It’s a weekday afternoon in Kemah, and R.W. Williamson logs onto Yahoo! chat.
According to the online profile, R.W. is a 13-year-old girl, and on this day, that profile is visible to everyone in the “Texas” chat room where R.W. has joined in.
Within 60 seconds, R.W.’s computer screen is a gallery of pop-up windows called “IMs” — instant messages. The messages are from men, some wanting to be R.W.’s “friend,” some offering online links to their home webcams and some offering links to explicit pornography on the Internet.
Most of the discussions start with the question “a/s/l.” This is a request for R.W.’s age, sex and location.
R.W.’s reply, confirming the profile information, does not discourage the other instant messengers from continuing the online conversation. R.W. strokes his mustache and asks: “What did I tell you? That was 30 seconds, tops.”
The “R” in R.W.’s name stands not for “Renee,” or “Rita,” but Roger, as in Det. Roger Williamson of the Kemah Police Department.
Like most online chatters, Williamson hides his real name behind a “Web handle.” Unlike most, his purpose for being online is strictly professional.
In August, Williamson trained with agents of the Texas Attorney General’s office along with members of the Galveston, Dickinson, Seabrook, Friendswood and Webster police departments, as well as the Department of Public Safety and Galveston County Sheriff’s office.
The agents’ lessons were in how to act like children online and how to conduct themselves in conversations with grown men trying to seduce them or lure them into private, face-to-face meetings. Lesson one was: Do not initiate contact. “You don’t have to,” Williamson said. “They find you.”
Last month, officers spent time online in an operation in which they logged on as youngsters and let people do just that.
The discussions had to contain specific meetings and specific mentions of sex acts.
“Most importantly,” Williamson said, “the guy has to show up. A lot of these guys just get off on talking dirty. You have to have someone who’s serious about taking advantage of a child.”
Two arrests came out of the operation, one by Williamson and a Sugar Land man nabbed in Friendswood whose name was not available last week.
Williamson’s suspect, 19-year-old Asad Abbas, posted $40,000 bond and left the county jail Oct. 8 after three days in custody. He faces a charge of enticing a child, which carries a possible prison term of two to 10 years, as well as a fine of up to $10,000.
Kemah police Lt. Greg Rikard said any doubts about his not letting his kids chat online vanished once he saw the amount of interest adults had with people they thought were underage.
“If they want to talk to their friends, they can do it at school or on the phone,” he said.
Rikard said no one needed to look hard to find examples of children getting lured away online, pointing to the case of Margaret “Katy” Catherine Wilkerson, who disappeared Oct. 25 from her League City home. The FBI has issued a warrant for 22-year-old Paul Cameron Bennett, a resident of Washington state. Investigators believed Katy met Bennett while chatting online. She is still missing.
Assistant District Attorney Xochitl Vandiver, one of the county prosecutors who specializes in prosecuting sex crimes and the one who worked most closely with the informal task force, said her advice to parents of kids who surf the Web was four words long. “Watch them like hawks,” she said. “It’s just that simple.”
Williamson agreed. “We saw propositions, links to hardcore pornography and all kinds of things, with no passwords and no protections to keep minors from viewing that stuff,” he said. “It’s all just a click away.”
