Reflections on 'To Catch a Predator'

Every time I think that I’ve seen it all, something else happens.

When a guy walks into this house naked, I mean, nobody ever taught me in journalism school that you had to put a towel or a blanket nearby to hand to a naked man so he could cover up, so you could interview him. 

But when that same guy, John Kennelly, surfaces in a chat room the very next day, and agrees to meet another young boy at a fast food restaurant, and we confront him again, it was hard for me to assemble to words to approach him.

The other naked guy
Another surprise was in Ft. Myers. It’s late at night on a Saturday.  And we’re expecting this guy to show up.  He has had a conversation with the decoy posing as a 13 year old girl. He wants her to do this bizarre sex act involving a cat, her cat, and cool whip.  I’ll just leave it at that.  She says she’ll consider it if he’ll strip naked when he walks in the house.

But you never really think somebody’s gonna do this.  But, sure enough, there he is— Marvin Lakhan. And this guy moving so quickly, naked, coming through our living room, that the decoy barely makes it into the room and closes the door where I’m standing, where we have monitors, security and cameramen.

And I start going through the chat log with him. And he thinks it’s funny.  And I think it’s somewhat nervous laughter. 

Would you ever think that would have happened before seeing one of these investigations?  I wouldn’t.

Frag: In the very first operation we did with Dateline in Long Island, the most memorable person that I was chatting with happened to be a person who turned out to be a New York City firefighter, Ryan Hogan.  The interesting thing about Hogan was that for a while he was—he was just about off the hook.  He drove by the house and he got scared to come in because there was a Nassau County Sheriff’s car parked next door at this real estate office.

And at the time we weren’t working with law enforcement.  That just happened to be that there was a marked unit next door unrelated.  And he actually then started talking to me, going, “Oh, I knew it was a setup.  I knew it was a sting.” But later that day he got back home and I was able to maintain my persona. 

He gets back on the computer, turns on his Web cam, and masturbates in front of someone posing as a young teenage girl.  That’s what got him into trouble.

Since he never came into the house, I tracked him down outside the fire house where he worked.

Frag: He was charged and convicted in federal court because of him getting back on, getting comfortable, and exposing himself to who he believed was a child.

The doctor
In a nice Petaluma neighborhood, this 48-year-old doctor, name Maurice Wollen, had been chatting online with the decoy posing as a 13 year old girl.  And it was pretty graphic.  I mean there was no mistaking what he had in mind.

So he comes in, and he’s clearly nervous. But there’s a bit of a conversation between the actress portraying the young teen and the doctor.  And my gut was I thought that this was gonna be one of those situations where the chat would continue between the actress and the doctor, and I would come out.  And he would probably be one of those guys to stay and talk to me.

But as he’s standing at the bar, you can tell he’s nervous.  He goes to pour himself a drink and it comes out a big clump, and it spills all over the place.  And now he’s all flustered.

So he’s looking for something to wipe up the mess.  So, by this point, the actress is around the corner standing next to me, next to the sound man, next to the cameraman. Dr. Wollen comes around the corner and sees the sound man, and there’s eye contact there.  And he freaks a bit.  And I start to come out, I said, “You know, excuse me, I just would like to talk to you for a minute.” And he says something to the effect—“No, I’ve gotta go.”  And he hot foots it through the garage.  And of course he’s met by Petaluma Police.  And he knows that he’s in trouble.

With police, he talks, says he doesn’t want to talk.  Talks some more. He gets on the phone, calls his wife.

The man who brought his son
The probably the most unsettling thing that I’ve seen, and we’ve seen a lot of unsettling things in these investigations.  But when we were wrapping up our investigation.  It was towards the end of the investigation, Fort Myers, Florida.  A man showed up for a sexual encounter with at 14-year-old boy and we’re watching on the monitors.

And he gets out and he goes to the passenger’s side rear door.

Frag: Oh no. He brought his son with him.  He brought his son with him. he’s got his child with him.

And leads him by the hand, as if you were taking him to the zoo. And walks in to meet this teenage boy with his son.  The house was silent.

There were guys in tears. I don’t want to confront this guy in front of his 5-year-old kid.  I don’t want to traumatize him further.

He walks out of the scene, police arresting him. And sweeping this 5-year-old boy off his feet.  It was tough to watch.  It was very tough to watch.

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