“Really?” D.D. sat up a little straighter. Okay, she had not known that.
“Antiholde’s Internet log is textbook,” O was saying. “He was a registered user of every major kiddie website out there, plus Facebook, plus Spokeo, plus Chatroulette. You gotta understand, these guys are like day traders-this is what they do, twenty-four seven. They surf the Internet, identifying targets, initiating relationships, and then grooming, grooming, grooming. Just like stockbrokers, they understand that not every target is going to pay off. So they build a ‘portfolio’ of ten, fifteen, twenty victims they’re actively following and researching. They don’t expect all to bear fruit. They just need one to work out, and it’s worth it to them.”
D.D. had a feeling her mouth was hanging open. She’d never pictured sex predators as working professionals before. That level of discipline. That level of focus. “Ummm, aren’t there safety protocols or security software that help block sex predators’ access to kids?”
“Yes and no. See, most five-year-olds join websites that feature their favorite toys, where they can become a member. Now, these sites certainly advertise to parents their security protocols. Stuff like they have trained professionals hanging out on the websites patrolling for bullying, that sort of thing. And they impose limits on communication, mostly on instant messaging where it appears Virtual Animal A is talking to Virtual Animal B using dialogue bubbles. Virtual Animal A can ‘chat’ with Virtual Animal B, but only by selecting from stock phrases. This gives parents a sense of security. Cute fuzzy Animal A can’t type in a dialogue box,
“Unfortunately, parents are missing the obvious. Just joining these sites, becoming a part of a virtual community where you are encouraged to make virtual friends and rewarded for hanging out, is starting the grooming process. A five-year-old now thinks it’s
“But how?” D.D. asked. “According to you, they can only communicate using pre-scripted phrases.”
“Sure, on those sites. Which is why they serve as the first step in the grooming process. Look, a guy like Antiholde picks a popular kids site, say AthleteAnimalz.com. He logs on to the site, enters his animal’s code, becomes a member. Then, for the first few weeks, he does what any user does-he plays like mad. He masters games, he builds up points, he wins whatever there is to win. Boys, in particular, are acutely status-conscious. From an early age, they want to win and they want to be friends with winners. So Antiholde becomes that winner. He builds a virtual image as the most popular, most successful member of the site. The high school quarterback everyone wants to high-five in the school halls. Then he goes to work.
“He starts monitoring other users. He’s looking for the members that play regularly. Remember, he’s a day trader. He’s got a lot of stocks to watch, so he doesn’t want the random visitor to the site. He wants someone with fairly predictable hours, the kid that goes on after school or after dinner most days of the week. The kid that day in, day out, he’s gonna find there.
“Now he starts friending. Invites other users to be his buddies. Asks them to play games with him. And again, the website is going to do his work for him, by providing the perfect team-building exercises. Think of any of the virtual combat games-Antiholde’s character will be the one that magically has your back. He’ll save your character again and again. Which will make you feel good about him, again and again. In a matter of weeks, you’re happy to see him logged on to the site, excited to be on his team, and even more thrilled when he invites you to log on and play with him at certain times during the day. You’re not just friends now, you’re
“Yeah,” D.D. interjected, “but it’s all still online. A virtual relationship. Creepy, but make believe. Plus what are the odds the kid is from the predator’s same town? I mean, I’ve heard the stories of the sixteen-year-old girl being lured into taking a plane to meet her new soul mate, but a five-year-old?”
“Sports teams,” O said.
“Sports teams?”
“Primary geographic indicator used to target boys. You’re a pedophile in Boston, first thing you do is look for kids who describe themselves as Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins, or Pats fans. Nine times out of ten, you’ve just identified a victim within driving range. And boys love to talk sports. Another innocuous way of bonding, where the kid is giving up a major piece of personal information, without ever being the wiser.”
D.D. shifted uneasily in her chair. “That’s twisted.”
Detective O shrugged. “Just because they’re predators doesn’t mean they’re stupid. Computers are tools. We use them to help us analyze evidence and process reports. Internet predators use them to reach beyond the walls of their seedy apartments, into your nice, cozy family room, and make contact with your child without you ever knowing the difference. Some of them even create their own sites. Hamsters Who Play Hockey, whatever. On Website A, where they’ve established the relationship, they trace the kid’s user name back to the child’s e-mail addy-a fairly simple technical exercise. Then they send the kid an e-mail, inviting the child to visit hockey-playing hamsters. Nothing scary or alarming about that, especially as the e-mail came from Cute Animal A, who the child’s been ‘playing’ with for weeks. Kid clicks on the hockey-playing hamster link, and bada bing, bada boom, the child is now on a website controlled by a predator, where content will quickly become more and more questionable as the predator ramps up the next phase of the grooming process. Or maybe the predator goes with a direct outreach. From playing virtual games online, to sending an e-mail saying,
“Or
“Second victim,” O filled in. “Stephen Laurent. Yep, come see my puppy would do the trick. And most kids are easily manipulated. They are receiving an e-mail from a perceived friend, so they say yes. They show up at what they think is another kid’s house, to see a puppy, except there’s a grown man there. But there’s also the puppy, and they’ve been trained not to be rude to adults, so even if they’re uncomfortable, even if in the back of their mind they think maybe they shouldn’t…” She shrugged. “They go along. Things we’ve trained our children to do without the help of computers.”
D.D. felt ill. She was accustomed to analytically discussing crime. But now she kept seeing Jack, except five years from now, and she and Alex were taking the time to raise him in the right neighborhood with the right locks on the door and attending the right kind of school, except the minute he went online…Her son would disappear down a virtual rabbit hole, with dark alleys and seedy strangers everywhere, except the dark alleys would be dressed up as brightly colored computer screens and the seedy strangers would be cute little bunnies with names like ILuvSk8boardingInHarvardSquare. Dear Lord.
“Do you have kids?” D.D. asked Ellen O.
The detective’s face was serious. “Are you kidding? I go around spouting facts like 40 percent of girls ages twelve to seventeen have been solicited by a stranger online. Doesn’t really go over well on dates. Or at cocktail parties for that matter. Then, should someone pull out a smartphone while I’m in the room…Let’s just say, at least my cats still hang with me.”
D.D. hadn’t thought of that, but it rang true. O had a head filled with the kind of boogeyman stories no one wanted to hear. D.D. was a homicide detective, and even she wasn’t sure how much of this she could take. It made her feel too powerless, as a mom and a cop.
“So,” D.D. ventured, “you’re saying Antiholde’s computer log proves he was an online predator?”
“Profile fits.”
“And Stephen Laurent?”
“I’d like to glance at his Internet log, but figured I should get your permission first.”
“I’d like you to look at his Internet log, too,” D.D. agreed. “At the moment, we’re searching for any kind of link between the two victims-”
“Pedophiles.”
“Murder victims. If they both frequent these websites you’re talking about…”
“Question becomes,” O said, “how’d their cover get blown? I mean, online, they’re gonna appear like any other user, an excited kid. Except someone figured out who they were and what they were doing.”
“Victim in common?” D.D. guessed. “Someone who knows the victim?”
She was thinking of the forensic handwriting expert she’d talked to last night, Dembowski’s theory that their shooter was an anal-retentive female. D.D. didn’t say anything, however. She didn’t want to contaminate the
