Bucks County District Attorney Jennifer Schorn is calling on parents to closely monitor their children’s online activities following the arrest of a 61-year-old Hulmeville Borough man accused of manufacturing and disseminating child pornography.
Mark Wills, of Hulmeville Borough, was apprehended last week near Clarksburg, West Virginia, after fleeing Pennsylvania as he was wanted on charges related to the exploitation of minors.
Schorn warned parents that her office has seen other cases in the past where an adult targets underage victims.
“We have seen at alarming rates individuals like this preying upon our children online,” Schorn said during a press conference. “We encourage every parent to discuss this with their children and check and make sure those applications that you’re reviewing them and making sure that there are individuals who are preying upon our children.”
Investigators have identified four minor victims so far, all from out of state, with one from Canada. However, authorities fear the number of victims could be as high as 20.
Schorn pointed to the importance of open communication between parents and children about online safety.
The county’s top prosecutor advised parents to reassure their children that they have done nothing wrong if they have been victimized.
“I think that’s part of the problem is oftentimes they go unreported because the children feel like they’re complicit in these acts,” Schorn explained. “And to reassure them that they have done nothing wrong and that it’s really important that they share the information with the trusted adults.”
The district attorney stressed the need for parents to be vigilant about the applications their children are using.
Wills allegedly used messaging apps like Kik and Snapchat to contact his victims, posing as a teenage boy to gain their trust.
“Obviously he’s portraying himself to be an adolescent age boy. Some of the years of birth indicated he was 14 years old, he was 16 years old,” Schorn said. “So he could access these young girls and they thought they were having a relationship with someone, a peer-to-peer relationship. And in fact, he was a predator.”
The investigation revealed that Willis had created multiple false identities of young male subjects, complete with names, dates of birth, email addresses, and passwords. He also kept detailed notes on his interactions with underage girls.
Authorities are urging anyone who may have had contact with Wills or suspects their child may have been a victim to come forward.
“There’s no bit of information that’s too little,” Schorn said.
The case highlights the ongoing challenge of protecting children from online predators.
Internet service providers are mandated by law to report suspected child sexual abuse material to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which then funnels the information to local law enforcement agencies.
The National Sexual Violence Resource Center has the following information:
Grooming is the process in which perpetrators judge how far they can push boundaries and exploit someone’s trust.
During the grooming process, people who commit sexual abuse will manipulate a victim’s trust by passing off inappropriate behaviors as normal or no big deal.
Sextortion is a crime that happens online when an adult convinces a person who is under 18 to share sexual pictures or perform sexual acts on a webcam.
Parents can help keep teens and younger children safe by talking about some of the red flag behaviors that are indicative of the grooming process.
Parents can help kids identify red flags that indicate online grooming:
- Asking to keep the relationship secret
- Making suggestive or sexual comments
- Asking the child about their sexual background (have they been kissed, are they a virgin, etc.)
- Sending links to suggestive images, memes, or porn
- Asking the child to only contact them on certain apps
- Asking the child to close the door when speaking with them, only wanting to chat at certain times (like at night), or asking if their parents are around.
- Making conditions on their relationship. For instance, saying they will only continue to talk to the child if the child does something in return for them, like sending photos
- Discussing the child’s appearance or requesting to see more photos of them
- Sending the child online gifts, like gifting items in games
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