WI - ICE seeks help to ID youth in photos #2 - Identified

[marie-chantal]

Thanks for the link to that website. Last time I looked at it this afternoon, they were still requesting information about this boy. I don't expect to ever hear the full, detailed story about how they became aware of him or why they're looking for him. I would think they would remove the request for info about him from their website once he's been identified, though I may be wrong.

JMO

That's what I was thinking too. It seems like they'd take it down if they found him, especially for legal reasons.

 

[prima.facie]

YOU ARE CORRECT! MY BAD! While I didn't say it was 'widely used' I said he was on a web cam, and they were in a (I didn't say private, my bad) private chat room, there were 13, possibly 13 plus the molester, and it was on web cam. You know, you are correct. It was around 1998 to 2000. Sorry, my math skills stink. I should have put in the years instead of saying 20. It's a little more than 10. I dunno why I added ten more years there. Maybe because the last ten years feel like 20 to me. I'M SO SORRY!
This happened before I got an account to chat with a friend on AOL IM. I didn't know a darn thing about online at the time, and when they said this was live chat with a web cam, I think I asked 'what's a web cam? '

lol no need to be sorry....i was just teasing about the 20...i mean, i dont believe it was widely used - everything was in its infantile stage, but i was just joking around

 

[believe09]

I posted some photos in the other thread - I used only the photos released by ICE. I adjusted the lighting and used other image edit to enhance photos. Only the 2 photos released by ICE were used. I am not sure if these are the images that anyone is referring to - or interested in viewing. If so - and with permission of course - I would like to include them in a post on this thread.

This is absolutely OK, DevilsPlayThing. If they were removed, it was during the vigilance regarding the non Ice photos. I remember them and feel they would be very valuable.

ETA: We can have a mod weigh in.

 

[believe09]

I asked a mod to weigh in, Devils.

 

[DevilsPlayThing]

Your comments here reminded me of a case a LONG time ago, I'd guess more than 20 years? Do I have to be able to provide a source in order for this to be allowed? I don't even remember if this was on the television or online in a newspaper.
The guy was molesting a 10 yr old girl live on webcam, taking 'requests' from viewers for specific things to be done by the man to the girl. The girl? She was one of the guests at his daughter's sleepover. He went in the room where they were all sleeping and brought her out and was doing this on some kind of online live chat room for pedophiles.
Yes, they got caught that same night. The police rescued the girl and arrested 13 people. I don't remember if it was 13 plus the molester or 13 including him.
All I can tell you is I heard of the thing in the news after the arrests were already made.

* * * * * * * * *WARNING SOME GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS -SORRY * * * * * * * * *

I never have heard of the case you are referring to - but have heard of maybe similar. When arrests are made sometimes so little details are given that I guess it seemed to me the people involved had met up in real life after initially meeting online.

It never occurred to me that a website or websites could exist for video chat sessions for pay - and people use these sites to basically create videos and photos using underage persons.

Using seemingly innocuous urls - such as myyearbook - one would think the website purpose would be to look up former classmates. If I had not went to the website myself - read online user reviews and general website reviews - subsequently browsed user profiles myself. I may not have given it a second thought.

If not for a post on the boys story on a Missing Persons FB page regarding myyearbook - the site would never have been known - to me at least. The fact that ICE stated the photos of the boy were video stills - and myyearbook is a video chat site seemed too much to ignore.

In the 90s new websites became somewhat popular - like IFriends or something. That site was considered employment though. A person or couple would fax to IFriends anyone who was over the age of 18 and going to be appearing on camera from the home a short application and copy of their Drivers License or State ID. After approval - IFriends would activate the account. The employee / chat host would have their own video chat room - a large variety of categories were available to place the chat room. From astrology to couples and anything in between. A photo could be used as a profile pic - customers browse profile photos with description of the chat host / fetish / video session - the customer enters that chat host room. Only text chat at first - that is no pay. Chat host can kick customer out of room any time. Customer negotiates time - other aspects of video session. When agreement is reached and electronic payment is made - video / audio starts.



This myyearbook seems like an offshoot of IFriends - but with no safeguards in place whatsoever. I browsed around {myyearbook} for awhile - some people who appear by their photos to be quite young. {One guy even asks if anyone can tell him how to change his age on his profile - it says 24 but he is 18}. They seem to be living from the money being made from the video chat sessions. A person can be Owned. And I do not know what that means. But a price appears next to the word Owned - and it seems no other user can request or engage in chat sessions with an Owned person. {Though I have not tried}. One profile says 24 years old - the photo is a boy no older than 10. What this means I do not know. But there are quite a few where profile photos are infants - toddlers - no adults in the photos.

 

[DevilsPlayThing]

"We believe there's an adult involved in all of this," Neudauer said from Minneapolis, Minnesota. "If we can identify the young person involved, we suspect that we'll be able to remove a couple of young people from a dangerous environment and also, perhaps, identify an adult."

"We know that the people involved in this are in a dangerous environment based on the information we've received and the intelligence we've gathered so far," said ICE spokesman Shawn Neudauer.

The video was online, though Neudauer would not say in what capacity. He said agents got the video through a lead in another investigation.

Identifying the boy is crucial, Neudauer said.

"We need to find this person," he said.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/21/justice/ice-endangered-child/index.html

 

[kimmie0313]

I was told by the person who called for followup that I shouldn't discuss specific details of this case online. (I never said where I was discussing it)

Anyhoo, I've reached my limit emotionally on this case, have just closed out 37 separate windows involved (with two more to go) and need to get my head in a more positive place for a while.

The followup questions seemed to indicate that they know a lot more than we think.

So I really do think they have already IDed or are very close to it.

If it turns out however that this isn't over and after a while its still unsolved I will probably come back to it because I've invested so much emotion into it already.


<modsnip>

Hmmm....I wonder why they wouldn't want u to discuss the case? Seems to me that they would want people to do just that in hopes of more people's awareness would get him identified. Of course, I could be missing the boat here entirely on why they think that.

 

[Rougelatete]

I am thinking if there were better still images that more accurately showed his appearance, they could not be used as they were graphic in some way

A good guess, but there were actually plenty of images of just the boy that were more accurate representations of what he looks like. There were also images where they could have EASILY spliced the girl out by cutting off the bottom half or right-side half of the image -- it wouldn't have taken a photoshop wizard, lol. That's what baffles me so much -- why release such a non-representational image of him?? Makes no sense at all.

 

[pjclover]

Hmmm....I wonder why they wouldn't want u to discuss the case? Seems to me that they would want people to do just that in hopes of more people's awareness would get him identified. Of course, I could be missing the boat here entirely on why they think that.

I'm confused by this as well. I know that Sleuth has been working very exensively on this case and mentioned that he may have identified a possible match. My reading of his comment was that he was in touch with LE regarding a new match and that LE asked him not to discuss it. As far as I know, Sleuth hasn't posted anything re: the possible match, maybe because they were a minor and the boards don't allow us to publicly sleuth them.

 

[imamaze]

I posted some photos in the other thread - I used only the photos released by ICE. I adjusted the lighting and used other image edit to enhance photos. Only the 2 photos released by ICE were used. I am not sure if these are the images that anyone is referring to - or interested in viewing. If so - and with permission of course - I would like to include them in a post on this thread.

I think it sounds great DevilsPlayThing!

 

[LadyL]

has anyone asked LE if they can release other 'cropped' images of the boy that might reflect his appearance more accurately?

 

[DevilsPlayThing]

Hey thanks for your reply. I forgot these are terrible quality.

 

[DevilsPlayThing]

.....

 

[believe09]

 

[believe09]

This is the one I appreciated the most:

 

[believe09]

He just looks so young to me...

 

[Anon51]

So, about MyYearBook:

• It used to be a site based on quizzes, quizzes you could embed in your MySpace or link to on Facebook.
• People don't really like quizes anymore, so they moved to becoming a knockoff of other teen-focused social networks.
• The age limits are 17-30, IIRC.
• A lot of users lie about age.
• The site uses a form of currency called Lunch Money. It's used to buy different privelages on the site and can be bought with real money. It can also be converted into other forms of e-currency, but nothing anyone would find useful (other teen social spots). It's ridiculously inflated and easy to earn. If you sign up, you get 100k instantly.
• The Lunch Money is used to donate to charities (not sure how that works) as well as to send other users gifts (e.g. roses or something) that cost different amounts.
• The "owning" thing is not uncommon. There's a facebook app that lets people buy their friends similarly. Basically, User A buys User B for $1 (in game currency). User C buys User B from User A for $2. Now, User A made a dollar and User C owns User B. User D comes, rebuys for $4, next person buys for $8, etc. Being "owned" doesn't affect anything on the site. People that are owned can own other people, and there's no obligation or reward to the person owned because they're not involved at all. It's just a profile someone clicks to "buy", and there's not a lot you can do except flip it for a profit. You can also annoy people (like couples) by buying them both away from each other constantly, as a form of trolling.

Sources:

"he founders of myYearbook came up with a clever idea to encourage people to join the site and visit it often: Lunch Money. Lunch Money is virtual currency. Some of the ways you can earn Lunch Money include creating an account, convincing friends to join myYearbook, completing certain tasks, winning battles and by logging in to the site. You can also earn more Lunch Money by upgrading to a VIP account. These accounts have a monthly fee ranging from $6.99 to $19.99 a month. Each level has additional privileges, including bonus Lunch Money.

What can you do with this virtual currency? You can purchase pictures of other members, adding them to your "owned" list. Other users can purchase your photo as well. As people buy the photos, Lunch Money goes to the person who "sold" the photo as well as to the person who originally uploaded the photo. The site determines photo prices by the user's popularity and the number of times the photo has been "purchased."

You can donate Lunch Money dollars to several different causes ranging from cancer research to funding for humane societies; however, there's a limit to the amount you can donate to each cause per day. You can also use the virtual cash to buy virtual presents for other myYearbook members. The site displays the gifts on the members' profile pages.

The concept of virtual currency isn't a new one -- the virtual world Second Life uses a virtual system called Linden Dollars and other sites like Facebook are experimenting with the idea, too. But myYearbook keeps its model simple. So far, you can't purchase any real-life items with Lunch Money dollars. But you can add some bling to another person's profile or guide the direction of real-world charitable donations."

- http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/social-networking/networks/myyearbook3.htm

The web cam ability did start up in April of 2009, meaning it definitely could have been used for the video.

 

[imamaze]

He just looks so young to me...

He does to me too believe :frown:

 

[DevilsPlayThing]

Ok got something else here. A comment left on CNN - a post states the boy looks like someone that the commenter went to high school with. It appears comment was posted using a real life name.

This person also has an active profile at the myyearbook website.

The high school is in Wisconsin. If we could view online yearbook photos from the high school or something - perhaps we could find the unidentified boy's photo and name.

The comment was posted on 22 JUNE.

This is the second connection to the myyearbook site.

What do you all think ? Yearbooks are way better than the meetme profiles. I did those last night and will not again.

 

[believe09]

Ok got something else here. A comment left on CNN - a post states the boy looks like someone that the commenter went to high school with. It appears comment was posted using a real life name.

This person also has an active profile at the myyearbook website.

The high school is in Wisconsin. If we could view online yearbook photos from the high school or something - perhaps we could find the unidentified boy's photo and name.

The comment was posted on 22 JUNE.

This is the second connection to the myyearbook site.

What do you all think ? Yearbooks are way better than the meetme profiles. I did those last night and will not again.

I will be interested to see if you guys can find current yearbooks online...I went to a ton of high schools in WI after that post and couldnt see anything. I am entertaining the possibility that he may not be a senior or graduated if we take him back to the lower end of the age range.