's a trailblazer. 2002 was very early for smaller police departments to start doing this," said Parry Aftab, executive director of Wiredsafety.org, a children's Internet safety group.
Murray, who taught elementary school for 27 years before switching to police work, is more humble.
"This is really about the kids," he said.
Source 8y