The FBI agent also alerted Brian Mize, asking the decryption specialist to drive down from Clayton to lend his expertise in collecting evidence.
A mere 24 hours after the school principal pointed out the fourth-grader, federal agents and Franklin County detectives reached Miramiguoa Park. When they saw Greenwell, a bald man with a close-cropped beard, exit his house and drive away, the search team went in.
The Scooby-Doo sticker on the door was merely a preview of what they would find inside.
"The whole place was littered with Scooby-Doo," Mize recounts, enumerating the highlights: a Scooby-Doo bedspread, a life-size Scooby-Doo blowup doll and numerous Scooby-Doo figurines.
There was also a small dog in a crate in the living room, happily wagging its tail. The dog's name, Subke recalls, was Scrappy.
What with the square jaw and short-cropped hair, Brian Mize's appearance practically screams cop. In fact, the computer forensics whiz is a detective on the Chesterfield police force in west St. Louis County. But when he talks about crime-scene analysis, Mize sounds more like a physician, which is what he aimed to be back when he majored in biology. Then he fell in love with law enforcement.
"We're crime-scene technicians, and our magnifying glass is software, which lets us look for clues," he sums up.
Mize belongs to the Regional Computer Crimes Education and Enforcement Group, a task force launched in 2002 in order to team the FBI's area cybercrime squad with its counterparts from the U.S. Secret Service and local law enforcement agencies. Working as a unit, the group provides technical forensic support to fight computer crimes throughout Missouri, including those related to child abuse.
The FBI seized two computers from Greenwell's cottage, along with multiple external storage drives, two digital cameras and a Sony Handycam video camera, as well as a cache of DVDs and CDs the agents found locked in a safe. (Greenwell's landlord later found a third digital camera, wrapped in clothing, while clearing out his former tenant's bureau drawers.)
Mize quickly saw that Greenwell had encrypted the hard drive on his main PC. After working his way past the suspect's safeguards, Mize found 15,000 still images of child pornography. Some of the photos included Greenwell or other men in the frame, engaging in sex with the boys.
Many of the photos were composed so as not to reveal faces. In order to identify victims, Mize searched for recurring details — a birthmark or scar, or a specific pair of pajamas, for example — and began the painstaking process of sorting and grouping the images. If he noticed a discarded article of children's clothing in the background of one photo and then spotted it being worn by a boy in another, he'd group the photos together.
In this fashion, Mize was able to create a file for each suspected victim. These he named "1 Series," "2 Series" and so on. For each series, he created a "sanitized," nonpornographic image that showed the boy's face and any distinctive physical features that might aid in identification. The work took weeks. When he was finished, Mize believed he had found at least five victims whom Greenwell had molested — and perhaps as many as 10.
Investigators subsequently were able to determine that Greenwell had been molesting and photographing his victims since at least 2003. Most of the photos were taken in whatever home Greenwell was renting at the time, though some were shot during excursions to other towns and tourist attractions.
Investigators in Los Angeles found that one area of the Lost Boy forum was conceived as a work in progress, an ever-growing handbook of tips on how to coerce boys into a trusting relationship, a process often referred to as "grooming." Every Lost Boy member was expected to contribute to the handbook, which contained suggestions such as targeting children living in broken homes or impoverished conditions and going after the sons of drug abusers. One member reported, "Introverted boys from Latin America's poor broken homes (street kids) are the easies to handled [sic] and for cost per boy ratio they are the cheapest."
Elsewhere the handbook advised plying boys with drugs, alcohol and sleeping pills in order to lower their inhibitions, and suggested molesting them while they're unconscious. Another section offered advice on ways to move on from victims who've outgrown their allure.
At the Sheriff's office in Union, Mo., the Franklin County seat, Chuck Subke slides a red binder across a conference room table. A sticker on the cover reads: Sensitive information enclosed. Not for public release. Law enforcement eyes only.
Inside is a 175-page document titled, "How to practice child love. Child love explained by professionals." Subke and the St. Louis FBI agent say the handbook is much like the one on the Lost Boy forum, covering everything from "risks involved" and "when to start/what age" to "exploring the child's genitals" and "making love for the first time." This particular version contains a section called "Our Latest Project: How to kidnap children."
The FBI agent observes: "It's basically Wikipedia for predators."
The St. Louis investigators point out one section that has particular relevance to the Greenwell case.
I was the Chief of the children's protection section of the attorney general's office in Ohio. I am familiar with men who molest children. Unfortunately, the mental illness that forces these men is almost incurable. The recidivism rate among predators is something like 96 percent. They are driven.
Eh, yup, painful. It took me six years of intensive psychotherapy to recover from victimization like this, so there's hope, but my heart just bleeds for the anguish these kids have and will experience.
Easily, what must be considered, one of the most heinous of crimes committed by humans - only the lowest, most vile people prey on children. Thank you to the dedicated women and men who worked so hard to uncover these monsters and their sick activities. Please keep searching and fighting - the parents of the world are immensely grateful. These criminals are shameless and remorseless and should be removed from society (read the recent horrifying article about a poor girl killed by a pedophile in a trailer park - notably, her mother play a profoundly negligent role).
Also, thank you to the news channels that break these stories and any story that keeps the public informed and aware of these monstrous predators so we can id them and learn to how to keep our children safer.
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