By TAMMIE TOLER

Princeton Times

PRINCETON — At this moment, law enforcement authorities are tracking more than 1.5 million videos and images thought to include child pornography. They are pictures West Virginia State Police Sgt. D.C. Eldridge describes as “crime scene photos.”

These images aren’t arriving in clandestine packages by mail from Asia or being purchased in businesses of questionable repute in dark alleys. They’re turning up inside homes right around the corner, and some of them just might have been made exploiting children next door.

They are videos and photos of homemade child pornography that can be distributed in seconds over the Internet and make their way around the world almost instantly.

“Child pornography is a thriving underground industry that is taking place in this county and in every state in the nation,” Eldridge said Friday, as he addressed Princeton Rotarians on the work of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

The ICAC network includes 61 regional task forces funded by the United States Department of Justice in a bid to track child pornography offenders through their medium of choice — the Internet. In a way, the ICAC officers work backward to trace crime, finding the illegal images first, then identifying the victims and following the evidence back to perpetrators.

“The only way we can find these victims is the go back through the Internet, the way the images were circulated,” Eldridge explained. “Once we can find the victims, then we hope to work backward from there to identify the suspects.”

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ICAC investigators are understandably vague about the methods behind their investigations, as they aim to find offenders without tipping their hands as to how they track the images. However, Eldridge said one of the task force’s primary goals is to educate the community on the risks of online predators and child pornography, as well as the scope of the problem.

He estimated there were 1,000 West Virginia computers identified with potential child pornography on them within the last 30 days, and that number is a “most conservative estimate.”

The images Eldridge and other ICAC officers encounter are not risqué poses or somewhat questionable activities.

“They are not the pictures of babies in the bathtub or the 16-year-old who could pass for 20,” the  officer said. “These images are generally children under 12 being violently raped.”

They are videos of a 4-year-old being sexually abused while telling the offender, “No, no, no;” or a baby on a changing table being penetrated by an adult male.

Often, the offender is someone the child knows or even loves.

In one of Eldridge’s local investigations, a man from Alaska befriended a local mother on the Internet, and the suspect allegedly convinced the woman to offer up her child for his illegal appetite. The man stayed in the region for three months, reportedly committed the crime he planned and went back north.

“He flew back to Alaska with 100s of pictures and images of what he had done to that child,” Eldridge said. “When we asked the child was asked what happened, all the child could say was, ‘Mommy said it was OK.’”

In another instance, a Bluefield man pleaded guilty to raping a child in 1986. He went to prison, only to be released early due to overcrowding and other conditions in state prisons.

“He was back on the streets two years later,” Eldridge said.

John Wellman then went on to spend approximately 10 years as a Mercer County school photographer, and when officers raided his home a few years ago, Eldridge said the place was a “memorial, or a museum,” for child pornography.

“We found evidence of 11 child victims from this area,” the officer said.

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Like Wellman, many child molesters and pornographers “fly under the radar” for a while, and they are comforted by the invisibility and anonymity the Internet offers through its screen names and aliases.

“They sit behind a computer screen thinking, ‘I’ll never be caught. They’ll never figure out it was me,’” Eldridge said.

The offenders, 99 percent of whom Eldridge estimated are male, are prolific in their crimes. ICAC reports there are more than 2 million child victims of online pornographic predators. Two hundred new child pornography images appear on the Internet every week, and Eldridge said 80 percent of them depict the rape of children.

Often, the predators do much more than sit behind a computer and circulate the images. The United States Department of Justice estimates that 40 percent of child pornography possessors molest two children before law enforcement uncovers their dirty secrets.

“Forty percent admit to us at the time that they’re arrested that they’ve actually reached out and had hands-on crimes,” Eldridge said.

As heart-wrenching as the crimes and the investigations are, Eldridge said ICAC has a rare opportunity to improve the situation.

“This is one of the few chances law enforcement has to actually go out and rescue a child and change a life forever,” he said.

The children will still carry the scars of the crimes forever, but the closure of an investigation and justice handed down through a court system help them begin the healing process. In instances where parents or guardians are involved in the crimes, it also allows officials to remove children from the care of people who can’t or won’t protect them.

The task force’s elite training and sophisticated equipment requires funding, though, in order to make a difference. Though the money available now is working in the right direction, more is needed. Eldridge advised anyone interested in fighting the same kinds of crimes he investigates to contact their state lawmakers and encourage them to support initiatives and funding for ICAC and similar projects.

“We need those resources and tools to save kids,” Eldridge said.

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The officer also recommended that parents keep a watch out for new behavior in their children and teens. A sudden disconnection from family and friends, new eating or sleeping patterns, excessive use of the computer and secrecy can all be signs of trouble and might signal they are being targeted by an online predator.

For more information on how to keep your children safe, visit www.netsmartz411.org, which includes educational information and the online “lingo” children often use to keep parents in the dark about their communication.

And, it’s also important to report any activity you believe could be predatory. Offenders count on the idea that most people mind their own business and don’t want to get involved in a potential investigation. Getting involved, could save a child.

“It may not be your neighbor, but it’s someone’s neighbor,” WVSP Col. T.S. Pack said an ICAC presentation Eldridge also delivered.

Report online child exploitation to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children through the Cyber Tipline, and information will be forwarded to the appropriate law enforcement agency or officer. That tipline is www.cybertipline.com or (800) 843-5678.

— Contact Tammie Toler at ttoler@ptonline.net.