How monitoring helped parents catch their daughter’s predator

In January, 2016, Montgomery County Police ordered a search warrant for the digital accounts of an alleged child sexual predator. The mother, who we will refer to as Mary, found herself in an awe of utter dissonance, finding out that things wouldn’t have gone too bad, had she used Trackmyfone sooner on her daughter’s cell phone.

Worried by the erratic behavior of her daughter, Mary decided to install Trackmyfone on her cell phone. What she discovered then was absolutely mind-jolting—her daughter’s sexual relationship with a 43-year-old male. The man has been arrested for multiple charges of sexual acts with minors, and for keeping pornographic content of those molested kids.

Modelling agency ad, every young girl’s dream

According to the details of the warrant, the criminal posted a modelling agency ad, posing himself as an agent, to prey on young girls who were looking for modelling gigs. The 43-year-old Chris Bay was able to instigate and lure the victim into sexual activities due to a promised modelling contract.

Elizabeth, unaware of the circumstances, had to put herself to the will of the agent, hoping she would get the contract. Instead, she was molested, not once, but a couple of times.

Predators turn to public forums quite often, disguising as agents, teens, doctors etc., to initiate conversations with young people, especially minors. Bay quickly requested for switching to a more discrete chat platform, after establishing a rapport with Elizabeth.

Bay gained Elizabeth’s trust very quickly due to his prior predating experiences, and told her to switch to Kik, an instant messaging app that’s very famous amongst teenagers and child molesters for its anonymity.

After switching to Kik, their chats become more frequent and intimate.

From digital realm to a physical one, It’s every parent’s nightmare

According to detective Shawn, who was involved in the investigation told that Bay’s intimacy with Elizabeth escalated very quickly. He convinced her to share pornographic images and videos, as a perquisite for hiring. But then, he started blackmailing Elizabeth for that shared content, and abused her sexually for a few times.

The physical abuse started after Bay convinced Elizabeth to provide her home address. And whenever she was home alone, he would visit and sexually abuse her. This continued a few times till Mary finally found about it.

One life saved, but this isn’t the end

Elizabeth’s mother figured out her daughter’s increasingly secretive behavior, but not every parent has time, nor the sensitivity to measure such anomalies, because of the lack of a strong relationship with their children. But Trackmyfone immediately disclosed this horrific truth. Mary was able to view Elizabeth’s conversations that she had with Bay over text messages and IM app Kik.

She immediately resorted to Montgomery County Police Department for help. Later joined by the forensic team, Jerry (Bay) was arrested after a warrant was issued for the search of his digital accounts.

Prevention is always better

The law enforcement was very stringent with the whole procedure of searching and identifying the alleged predator. The arrest was made timely, but unfortunately, things had already slipped away for Elizabeth.

Sexual abuse isn’t something that any parent would want for their child. In fact, it’s a nightmare for parents. Elizabeth, though, free of the abuse now, is left scarred that can take years of therapy before she restores the same mental health. She was too young, and the predator too skilled.

Mary did the right thing to monitor her daughter’s cell phone without any delay. However, if she had installed Trackmyfone on her daughter’s phone before, things would have been different.

These kinds of incidents are a premonition, and a lifelong lesson for the other parents to be more watchful of their kids’ online and offline activities. Many kids seemed to be neglected by their parents, those who believe that there is nothing to worry about the internet.

Though, it’s still not sure if the evidence collected using TMF would suffice to put Bay behind the bars, but we should always remember one thing: prevention is always better, especially in these kinds of situations where the repercussions are far-reaching and irreversible.

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