Yeardley: Hey, Small Town Fam. It’s Yeardley. How are you guys? Oh, I’m so happy you’re here. Welcome to Season 17. We have amazing cases for you this season, both from new guests as well as returning favorites. So, let’s get started, shall we?

Today, we have Detective Bre on the microphone. If you’re new to the podcast, let me tell you, Bre is a rockstar. If you’re a longtime listener, I know you’ll back me up on that.

The case Bre brings us today is a teenage sex abuse case. But like our own Detective Dave, who also investigated sex crimes and child abuse before he retired, Bre is sparing when it comes to the details of the actual sex crimes committed.

Instead, she focuses on weaving together the details of an investigation that required patience, was full of serendipity, and relied heavily on the bravery and keen observations of the young victims. She also gives us a detailed portrait of the incredibly stupid, chatty, despicable, dangerous suspect whose every move will have you shaking your head with fury and disbelief. Here is Dog.

Hi there. I’m Yeardley.

Dan: I’m Dan.

Dave: I’m Dave.

Paul: And I’m Paul.

Yeardley: And this is Small Town Dicks.

Dan: Dave and I are identical twins-

Dave: –And retired detectives from Small Town, USA.

Paul: And I’m a veteran cold case investigator who helped catch the Golden State Killer using a revolutionary DNA tool.

Dan: Between the three of us, we’ve investigated thousands of crimes, from petty theft to sexual assault, child abuse to murder. 

Dave: Each case we cover is told by the detective who investigated it, offering a rare, personal account of how they solved the crime.

Paul: Names, places, and certain details have been changed to protect the privacy of victims and their families.

Dan: And although we’re aware that some of our listeners may be familiar with these cases, we ask you to please join us in continuing to protect the true identities of those involved-

Dave: –out of respect for what they’ve been through.

[unison]: Thank you.

[Small Town Dicks theme]

Yeardley: Today on Small Town Dicks, my friends, we are so lucky because we have all the usual suspects. I’m going to start from the back. We have the one and only Paul Holes.

Paul: Hey, hey. You’re trying to surprise me again.

[laughter]

Yeardley: I live for it. I have a lot of excitement in my life. So, this is it. [laughs] We have Detective Dave.

Dave: Well, hello.

Yeardley: Well, hello. It’s so good to see you here on my screen.

Dave: Likewise.

Yeardley: And we have Detective Dan.

Dan: Number three in the lineup, but number one in your hearts.

Yeardley: Thanks, as always, that’s what the fans say. Small town Fam, oh, my goodness. Not only do we have all the usual suspects, which makes it a big, big day, we are so pleased to welcome back to the podcast, Detective Bre.

Bre: Hello.

Yeardley: Oh, my goodness. Bre, it’s so good to see you. So, for our listeners, Bre gave us two cases in Season 15, two of my favorites. And we’ve done a lot of cases on this podcast now, one was called Superstar and I named it that because Bre and the victim in that case are extraordinary.

And instead of giving that case a name that sort of implies what the crime was about or how awful it was, this time I actually wanted to just celebrate the two women at the center of that story, and I love it.

And then she gave us another one called Heinous. So, if you haven’t heard those, they’re in Season 15. You should stop right now, go back and listen, and then come back to this one. [laughs] Bre, it’s great to see you. We were so delighted to meet up with you in person and your mom and your sister Aaliyah, who we’ve had on the podcast when we were in Denver on our live tour earlier this winter.

Bre: Yes. That was amazing. I’m so glad that we got to make it.

Yeardley: It was just lovely to finally meet you in person and give you a hug and share a drink, and it was very special.

Bre: That was fantastic. My husband was a little bit jealous, I will say. He’s like, “You had a drink with Yeardley Smith?”

[laughter]

Dave: There were other people there as well.

[laughter]

Yeardley: Exactly. I’m going to say, “Ah, she’s not that great.”

[laughter]

Paul: Well, I got to do a midnight cop food run with Bre and her family after you guys went to bed.

Yeardley: Oh, my God.

[laughter]

Paul: And Bre was the instigator of that, if I remember right.

Bre: No, I was not. That was my sister. [Yeardley laughs] That was absolutely Aaliyah. She was like, “We’re going to Taco Bell.” And I was like, “We’re doing what?” And Paul’s like, “I’m in. I’m in. Let’s do it.”

[laughter]

Bre: [00:5:08] So, yeah, we got in an Uber and then we ended up in a construction site and we were like, “Ah, where’s the Taco Bell?” And then we were like, “Can you just wait for us for a second?” We all get out of the car, Uber driver is gone. We’re like, “All right, well, hopefully this works out.” So, we ordered our food at a window and then had to take it back to the hotel to eat it, [laughs] so it was ridiculous, but it was fun.

Yeardley: That’s hilarious. Three investigators getting out of a random Uber in the middle of a construction site in the middle of the night for some Taco Bell.

Dave: Right.

Yeardley: How come I don’t feel safer about that. [laughs]

Dave: They were all packing.

Bre: It was fine. It was fine.

Yeardley: Sure. It’s funny too that it was Aaliyah suggesting this Taco Bell adventure, because I remember she told us how she has been known to strap a pizza into the passenger seat of her patrol car while she is between calls.

[laughter]

Yeardley: [6] I love her for that.

Anyway, Small Town Fam, we digress. You’re not to hear us catch up on our fabulous evening together. Although you do wish you were there, I know you do. We had the best time. But Bre, you’re an old pro now, and we are so delighted to have you with us again. So please tell us how this case came to you.

Bre: Yes, mam. So, this case actually came to me when I was a pretty new detective. I had only been in Special Victims working sex assaults and crimes against children for about a year. So, actually, as I go back through this case, I see some things that I would have probably done a little bit differently, now that I have about a decade doing those cases. But this was one that came to me that kind of stuck with me just for the amount of involvement I had with the suspect in this case.

So, this one came as an Assist Other Agency report. We call them AOA reports. And it came from a neighboring jurisdiction, and that typically happens when a victim doesn’t live within our jurisdiction, but the crime happened within our jurisdiction. So, they go home, and then they’re able to make the report with their local agency, as opposed to having to travel back to wherever the crime took place to make the report with the agency that would investigate it.

Before we get into the case, I just want to preface this when I say consensual in this case, because I’m going to say consensual, I just want to explain that there’s only a difference between agreeing to have sex and a forced sexual interaction.

Yeardley: Can you explain that? Mm-hmm.

Bre: So these girls that I’m going to talk about agreed to have sex with the suspect in this case. However, none of them are of age to consent. They are all way too young. They’re children. So legally, there are differences in the statute between a consent, if we can call it consent and a forced situation. So the victim, their ages range 12 to 15. They were agreeing to have sex with the suspect.

Now, my personal belief is that they’re coerced, there’s grooming, there’s manipulation involved in this. None of these girls consented, but the statute is specific when it comes to whether we’re going to charge with a force or something that the victim participated in, if that makes sense.

Dave: You have to remember that detectives and law enforcement are speaking in our terms.

Yeardley: It’s literally a technical distinction.

Dave: Yeah. Like, was it forcible rape? No, it wasn’t forcible, the victim consented. But the victim’s 14, so it doesn’t matter that they consented.

Yeardley: Okay, I’m glad we cleared that up.

Bre: Thanks, Dave. I appreciate you helping me out on that one.

Dave: I’ve had to answer that question on many emails, “Why did you say this?”

Bre: Yeah, and I obviously want to be sensitive to the people that are listening and so-

Dave: Yeah

Bre: -anyway. So, Harper is 14 years old. She leaves from her home and she’s gone for six days. And this is in the neighboring jurisdiction. Her mother, Claire, reports her missing in that jurisdiction, and she has no idea where Harper is at. Harper then returns home after six days, and at that time, she tells her mother, Claire, that she met this man whose name is Anthony, on a social media platform, and they began talking and began this relationship, and then they arranged to meet.

So, Anthony drives from my jurisdiction to where Harper lives in her jurisdiction, and he picks her up and then he takes her back to his house for this six-day period. And at that time, Anthony did live with his parents, but they were out of town. So, he feels comfortable now having this empty household to bring Harper back to.

So, Harper discloses to her mom, Claire, that she and Anthony engage in sexual intercourse while she’s staying at Anthony’s residence within my jurisdiction. So, I work with the detective in the neighboring agency, and they collect a sexual assault exam and potential evidence related to my case and my investigation.

The detective in the other jurisdiction, Detective Drew, he helps me and he sets up a forensic interview of Harper. So, I get to meet with Harper, and I get to meet with Claire, Harper’s mom, and the forensic interview takes place. And at that time, Harper discloses this sexual contact she’s had with this adult man named Anthony.

Yeardley: And how old is Anthony?

Bre: Anthony is 22 at the time.  

Dave: And Harper again was 14?

Bre: 14.

Dave: And one other question, just out of my curiosity, what was the social media app that these two met on?

Bre: MeetMe.

Dave: Okay. That’s a popular one.

Yeardley: Never heard of it.

Dave: There’s a bunch.

Bre: There are so many. And I feel like every time you think you’ve got them all, another one pops up, and then you’re trying to figure out how to subpoena that one.

Yeardley: I just want to say it’s so alarming to me that Harper disappears for six days and Anthony lives several hours away, like the whole thing right out of the gate is unbelievable. It’s harrowing.

Dave: It’s pretty common too.

Yeardley: Harper’s mother, Claire, must have been fucking out of her mind.

Bre: She was, she was. She had no idea where her child was.

Yeardley: Oh, my God.

Bre: And I mean, think about that six days. That’s a long time for you not to know where your child is at.

Yeardley: I can’t even– Geez, okay. At least Harper has returned safely or she makes it back safely somehow.

Bre: She does.

Paul: I’ve been pretty outspoken about the number of serial predators that are in existence and are active here in the United States, including serial killers. There’s a lot more than what people realize. Well, it’s because people aren’t aware that these predators, they go to where the prey’s at, and the prey is now in the online space.

Back in the day, the kids would go to the playground, and this is where the predators are going to go. So, you think as a parent, of course, you want to have a physical presence in order to keep your child safe. Now your presence has to be virtual in order to keep your child safe.

As I’m listening to Bre, it’s like, yes, these individuals, their whole goal is to lure and isolate the victim so they can be physical with the victim, so they develop the technical capabilities plus they have the personality skillsets to groom and lure remotely.

Bre: Right.

Dan: So Harper goes through the interview, discloses at least one or probably multiple occasions of sexual contact with Anthony.

Bre: That’s correct. So, she says they’ve had various forms of sexual contact. Leave it at that. So, at the end of the interview with Harper, and she kind of lays out how they meet. Anthony actually picked her up from a gas station across the street from her school. So, he knew where she was going to go to school. It was something easy, she could just walk right across the street, and then he picked her up from there. She discloses that as soon as soon as they get in the car and they start driving, at every red light, he’s touching her, he’s kissing her, he’s already starting this process.

Harper tells Anthony that she’s only 14, and he initially tells her that he’s only 18 years old. And 18 even gave Harper pause because she was like, “Okay, that’s a little old,” but she continues. She agrees to meet up with him. Anthony tells Harper if she meets any of his family or friends during their time together, to make sure that she tells them that she’s 18 years old. So, he’s already prepping her for if she has any kind of contact with family that she knows what she’s supposed to say, and that’s that she’s 18.

Yeardley: Does she look 18?

Bre: No.

Yeardley: Because there’s a big gap between 14 and 18. You know, that’s like a quarter of your life.

Bre: She didn’t look 18 to me. No, she looked like a little kid.

Dave: It also demonstrates that Anthony is aware of right versus wrong.

Bre: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. He knows exactly what he’s doing is wrong. So, Harper actually remembers Anthony’s home address and she’s able to provide it, which is great.

[laughter]

Dan: Pretty good.

Bre: Yeah, yeah.

Dan: Pretty good.

Bre: She knew his first and last name. She knew his address. She actually knew his parents’ names because she saw some prescription bottles in the bathroom while she was there, and she made note of that as well. So, in addition to Harper being there for this extended period of time and Anthony convincing her to engage in sex with him almost every day, he also wanted her to smoke weed and drink alcohol with him and his friends. So, he does bring friends over and they kind of party. Of course, the friends think that she’s 18 and they’re all drinking alcohol and smoking weed. She did say she refused to engage in any of the alcohol or drugs, but he was pressuring her to engage in that activity as well.

Harper was pretty specific in that Anthony didn’t force her to do anything, but she said she felt very pressured. So, she’s there, she’s young, she’s got all these older guys. They’re all drinking and engaging in this illegal activity and she just felt like she had to do what they wanted her to do.

Yeardley: So, Bre. Harper, when she gets back to her mother’s house after these six days, she’s clearly traumatized. She wants to make this report. Is it because her mother says, “Where the hell have you been? My God, I’ve been out of my mind.” And then Harper has to come clean. Or is she like, “I can’t wait to tell you what happened to me. It was awful.”

Bre: The latter. So, she definitely was traumatized, I think, by being at this man’s house. She didn’t give any problems. Of course her mom was like, you know, like you said, “Where the hell have you been?” And she didn’t try to cover. She didn’t try to make any kind of excuses. She was very forthcoming with all of the information, like I said, Harper provided Anthony’s address, his name, his parents’ name. She was not trying to save him or protect him in any way at all.

Yeardley: Harper was on board.

Bre: She was on board for sure. Yeah, I don’t think she was expecting that when she thought she was going to meet up with a cool older guy.

Yeardley: Harper didn’t think this was what was going to go down with Anthony.

Bre: I don’t think so. So, as you guys are familiar with, controlled calls it is kind of our bread and butter. We conduct a controlled call between Harper and Anthony and he is openly discussing all the things that they did together for this past week.

Harper recalls that Anthony took some photos of the two of them together while they were there. Nothing illegal, no nudity or anything like that, but just some pictures of them, like laying in bed together, just their faces. So, Harper asks him on this call, “Hey, can you send me those photos that we took together?” And of course, he sends them right over. So now I’ve got his face and hers and these photos. So that was really great as well. But she was fantastic on this call.

Oh, and Anthony also acknowledges on this call that he knows Harper is only 14 years old. So that’s another key piece there. And I just want to back up too, because when I talked to Claire, Harper’s mom, she had already done her own research, and so she had found Anthony on social media. She took his parents’ name, went to the property appraiser’s website, was like doing all this research on her own. And she provides it all to me. And, Harper had given us Anthony’s address, but it all just matched up with everything that Claire had also found. She was like, “We’re going to get this guy, right?”

So, detective Drew, who is the detective in this other jurisdiction who’s helping me with this case, he and I decide we’re going to go to Anthony’s house to talk to him. And this ended up happening a couple days later.

So, we arrive at Anthony’s house in the afternoon and he’s home. And he agrees to talk with us. And we interview him on November 7th. And I just want you guys to make note of that date, November 7th. I read Anthony his Miranda warnings and we conduct this interview and Anthony gives a full confession. He says he meets Harper online, he picks her up from this other county, he brought her back to his house. He engages in sexual conduct with her over those six days. He admits to everything. He says he only used a condom once. And he also regarded himself as very thoughtful and caring because he kept reminding me during this interview that Anthony was telling Harper, “Your family’s probably missing you. You should check in with them. You should call them and let them know that you’re okay.”

And then as soon as Harper wanted to go home, Anthony says, “I took her right home. As soon as she said she was ready to go, I took her home.” So, he in his head thought that he was this like loving and caring gentleman that just had this week-long fling. It was pretty disgusting. But what was really interesting about this interview with Anthony was that he was so honest about everything right from the start.

And I think probably Dan, Dave and Paul, you guys can probably all attest to. Even the people who eventually tell you what happened and are truthful start out lying. They start out with like some story or some sort of deflection or an outright denial, but Anthony didn’t try to do that at all. I was kind of shocked. I was like, “Oh, okay, we’re going right into this. I guess you’re ready to tell me,” which was, I thought interesting. It’s never happened to me prior and it hasn’t happened to me since. [Laughter]

Dave: Did you get a sense that Anthony is– I mean, I can make some assumptions based on Anthony himself and his statements, but did you get a sense that Anthony’s way more naive? We get criminals that will go into the interview room and confess to things and they act like it’s no big deal. Like, I’m just stating facts and you’re like, “There’s a crime, there’s another crime, there’s another crime.” So, I’m trying to picture how this interview is going. Are you sitting there going, “Oh, this guy has no idea what kind of trouble he’s in?” Or did you pick up on a defect that he’s not tracking what’s going on?

Bre: No. So, he knew what he did was wrong. He outright said he knew what he had done was wrong. I definitely think he was a bit naive. Now, as we get onto these other cases, you’ll see that Anthony starts to pick up on, “Hey, maybe I shouldn’t talk to the cops.” I think this was probably his first real interaction with law enforcement. He was just a very interesting guy. He thought that he was really a gentleman. And although he knew that what he was doing was illegal, in his mind, I don’t think he made that connection. I don’t think he thought that what he was doing was actually wrong.

Dan: You know, I’ve had people in the interview room also. Or you show up at their house, got a search warrant in hand, and they fall on the sword. They tell you everything because they want you to stop looking. If you have to dig, you might find other things, so they just give you what they feel is everything so you’ll stop looking and you leave.

Dave: Well, I’ll say in the social media space we’ve done a few episodes, but the prolific nature of contacting underage females or males, depending on the offender’s preference. If they’re doing it with one 14-year-old girl, they’re probably trying it with 30 others and getting a bite every now and then. And that’s typically how those cases go. And I won’t make any assumptions. I know that Bre knows what she’s doing. [Laughs]

Bre: Yeah. And we will get to those other bites. So, Anthony also agrees to provide his DNA. So, he voluntarily gives me his swab because we have a sexual assault exam that we are hoping that we’ll get evidence from.

Yeardley: From Harper.

Bre: From Harper’s sexual assault exam, correct. So, he provides his DNA. While we’re there, Anthony gives us consent to look around his house. So, I take some photographs and I decided to take some photographs of him as well. And he had some interesting tattoos. One thigh, he had, it was a lighter and it had 420 on it. And the lighter was like lighting a blunt. And then on the other thigh was just 123XYZ. I don’t know what the significance was, but those were his tattoos. And he had one on the top of one thigh and one on the top of the other thigh. So, I photograph him and we’re getting ready to leave and Anthony stops us and he says, “Oh, I still have some clothing from Harper. Maybe you could return that to her for me.” And I’m like, “Yeah, absolutely. We would love to do that for you.”

Yeardley: Sure.

Bre: So, he goes inside and he brings out a bag of clothing, including a bra from Harper. He gives us this grocery bag of Harper’s clothing from his house. I was like, “Thank you very much. Appreciate that.” So that goes into evidence.

Yeardley: Yeah.

Bre: Detective Bre: Maybe not the sharpest that we’re dealing with. So, I get the sexual assault kit from Detective Drew and then I send that off for testing along with Anthony’s DNA. So, I consult with the state attorney and they advise that they want the case sent over in a direct file. And so, we have a couple different ways that we charge people. We can do what’s called a probable cause arrest, where we just arrest somebody right on the spot, we write up our affidavit and we take him into custody right away.

Or we can do a warrant, which is where we write up all of our paperwork. It goes to the state attorney’s office, they approve it. And then it goes to a judge, they approve it, and then a warrant gets entered into the system, and then we can go out and we can make the arrest. Or we can do what’s called a direct file, which is where we write up our charges, and we send it over to the state attorney’s office for them to review the case. And then if they decide that they want to pick up the charges, then they will issue their own warrant, and then we could go back later and pick them up.

So, I hated direct files for a very long time, and I’m still not a fan because I want to put people in jail that need to go to jail. There are some legitimate reasons for doing a direct file, and it has a lot to do with the state attorney’s office and the timing. Once we put somebody in jail, the clock starts ticking, and so they have a certain number of days to file charges on somebody. So, if we’re waiting for evidence to come back from the lab. We’re waiting for the sex assault to be examined. If we don’t file those charges, if the state can’t say, “Yes, I’m ready to go to trial right now,” then they have to drop the charges. And obviously that’s not what we want. So, we’ll direct file and then that gives us time to get all of our evidence back, and then the state has time to get their case together. Does that make sense?

Yeardley: So, basically, it buys you time.

Bre: It buys us a little bit of time. So, I sent over these charges in a direct file, and I charged Anthony with six counts of lewd battery. So that was for the number of times that Harper had said that they had engaged in this sexual conduct. So, the DNA results come back, and Anthony’s DNA is on Harper’s vaginal swabs. So, we’ve got him there as well.

So, while the state attorney’s office is determining what to do with the charges that I just sent over, Anthony is right back at it with another girl.

Yeardley: Ugh.

[]

[Break 1]

[]

Bre: So, we have Veronica. So, Veronica doesn’t get introduced to me. I don’t get this case until February. But I’m going to back up just a little bit. So, Veronica’s 12, and Veronica’s dad, Josh, wakes up one morning, and he sees that Veronica’s bedroom door is like slightly open. And he goes in the room to check on her, and he sees that she’s sleeping in her bed, and the covers are pulled up all the way, and so he turns around and he goes out to the kitchen and he starts like making his coffee and doing his thing. And he’s like, something didn’t seem right about that. So, he goes back into the room and he pulls the covers back. And it’s the age-old trick, where you lay all your pillows down to make it look like someone’s sleeping there.

So, he realizes Veronica’s not in her bed and he freaks out. He starts calling her phone. She’s not answering. He gets in his car, he’s driving around, he can’t find her. So, she shows up about two hours later, and she’s wearing a man’s T-shirt. And Josh, her father, is absolutely livid. And he’s like, “Where have you been?” And she initially says, like, I don’t know what you’re talking about, like, nothing. It was no big deal. And he has like a complete meltdown.

And so, at that point, Veronica felt bad for her dad because now he’s having this breakdown, and she admits that she was with a guy named Anthony that she met online. And she eventually tells her dad that she and Anthony had sex. So, Josh takes her to one of our local offices and makes this report. Josh also did not allow Veronica to shower. He’s like, “You’re staying just like that. And we’re going straight to the police station,” which was great.

So, the deputy there at the office, he takes a report. He sees some communication between Veronica and Anthony and he takes some photographs. And the conversations were affectionate, but they weren’t anything overt. The photos were not nudity. It was just them sending photos back and forth of their faces. So, this case gets sent over to me.

So, this was in February. I look at the communication between Anthony and Veronica and when it started, and it started on November 13th. So, if you recall, November 7th, I go out and do an interview with Anthony. Five days later that we know of, right? Five days later that we know of, he’s already engaging in additional conversations with these females, these minors online. And I was like, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Yeardley: Oh damn.

Dave: This is why sex crimes detectives don’t fully buy into the rehabilitation.

Bre: No, I don’t think there’s any rehabilitation at all. You know, you want to give people a second chance, I’m about second chances, but there are some things you’ve just seen it too many times. So, in these conversations, their ages are discussed. Anthony knows how old Veronica is, and Veronica knows how old Anthony is. And they actually start having sexual contact in December. And she doesn’t get caught sneaking out of the house until February. So, this is going on for several months.

Yeardley: And I guess Veronica lives nearish Anthony, where she can sneak out of the house. Does Anthony then come pick her up and take her somewhere, or does she like ride her bike to his house or something?

Bre: So, Veronica did live within our jurisdiction, and she didn’t live far from him, but he was coming and picking her up. She was sneaking out, and then he was driving over to her house and picking her up after she snuck out of the house and taking her back to his house.

So, the desk deputy at the time that took the report, he schedules this sexual assault exam. He impounds Veronica’s clothing, and then the case comes over to me. And it’s interesting too somethings I think are a little meant to be, because my squad had 15 detectives. And so, the way that cases got assigned was that any deputy or any patrol would write the report. It would get sent over to our supervisors. We have three supervisors. So, any one of those three supervisors could read the report, and then they would assign the case out to any one of these 15 detectives.

So, this second case with veronica could have gotten assigned to anyone on my squad. Because at the time, Anthony was unknown to us. We didn’t know who he was.

Yeardley: You’re saying you knew who Anthony was because of Harper’s case, but nobody knew Anthony was also the offender in Veronica’s case?

Bre: That’s correct. So, I think it’s just kind of interesting, like, the stars are aligned, that I had the first case with Anthony, and then I just so happened to get assigned the second case with Anthony, because if this had been another detective, the connection might not have happened as quickly as it did.

So, Anthony tells Veronica that he’s 17 years old when she tells him that she’s only 12. And then he eventually says, “Oh, well, no, I’m actually a little bit older.” So, she says she starts sneaking out of her house every night, meeting up with him. And sometimes sex is involved, sometimes it’s not. But she’s interviewed, and aside from disclosing to law enforcement, she doesn’t provide any other information about Anthony. And that was either because she didn’t want to or she just genuinely did not know. But she does say that he has a tattoo on his thigh of 123XYZ and she draws it. And I’m like, “Oh, I know. I know who Anthony is.”

So, in Harper’s case, we did not have to do a photo pack or a photographic lineup because she knew who Anthony was. She was able to provide us his first and last name. She actually provided his date of birth, his address, all these identifying information. Veronica did not know those same things, so we had to do a photographic lineup for her. So, because I, at that time, believed I knew who this was, we put Anthony’s photograph into a lineup, and then we show those photos to Veronica, and we say, “Hey, do you recognize anybody?”

So, I think we’ve talked about this before or you guys have. I’m sure anytime we do a photographic lineup, the detective that makes the photographic lineup does not show the photographic lineup and that’s to keep any kind of conflict there. Nobody can say, “Oh, well, when you got to number three, you winked at the victim so she knew which one to pick.” So, you bring in somebody who doesn’t have any knowledge of the case, and they don’t know who’s who, and they literally just come in to show the photo pack. So, lieutenant Ryan, at the time, we were detectives together.

Yeardley: Oh, yeah, Ryan. He’s great. He actually sat down with us, thanks to you, Bre, and gave us an episode that’s coming up later this season.

Bre: That’s great. So, he came in, and he showed this photographic lineup for me. And interestingly, Veronica does not make a selection. I think she was a little bit thrown off by the facial hair, even though there’s this whole kind of paragraph that we read that’s like you know “Focus on the facial features, because hairstyles and facial hair can change,” but she’s a little too thrown off, and she does not make a selection.

Yeardley: So she doesn’t pick Anthony out of this lineup?

Bre: Nope, she doesn’t.

Dan: Is Veronica on board with the investigation at this point or is she trying to help Anthony?

Bre: I don’t think she was trying to help him as much as she just really just didn’t want to deal with it, I think. And she’s a child, so her father is telling her what she’s going to do. So, she wasn’t difficult at all, but she wasn’t quite as forthcoming as Harper was. She does agree to do a controlled call. She’s cooperative in that way. And right off the bat, Veronica tells Anthony that she feels like he only wanted her for sex. And this really sets him off.

Again, remember, he’s regarding himself as somebody who’s a gentleman. He’s caring, he’s loving. And for her to say that to him, it really– He hung up on her. He was like, “Don’t talk to me like that.” So, then they continue on a text message and he says, “I know you’re young, but you should know better. You shouldn’t talk to me like that.”

So, Lieutenant Ryan at the time, Detective Ryan and I, we go out to Anthony’s house to conduct another interview with him. And we’re there for just a couple of minutes. And another law enforcement officer that we know, his name is Randy. Randy shows up to this house, but he’s not in uniform. And we’re like, “Oh, hi Randy, what’s going on?” And Ryan and I are a little bit confused. And then we realize that Randy is Anthony’s brother. And we’re like, “Oh, well, that got really awkward.”

Dave: And so Randy is a law enforcement from another agency, but you guys have worked with on occasion, like loose ties with, but recognize them.

Bre: Correct.

Dan: Can I just ask, when you and Ryan show up at Anthony’s house again, is he excited to see you?

[laughter]

Bre: Who wouldn’t be excited to see me and Ryan showing up at their house? Come on.

Dan: Hey, you guys are back. What’s going on? You want a drink? Come on in. Or is it oh shit, right?

Bre: Obviously we know Anthony’s not the brightest. He didn’t like slam the door in our face. He was like, “Hey guys.” We’re like, “Hey, we need to have another conversation, Anthony, some things going on that are not okay.” But now Randy’s there and I’m like, “Oh great. Well, this is probably going to throw a wrench into some things.” And Randy asked to speak with Anthony for a few minutes before we did, so we allowed that to happen. We were doing a noncustodial interview, so he was free to leave. And so, we felt like telling Randy that he couldn’t talk to his brother, probably would not fall in line with a noncustodial. And I thought for sure that Randy was going to tell Anthony, “Listen, don’t say a word. You keep your mouth shut.” And that is not what Randy said. Now, I wasn’t privy to that conversation. I don’t know what actually took place. But what I will say is that Anthony sat down and gave another full statement, full confession.

Yeardley: Amazing.

Dave: I get the feeling Randy gave him the come to Jesus speech. Like, if they’re already at your house, they already know a lot more than you think they know. And I’m sure Randy’s in a really tough place. But even in those situations, when I’ve had friends ask me for advice, hey, the cops are coming out to my house.” “Tell them the truth or don’t speak to them, but don’t lie to them, whatever you do. I’m not going to give you legal advice, but don’t lie to them. I would tell you to be honest with them because they already know the answers to the questions they’re asking.

Bre: Right. And that’s a tough spot to be in. As a sibling, obviously, you want to look out for your brother. You want to give them good advice or advice that’s not going to get them hemmed up. But then as a law enforcement officer, I’m sure it’s a hard spot to because you’re conflicted, because you’re like, well, if you’re doing what I think that you’re doing, then you really have no business out here, free to roam, God’s earth. Really, like, what you’re doing is scary. You’re taking children from their homes and you’re sexually assaulting them. That’s a problem.

So, I’m sure Randy was in a very hard and difficult position, and I’ve seen him since, and he and I just do not discuss anything. We say hello and we’re polite, but that’s got to be challenging and embarrassing, I’m sure, for him.

Dave: But Randy is doing the right thing. He’s on the right side of this, which I appreciate. I have dealt with law enforcement that were not on the right side of some sexual abuse cases, not where there are suspects, but where they’re like an acquaintance of somebody that I’m investigating. And to have a cop totally not be cooperative at all, you’re just like, “What? Which team are you on?”

Bre: Yeah. Or you hear him on a jail call telling them what not to do and don’t tell them this. And you’re just like, “Okay, you could just not say anything.”

Dave: Yeah, send him a manual on how to get out of this.

Bre: Right.

Paul: And Bre, I just want to confirm. So, you are interviewing Anthony for Veronica’s case in February, and you had previously interviewed him November 7th. And I imagine that the direct file occurred shortly thereafter. So, about three months later is when you’re interviewing him again, where’s the direct file at in the process on Harper’s case?

Bre: That’s a really great question. Our state attorney’s office is absolutely bombarded with these types of cases. And so, a direct file typically does take months.

Paul: And so obviously, with that kind of delay, and you have, in essence, a serial predator, there’s further victims while you’re waiting for that first case to make it through the system.

Bre: Yeah, unfortunately. The first case with Harper and Anthony, you know, this is the very first time he’s ever had any contact with law enforcement. So, we know now he’s a serial predator. But at the time, is this a one off? Did he just meet this girl and this was one bad mistake or trying to maybe give him the benefit of the doubt? But we didn’t know what we know sitting here today, so it is hard to find that balance.

So, while we’re talking to Anthony this second time, he tells us, yeah, he did have sex with Veronica. And, when we mentioned that she’s 12, he says, oh, well, I thought she was 14 or 15 and that she was in the seventh grade. And I’m like– [laughs]

Dave: Is Randy sitting there listening to this?

Bre: No, he was not.

Dan: Randy excused himself.

Bre: Randy excused himself and gave us the ability to sit and have the conversation and do this interview.

Yeardley: So you’re chatting with Anthony and he’s actually giving it all up again in this case with Veronica.

Bre: Right.

Yeardley: Please tell me that you’re able to take him to jail now that there’s a second charge.

Bre: Yeah. So, I talked with our state attorney, and I’m like, “Hey, look, he’s got to go. He has to go to jail.” And they agreed. And so, we did place him under arrest at that time. So, I wrote the warrant and actually called Aaliyah because she was on patrol at the time. And as a detective, I don’t have a cage in my car, so I just have a regular car. Just looked like a soccer mom driving down the road.

[laughter]

Bre: So, Aaliyah was on patrol. She had the car with the cage. And so, I said, “Hey, can you come over here and pick this guy up for me?” So, she did. She came on over and she arrested Anthony and put him in the car to transport him.

Yeardley: Just for our listeners, Aaliyah is your sister. We’ve had Aaliyah on the podcast. She’s great.

Bre: Yep. And I happened to be in her zone, so it was kind of perfect. I just said, “Hey, what are you doing right now?” And she’s like, I don’t know, she’s probably eating pizza or something.

[laughter]

Dan: Full pizza. Full pizza in the passenger seat, right?

Dave: Yeah.

Bre: There’s a whole pizza right in the front seat she was munching on.

Dan: Can be eaten cold as well as warm.

[laughter]

Bre: That’s right. So, she put the pizza down to come and make this arrest for me. So, it was kind of great.

Dan: She’s going to kill us.

Bre: For sure. She’s definitely going to kill. Hey, she started it. She started it.

Dan: She brought it up.

[laughter]

Yeardley: It’s her fault.

Bre: So, we took Anthony’s phone, we did a download on his phone, and then we were able to actually find photographs of Anthony with Veronica and Anthony with Harper. And unfortunately, they did all of their communicating on these apps. So, when we do a forensic download on a phone, it will only give you what’s actually on the phone. Sometimes it will pull bits from social media apps, but it’s not always guaranteed. So, we also will write search warrants to those particular social media apps to get their content as well.

So, you think of it as like, when we do a download, say we put your phone into airplane mode. So, anything that you can get while your phone is in airplane mode is typically what we’ll get on a forensic download. And then anything on the social media apps, we have to do a little extra work on that.

And at the time, these particular social media apps were not great about providing a whole lot of detail. They have gotten much better. But at this time, we weren’t able to get any of the conversation between Anthony and Veronica or Anthony and harper from this MeetMe application that they had been communicating on unfortunately.

The lab results come back. This is from the sexual assault kit. So, this is on Veronica’s case. So, we send her kit off as well. And when we get the results, we find positive DNA on her vaginal swabs and her breast swabs. And we get another hit that says, “Oh, and by the way, Anthony’s DNA also hit on this other case, which is Harper’s case.” So, we get that case to case hit as well.

Yeardley: Sounds like it’s time to bring the hammer down on Anthony.

Bre: Yes, mam. So he ends up pleading guilty to both cases, and he got three years of prison, followed by 12 years of sex offender probation.

Yeardley: Why doesn’t he have to register as a sex offender for life? What is this probation thing?

Bre: So, he does have to register as a sex offender. It’s sex offender probation. So, it’s like probation, but there are extra kind of terms and conditions in the sex offender probation, like, you can’t be within 1,000ft of a school or a playground, and there’s certain other conditions that they will put onto the sex offenders.

Yeardley: Bre, did you say that Anthony ends up pleading guilty to both cases? Both Harper and Veronica?

Bre: Correct. And he gets three years.

Yeardley: Three years.

Dan: Three years. So, I think about our state, he would have been hammered.

Dave: Yep.

Dan: That would have been a big bite.

Bre: Yeah. I wish that this would have been a little bit different.

Dave: You work with what you’re given though.

Bre: Yeah. I mean, and I think too– And I don’t know exactly how these cases played out with the state attorney’s office, but a lot of times they take into consideration how willing the victim is or how that’s going to go in a trial, whether the victim even wants that. Because even though they’re 12, 13, 14, they’re not going to make them do something that they’re not willing to do. And if the state attorney has a victim that’s like, “I can’t do this,” or I’ve even heard and this is kind of awful, but you have a really good defense attorney that’s going to talk to the victim on the stand and do a lot of victim blaming. And especially in this case where it’s like, “Well, you went with him voluntarily.” It could get real nasty for the victim, unfortunately. And that’s disgusting and I hate that. And the defense attorneys that I deal with that have that mentality, have no time for, no patience for. We can all understand that we have a job to do and that’s fine, but victim blaming and making the victim feel like somehow, they did something wrong, for me, that’s a no go.

Dan: That’s a pretty risky strategy for a defense attorney in front of a jury too.

Bre: Well, they do it.

Dave: Yeah.

Paul: So Bre is Anthony, who was 22 when you were dealing with him. He served what, three years? Is he out now?

Bre: He is. And this is where I get into my third victim.

[]

[Break 2]

[]

Bre: So, Anthony spends just shy of three years in prison. He gets out in July and here we are in September and we’ve already got more contact. So, Detective Bryan was an undercover detective with our agency and he was assigned to do the undercover chat operation. So, he’s talking on social media platform in an undercover capacity as a 15-year-old girl to identify individuals that are attempting to exploit children.

So, Anthony actually reaches out to detective Bryan and begins a conversation with him. So, he immediately starts asking about what she– Detective Bryan likes to do sexually and what she’s down for and certain sexual acts. And Anthony advises detective Bryan that he could teach her as long as she has an open mind. So, we’re already like right off the rip. He’s starting with this type of engagement.

Yeardley: How old does Anthony think detective Bryan is?

Bre: 15.

Yeardley: Okay.

Bre: So this conversation between Anthony and undercover detective Bryan goes on for several days. And so, the conversation, it starts and stops. As you would expect, any conversation that’s going to take place over several days, but every time the conversation starts again, it’s Anthony initiating the contact, which is important.

Dave: These are the types of things that used to make me blush on my couch while I was typing back and forth with these fellows.

Yeardley: When you were undercover?

Dave: Yeah, I’d be like, “Oh, my God, this guy really likes me.” [Laughter]

Yeardley: We did a couple of episodes like that. They’re so great.

Dave: Yeah, those are entertaining. “What’s he going to say next? When am I going to get the dick pic sent to me that I never asked for?”

[laughter]

Bre: And they’re just so like–

Dave: Brazen.

Bre: You’re just like, good grief.

Dave: And we’ll remind you that Anthony is speaking not to a 15-year-old, but a grizzled undercover detective.

[laughter]

Bre: Yes, grizzled undercover detective.

Dave: What’s the gist of where Anthony’s going with the text message conversations?

Bre: He’s very aggressive right from the beginning. And they talk about age several times. Detective Bryan reminds him, “Hey, I’m 15. Are you sure that’s okay?” And “Oh, yeah, that’s fine.” And so, it got really dirty really fast. I mean, he’s just talking about all the things that he’s going to do to her and she has to have an open mind, but he’s going to teach her.

Dave: After spending years in prison for the same offense and jumps back online within months of release and is back to the activity and has really not shown any ability to recognize where he might be committing a crime. They can’t help themselves, truly cannot help themselves.

Paul And to that effect, Dave, I was thinking about this, and this is where I was confirming with Bre about Anthony’s age at the time of the Harper and Veronica cases. And then, of course, he got the three years of prison training. You’ve also got Anthony recognizing how he got caught. And so now he’s coming back out. And we know this type of sex offender has a compulsion, and we’re seeing that compulsion play out. But what is the evolution? He’s going to be reflecting back upon his prior experiences and possibly talking to other inmates. And Anthony is now thinking, “Okay, I need to change things up if I want to continue to do this,” and that’s where now it’s interesting to me, Bre, about, okay, how bold Anthony is talking to detective Bryan. Are you sensing a change in the language that he’s using relative to how he was chatting or texting with Veronica and Harper?

Bre: So, what little bit we were actually able to see between Harper and Veronica was fairly mild, but I don’t think we were able to really get everything that was going on. And that was based on just the social media platforms and retaining those conversations. Obviously, what we have with detective Bryan is word for word because it’s all documented. But he’s bold from the jump. Anthony’s bold with detective Bryan.

Yeardley: Bre, I’m curious that Anthony being online is not one of the prohibitions and part of his parole, sex offender parole. Dave was saying that kind of condition can include things like you can’t go near school, you can’t obviously be around children. Maybe you can’t get online.

Bre: No, he wasn’t allowed online.

Dave: Yeah. And I was going to say–

Yeardley: But he did it anyway.

Dave: Yep. It probably was part of the conditions and he just didn’t give a shit.

Yeardley: Anthony just didn’t care.

Dave: Yup.

Bre: All right, so after days of dirty talk with detective Bryan, Anthony now wants to talk on the phone.

Dave: There’s the evolution.

Bre: Yeah.

Dave: He can fact check and it’s a little heat check on is this person real? And do they sound like they’re 15?

Bre: Right. Because at one point, he actually accuses detective Bryan of being a cop.

Dave: Yup.

Bre: You know, just for all the reasons you’re talking about with the vernacular, it’s hard to keep up with. And as somebody in their 40s, I may miss something that the kids, the 14, 15-year-olds are saying today. And that might have been a red flag that might have set Anthony like, “Oh, this doesn’t quite sound like a 15-year-old.” So, he asked to have this conversation and typically will use some of the very young, brand-new deputies that are just starting out, like they’re in their early 20s and they look very young. And we utilize them as undercovers when they want to do facetiming, chatting.

So, detective Bryan gets an undercover to call Anthony on the phone, and he immediately is like, “Nah, you sound like a grown ass woman.” [Laughter] And hangs up. So, detective Bryan’s burned at this point. Detective Bryan consults with the state attorney and they’re like, “Yes, we need to charge Anthony. He’s got to go.” So, detective Bryan and his team, they do surveillance on Anthony and they see him leaving his house and they conduct a traffic stop on him. And he had a friend with him in the car. And when they pull over, the friend takes possession of the phone. And detective Bryan calls the phone that they had been communicating, and it rings in the friend’s hand. And they had also seen, like a little bit of a switch kind of going on as they were approaching the car. So, the friend finally does admit, no, it’s not my phone, it’s Anthony’s phone. And Anthony told me to take the phone and to say that it was mine. So, Anthony knows that he’s about to get in a lot of trouble.

Dave: And fuck Anthony. He’s given his buddy, like–

Yeardley: Yeah.

Dave: I mean, with friends like that, who needs enemies, right? “Hey, can you hold all my child porn and evidence for me?”

[laughter]

Bre: Right. Got to leave.

Dave: Come on.

Bre: So at this point, detective Bryan knows that Anthony’s on probation. He’s a registered sex offender so he charges him, violates his probation, and kind of throws the book at him. And at this point, Anthony’s learned not to talk to cops, so he does not provide a statement to detective Bryan.

So, during detective Bryan’s investigation, he realizes that there was a recent contact message at Anthony’s address where another jurisdiction was looking for a missing child and they sent law enforcement out to Anthony’s house. And now we’re introducing our third victim, which is Callie. So, Callie is not at Anthony’s house when law enforcement goes to do this contact message or so they thought. So, detective Bryan writes a search warrant on Anthony’s phone, and he sees all this information related to Callie in the phone. So, he determines that Anthony is now using Uber to pick up his victims. So, Anthony gets an Uber for Callie and brings Callie from another jurisdiction a couple hours away over to his residence. And they’re able to see on multiple occasions that in Anthony’s Uber app, he has Callie’s residence picking her up and bringing back to his because he’s on house arrest and he can’t leave.

Yeardley And how old is Callie?

Bre: Callie is 15. So, when detective Bryan realizes who Anthony is, realizes that I have a history with him, detective Bryan asked me to go out to do this interview with Callie. And, they typically like to use special victims detectives to interview victims. So, I get pulled into detective Bryan’s investigation at this point, and now he tells me all the things that we just talked about, gives me the full rundown on what Anthony’s been up to since he got out of prison.

Yeardley: For about five minutes, by the way. He’s been out of prison for like five minutes.

Bre: Right. Apparently does not appreciate his freedom because, I mean, three years and then you’re right back at it, it’s kind of unbelievable. So, we go out, we talk to Callie. We show her a photo pack. She does not make a selection, but she was able to provide Anthony’s first and last name. So, there’s something about this man’s facial hair. I kept throwing everybody off, but she knows who he is. And she says, “Yep, he sent an Uber to my house to pick me up and to bring me back to his house,” which is what we’ve confirmed through Anthony’s Uber receipts.

So, Callie discloses that they engaged in sexual intercourse on three different occasions and that he actually recorded the two of them having sex on his phone. So, now he’s even escalating a little bit more because he hadn’t, at least that we knew, done that in the past. Dave, I can see you’re ready to say something.

Dave: I just– The guy’s creating child porn. Let’s call it what it is. He’s creating child sex abuse material. That’s a big one in our state. That’s a real big one in our state.

Bre: Yeah. And Callie says, “I told him I was only 15 and he said he didn’t care.”

Dave: Yeah.

Bre: So, Anthony buys her alcohol. He has it for her upon her arrival to his house. Callie says she gets very drunk. She also smokes some weed. So, she’s extremely intoxicated at this point. Callie also says that they have sex on Anthony’s parents’ bed. Not a crime, but just like, ugh.

Yeardley: He’s disgusting.

Bre: Yeah. So, this is where it gets a little bit different because at some point during the sex between Anthony and Callie, which initially started as again, “consensual,” she tells him to stop and to get off of her and he refuses. So that changes the game a little bit. She says he ejaculates inside of her even though she told him not to. And he told her during sex that he wanted to get her pregnant, which of course you know made her feel disgusting. She’s a child. And Callie still says that to some point she consented in the beginning, but she says, “I was highly intoxicated, I was under the influence of narcotics and I obviously wasn’t making good decisions.” And Callie also tells us– Oh yeah, and by the way, he’s on probation for having sex with a minor because he told her this.

Dave Why can’t you leave your house? Oh, I had this little thing a few years ago.

Bre: Well, and he wears an ankle monitor.

Dave: Oh, got it.

Bre: And she knew this because he couldn’t go in the pool-

[laughter]

Bre: -because he had the ankle monitor on. So, they’re there partying with drugs and alcohol, but Anthony can’t go in the pool because he’s got this ankle monitor on.

So, Callie also says that when law enforcement came to look for her, she was there. And Anthony had her hide under his parents’ bed and she said she stayed there, but she says cops never came inside to look for her.

Now, I would like to think that my agency is better than that. I don’t know how that actually happened. There’s a good chance that Anthony refused to allow them to come inside, and that would be the reason why they didn’t walk in and look for her. Obviously, Callie doesn’t know that, but all that’s just kind of terrifying to me.

Yeardley: It’s a huge escalation, isn’t it? Making sure that she is hidden. But just all the things, regardless of his restrictions, still figuring out ways to offend. And he seems to have recklessness and a disregard for the consequences that has also escalated. If you don’t fear the consequence, then I feel like you just do whatever the hell you want. Right?

Bre: Yeah.

[]

[Break 3]

[]

Paul: Anthony’s an idiot when it comes to trying to prevent himself from being caught. There’s no question about that. But one of the things getting into the weeds a little bit in terms of maybe the behavioral aspect that I was thinking about earlier when I was hearing about his interactions with Harper and how he was willingly and openly discussing and confessing to Bre about this is what I’m doing and trying to look like the gentleman. And now you have this interaction with Callie, who doesn’t want him to ejaculate inside, and Anthony’s telling her, “I want to get you pregnant.” This sounds like a consensual style relationship, and I’m using that term in terms of how he is viewing this interaction with these victims.

When you go into rapist typologies, gross rapist typologies, one of the categories is the power reassurance rapist. This is the category of rapist that once they get the victim under control, they like to cuddle and stroke their hair and whisper sweet nothings into their ear. In many ways, Anthony is sounding like a power reassurance sex offender. He’s doing it with underaged children. In his mind, they are a substitute for a consensual relationship. It’s a fantasy of his. All of these interactions with these victims. He’s living out an aspect of his fantasy life that he is envisioning prior to meeting these victims. He’s not your power assertive guy that is beating his victims. He’s not the sexual sadist. He is this type of person. He views his interactions with these children as if they are in some sort of consensual partnership.

Bre: Which, you know, in Anthony’s mind, I don’t think he sees himself as a bad person.

Dave: Most of the sex offenders I’ve met thought they were great guys and couldn’t understand why I’d even be looking at them.

Bre: Right. Just wild. So, law enforcement leaves Anthony’s house while they were there looking for Callie. And as soon as law enforcement’s out of view, Anthony gets Callie an Uber back home. He puts her in the Uber and sends her off because now he’s worried that she’s going to be found at his house.

So, on the download of Anthony’s phone, we find the video where Anthony and Callie are having sex. There were other videos of them engaged in other kind of sexual activity. And these videos start, remember, he was released in August and we come in contact with him in September, but anybody want to take a guess at when these videos actually start?

Dave: I would say within a day or two of him having access to freedom again.

Bre: A month.

Dave: Okay.

Bre: A month. Yeah. I mean, like, you can’t even make it up.

Dan: Yeah.

Bre: So, Anthony’s charged with a whole bunch of stuff. Lewd and lascivious battery, traveling to meet a minor, promotion of a sexual performance by a child, which is your child pornography, possession of child pornography because you made it and then you had possession of it, and then interference with child custody.

We also did a search warrant to officially take photos of all of Anthony’s tattoos because then we matched them up with the videos that were found on his phone with him engaged in sexual activity with Callie. And Anthony’s ankle monitor has a GPS on it, so we were able to get with the probation officer and get a download of all of that. Of course, it showed him at his house, because now he’s gotten wise and he’s using Uber to bring his victims. And then Callie was actually shown the photographs of the tattoos, and she says, “Yes, that’s who I know as Anthony, who brought me over here to his house to have sex with.” So, he gets arrested again, sentenced back to prison, and his current release date is September of 2032.

Yeardley: Okay.

Dave: Way bigger hit.

Yeardley: Yeah.

Bre: 12 years.

Dave: That’s a lot of years in prison. It is a big hit compared to three, certainly.

Yeardley: And can we expect that Anthony will serve every day of those 12 years? Is it that kind of sentence? Because I know in Dave’s and Dan’s state, if you get convicted as a sex offender, it’s day for day. You serve every day of it right, Dave?

Dave: Yeah. There’s 19 crimes in our state that are day for day sentences.

Bre: I don’t know about this one. I mean, we definitely have a minimum mandatory for ours. Any kind of like the capital sexual battery where kids are under 12, those are typically the ones that have the minimum mandatory. I’m not sure about the ones Anthony was charged with. He was sentenced before to three years and he served just under that. So, I imagine he got a little bit of gain time or good behavior.

Dave: He’s probably allowed to participate in programs which will shave 15% if you successfully complete sex offender treatment program while you’re in those types of things.

Paul: So I’m just doing some mental calculations and if I’m doing those right, Anthony is going to be in mid to late 30s when he’s released.

Bre: Yep.

Paul: I mean, he’s still a very viable predator when he gets out.

Bre: Absolutely. He’s going to have to be on someone’s radar, hopefully not mine. Hopefully I’ll be retired by then.

[laughter]

Dave: I could register people as sex offenders at our police department. And so, I had visibility into upcoming releases and I would get these emails like, “Hey, by the way, level three sex offender is going to be released on this date.” And then we get like a spreadsheet with who it was, what their release date was, what county they’re being sent to, what county they were arrested in, all that information. And it was just to keep us like for the Anthonys of the world that go away for a few years and fall off the radar. Hey, by the way, if you start having these issues, this guy just popped back into your neighborhood last month.

Bre: We have a detective that’s specifically assigned to monitor the sex offenders. And they have to come in and register and check in. And if they get a new car, they have to come and tell us, “Hey, I’m driving this car,” and all that stuff. I need to say something about that because it would be great for the detectives working special victims to have access to like just to get sent that we don’t typically. I mean, we could get it, but you get so busy with your caseload and everything that you’re not really like, “Well, that guy that I dealt with five years ago or ten years ago is about to get out of prison. I should probably check up on him,”

Dave: Right.

Bre: That’s great.

Dave: Anthony will not have learned a thing.

Bre: No, no, he’ll be back at it.

Dave: Yeah. Anthony’s going to be a name that pops up on another detective’s radar.

Bre: Yeah.

Yeardley: Bre, did Anthony end up having to go to trial for Callie’s case or is this a deal? This 12-year sentence?

Bre: No, he pled guilty.

Yeardley: I see.

Bre: Yeah, none of these actually went to trial.

Yeardley: And what about Anthony’s brother, Randy? I feel bad for him.

Bre: I do too. Like I said, I see him every so often and we just say hi and how you doing? I don’t ask, I don’t bring anything up.

Dave: Randy did the right thing. Randy told his brother to be honest. We don’t know what that conversation was, but we can see what the result is so we can make some assumptions, but you don’t get to pick your family members. Just because Anthony did something doesn’t mean that Randy has the same genetic predisposition to offending. So, it’s one of those things. There’s a black sheep in every family, and sometimes that family has law enforcement in it, just happens.

Bre: Yeah.

Yeardley: Yeah, it’s great work, Bre. And I always love the little incidences of serendipity. For instance, when first you investigate Harper’s case and then Veronica’s case happens, just happens to get assigned to you. Whereas you said it could have gone to any number of those 15 detectives that are in your pool. I always feel like that stuff’s not really an accident, even though the opportunity for it to go elsewhere certainly exists, but I’m most grateful for those just little divine intervention moments.

Dave: Mm-hmm.

Bre: For sure. Yeah.

Dave: Nice work, Bre. Not surprised in the least.

Yeardley: Nope.

Bre: Thanks, Dave.

Dave: Your agency is pretty squared away from what I’ve gathered.

Bre: Thanks. I like to think so. I feel pretty blessed to work for this agency, especially when we work with other local agencies and you just go like, “Oh.” Like, you read a report and you’re like, “Ooh, okay. I guess I’m starting from the beginning on this one.”

Dave: Yeah. Totally.

Bre: But we have a great agency, and we have a lot of support from our supervisors, and it’s a great place to work. It really is.

Yeardley: That’s cool.

Paul: Great job again, Bre.

Bre: Thanks, Paul.

Dan: Yeah, nice work. Well done.

Bre: Thanks, Dan.

[Music]

Yeardley: Small Town Dicks was created by Detectives Dan and Dave. The podcast is produced by Jessica Halstead and me, Yeardley Smith. Our senior editor is Soren Begin and our editor is Christina Bracamontes. Our associate producers are the Real Nick Smitty and Erin Gaynor. Logan Heftel is our production manager. Our books are cooked and cats wrangled by Ben Cornwell. And our social media maven is Monika Scott. It would make our day if you became a member of our Small Town Fam by following us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at @smalltowndicks, we love hearing from you.

[music]

Oh, our groovy theme song was composed by John Forrest. Also, if you’d like to support the making of this podcast, go to smalltowndicks.com/superfam and hit that little join button. There, for a small subscription fee, you’ll find exclusive content you can’t get anywhere else.

The transcripts of this podcast are thanks to SpeechDocs and they can be found on our website, smalltowndicks.com. Thank you SpeechDocs for this wonderful service. Small Town Dicks is an Audio 99 Production. Small Town Fam, thanks for listening. Nobody is better than you.

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