Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Adult Male 'Furry' Stalks, Snatches Young Boy

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is an iHeart Podcast. A little boy disappears seemingly into thin air. What does that have to do with a grown man, miles and miles away, who is a so-called furry? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. First of all, take a listen to our friends at KSL. We do have a breaking development tonight in the search for a 13-year-old Layton boy.

Starting point is 00:00:38 Layton police identifying the suspect by name for the very first time tonight is 26-year-old Aaron Zeman. Earlier, they went by the alias that he used on social media. They also have an updated description of the car, a white 1998 Toyota Avalon. Meanwhile, the mother of the boy pleading tonight for his safe return. Can you imagine your little boy just seemingly vanishing and you have no idea where he is and then you find out that somehow some perv has been communicating with him online take a listen again to our friends at ksl at times she broke down in tears just an incredibly trying and difficult time for her and her family she tells us that she believes she was doing everything right,

Starting point is 00:01:25 trying to keep tabs on her son. And still somehow this happened. In the middle of an everyday suburban neighborhood, it felt like everyday, typical parenting. I monitored all of his things. I monitored his game playing time, his phones. And then one day, weeks ago, everything changed. I opened his phone up and that's kind of where I stumbled upon conversations and it just turned into kind of a rabbit hole.

Starting point is 00:01:51 Heather McConaughey discovered her 13-year-old son Evan had been talking to this stranger online through a game called Roblox. With me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now. But first, I want to go out to Titania Jordan, the Chief Parenting Marketing Officer at Bark Technologies, author of Parenting in a Tech World. Titania, thank you for being with us. For those that don't know, what is Roblox? Roblox is a very popular game. It's actually one of the most popular video games

Starting point is 00:02:22 in the United States for children 5 to 12. And it's essentially a bunch of random games that people have created. It's a platform hosting literally millions of games that people can choose to play. Taking everything you just said and everything you just said sounds awfully innocent. It sounds like me playing Connect Four or Monopoly or Go Fish. But it's not. I think, Titania, and I certainly demur to your expertise in this field, that you left out something really important. You don't just play games with yourself like Solitaire. You play with other people online that you don't know. How does that work?

Starting point is 00:03:06 Yeah, you know, with any platform that has user-generated content and an chat feature, wait a minute, whoa, whoa, wait, right, any game that has, quote, user generated content. Now, I could think about that for a while. But why don't you just tell me what you mean by that? I mean, that people are creating and uploading content just like they can to YouTube or any other social media platform. So people are in charge of uploading the games, the characters, the storylines to Roblox. That's part of the problem. But the larger problem or where the danger really lies is in the in-game chat feature. That means your child can be talking to anyone, including adults, including furries. I was just writing down the word Fortnite. Do you remember when that was the big craze? Maybe

Starting point is 00:03:50 it still is. I don't know. My son, praise the Lord, made the basketball team at school. And so now that's taking up all his time and not Fortnite and Minecraft and just so many others. But I remember him telling me that one of his little friends had spent $300 on outfits. I call them outfits. I think they call them skins. I don't know what they call them. For the player in Fortnite to wear. Okay. Imaginary clothes for an imaginary character on a pretend game, $300.

Starting point is 00:04:28 And I know that this is real to them, but that's real money. My point is, and they're playing with real people. I would always tell, Lucy's never been tempted to play any of these games. But I always tell my son, how do you know that Danny is not a 60 year old guy in his underwear in front of a screen eating popcorn in New Jersey? How do you know that? Why do you think he's an 11 year old kid like you? On top of that, you know, not many kids have $300 in disposable income. He didn't either. He used his parents' credit card. Well, but that's the way that predators lure children.

Starting point is 00:05:09 They lean into their desire for Robux or other in-game currency so they can get the skin, so they can get the upgrade. Wait, it really is called a skin? I can't believe I remembered that. It's called a skin? Yes. Wow. Okay. Well, actually, it looks like painted on skin i looked at what

Starting point is 00:05:26 this kid had spent three hundred dollars on like i did his parents know and the parents didn't know yet they hadn't gotten the receipt okay we're talking about uh well actually i've gotten us way off track with tatanya jordan from bark which i have and this is not a plug by me nobody asked me to say it i'm certainly not getting paid to say it, but I really like your Bark technology because every time the technology picks up a word that they find troubling, maybe it's a curse word,

Starting point is 00:05:58 maybe it's a self-harm word like bruise or bully or calling names, something like that, it immediately alerts me on my cell phone. Now, so far, every time I've gone back, it's either been part of some text chain with some of their horrible little friends, or it's been part of another video from YouTube that somebody sent them or that came to them. So far, they haven't uttered any of that, praise the Lord. But let me move forward.

Starting point is 00:06:25 I'm talking about not skins on Fortnite, but I'm talking about a little boy who's what, Nicole Parton is joining me, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Nicole, what game is he playing? What is this little boy doing, Evan? Evan is communicating through Oculus, through a virtual reality. Oh, dear Lord in heaven, my head is spinning around. That's the white headset you put on. And I tried to sit down on a chair. I nearly broke my neck when John David got an Oculus because there wasn't a chair there.

Starting point is 00:07:01 I was playing virtual reality with John David and thought I was doing great. And I just sat down on what appeared to be a chair. Well, it was nothing. And I sat down and ended up on the floor. But God bless him, he didn't laugh. Oculus is a virtual reality headset that fits all the way around your head. And it seems like you're really in another place. Warning, don't sit down. Nicole, he's got on an Oculus headset, but he's playing this game, right? He is. He's playing this game, and going back to what we just heard, he's able to chat and communicate with others who are logged into this game.

Starting point is 00:07:49 He was also communicating with this individual through the old-fashioned Twitter, which we're all familiar with. He was also talking to him on Twitter and had communications going through that source as well. I'm just trying to process everything that the two of you are telling me, because first people said, oh, it happened on Oculus. Oculus is not a platform. Oculus is a device that you put on your face around your head and you see virtual reality. They're really neat. They're very realistic.

Starting point is 00:08:17 But you can get, I guess I would say, games, for lack of a better word, that typically many people think you would see on a screen, like a laptop or a gaming laptop or even a monitor, but it's on the device on your head, the Oculus. So he's playing this game and you just told me, Nicole Parton, that he communicated with the guy that is a furry. Is that what you said? That's right. So 26-year-old Aaron Zeman identifies as a furry. He has a self-professed puppy fetish. Just stop right there. They did not teach me this in law school.

Starting point is 00:08:59 I never had a case that I knew of where somebody was a furry. But luckily, I do know the phone number of Dr. Bethany Marshall, high-profile psychoanalyst joining me out of Beverly Hills. I bet you've seen a lot of furries out in Beverly Hills, Dr. Bethany. You can find her at drbethanymarshall.com, and she's a star of Bling Empire on Netflix. Bethany, hit me. Tell me everything I need to know.

Starting point is 00:09:28 Okay, well. That's on a need-to-know basis. Need to know about furries because I want to figure out how in the hay this little boy who just turned 13, he's just barely 12 years old, is talking to a furry fetishist online that somehow kidnaps him.

Starting point is 00:09:47 Oh, Nancy, I don't even know where to start, and I'm a little afraid in terms of what I can say on air here. But furries are a group of men who are a fetishized community. And when I say fetishized, I mean that their sexual interest is invested in the idea of fur. And in the case of this pedophile, pedophilia children, rather than having true relationships with the people around them. So there's all kinds of fetishized communities that gather together online. There are chubby chasers, you know, men who like other men who are obese. There are furries there are

Starting point is 00:10:27 people who have puppy fetishes okay just stop right there please what's a puppy fetish i i don't even want to say nancy okay i you know what you deal with with sex fetishes all day long and then when i i guess fairly normal, ask you a question you clam up and get shy. What is a puppy fetishist? Well let me just say two things about this. I did treat a patient um this was a few years ago who had an animal fetish called when you call it a puppy fetish you're kind of you you're you're to use your phrase putting perfume on the pig but he had a sexual attraction towards animals okay i wasn't sure if he wanted to have relations with a puppy or if he wanted to be a puppy is it one or the

Starting point is 00:11:18 other or both well there are there are two two things that to mind. One is bestiality. The other is in certain communities, they love to do something called a puppy pile. Have you ever heard of that? Thankfully, no. But I think you're going to enlighten me. Yes. A puppy pile is when a group of men go on a retreat. Why is it always men? No offense, Derek Ellington, but why is it always men?

Starting point is 00:11:45 Are there any women furries? There's got to be. Yes. There are no women furries. Jackie, you answered a little too quickly. Is that Derek? Derek Ellington wants in. Certified Forensic Examiner. Licensed Private Investigator. Ellington

Starting point is 00:12:01 Digital Forensics. www.ellington.net. That was a mouthful. Also with me, Wendy Murphy. You know her well. A professor of sexual violence law at New England Law, co-director of the Women's and Children's Advocacy Project. It goes on and on and on.

Starting point is 00:12:21 Wendy, thank you for joining us. Derek Ellington, jump in. Well, and first I want to say that I want to make sure that we understand that there are, there's a range. There's a spectrum. There are people, men and women, who, you know, they have conventions. They like to dress up in very elaborate costumes. They like to pretend to be different kind of animals. And for a large portion of them, it's not a sexual thing. The problem, just like anything else, is that you do have groups that, you know,

Starting point is 00:12:51 gravitate toward the deviance of it. And that's where the concern is. And as she stated, yes, there are people who approach it from a sexual standpoint, but I think it's also important to know that there is a, I hate to say mainstream, but there is a somewhat normal element to it of people who just like to wear costumes. Okay, Derek Ellington, maybe in your world it's normal, but FYI, it's not normal in everybody else's world. Yeah, to eye of the beholder, but I want to, I do want to address something when we were talking about the Oculus and, and you know mom talking about taking the steps the one thing we have to remember with any of these electronic devices any of these gaming devices even your your fire stick you use to watch tv if it has a web browser like oculus does like nintendo DS's do, you have the whole of the internet at your disposal. So while parents often view these things as gaming systems, they're effectively still cell phones.

Starting point is 00:13:53 You know, they have headsets, they have cameras, they have access to the internet, and parents need to understand that. Another thing I wanted to point out, Roblox. While we're focusing on the misuse of Roblox, it is a very valuable thing. It is a good community. Kids can play and interact with other kids. What is important is that Roblox has tools to make sure that your children can only chat. There are settings. They can only chat with people on their friends list. And it's important that parents know who those friends are. If you wouldn't let a random stranger come and sit on your couch and play video games with your kid, you shouldn't let them do it over the internet.

Starting point is 00:14:36 And that's very important. And I guess the final thing I will throw out there is the best that there's monitoring, there's blocking, but there's also talking to your kids. If your kids are excited about a game or a platform, listen to them. Let them tell you about it. And as we always say, if they won't talk to you about the little stuff, they won't come to you with the big stuff. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

Starting point is 00:15:17 Joining me right now, Wendy Murphy, former child sex abuse and sex crimes prosecutor out of Middlesex, professor of sex violence, New England law in Boston, contributing editor with the Sex Assault Report and author of And Justice for Some. Wendy Murphy, thank you for being with us. Jump in. This is one of those stories that really caught my interest because I actually have several cases right now, pending cases with real kids. All of my clients happen to be girls. But of course, boys are equally vulnerable. They're all in that same age range, 12 to 13. All of them very well cared for and

Starting point is 00:15:52 monitored by their parents, and all of them fell victim in one way or another. Luckily, none have been kidnapped. But I want to say a couple things. One is, even when you are doing everything right as a parent, there's still a community out there of predators who will find a way to find your child. We just need to know that. There's nothing you can do that's perfect. But you have to do as much as possible. And one of the things the parents of my clients have told me is they didn't think they had to have this tough conversation about deviant sexual stuff online until their kids were a little bit older. And that may have been true some years ago. But what I've been hearing, especially from the

Starting point is 00:16:30 experts in the community who care about sexual exploitation of children, is that you really have to start having that conversation around nine or 10 before they hit puberty, because that's when they become super vulnerable. And by vulnerable, I mean, they're not only going through a really tough time and they're entering puberty, which can be exciting, not just challenging physiologically, but exciting to them when they're reaching sexuality and starting to figure out what it means

Starting point is 00:16:58 to have sexual feelings. That's when they're the most vulnerable. That's also when they're least likely to talk to their parents because it's about sex. So you have to reach them before that happens and get them thinking about, unfortunately, these terrible things so that they can anticipate and see it and recognize it and know that it's bad, not fun, not exciting, not my friend, not a guy I should go meet with, but really a dangerous, really dangerous person. Nine or 10 sounds super young, but it probably is the age when parents need to start having these conversations. And let

Starting point is 00:17:30 me just say one other quick thing. When I hear language like furry and minor attracted person, and even the word pedophile, I want to rip my skin off because those are arguably euphemistic versions of the word rapist. I agree 100%, Wendy Murphy. You are so right. And Wendy, I'm going to read them in just a moment, unless I can cajole Nicole Parton to do it. Have you seen what this guy is saying to this little boy about having furry sex with a just turned 13, 13 a couple months before he was 12 years old

Starting point is 00:18:08 that's a child that is nancy nancy if i could jump in about this for a moment wendy is saying to talk to your your nine-year-old i would say even six seven eight-year-old dear lord in heaven bethany well hold on you can always use developmentally appropriate language. To a six-year-old, you could even say, you know, sometimes there's bad people. Not everyone's bad, but they're just a very concrete term. And by the time they get to seven or eight, you can say, you know, some adults may want to spend time with you without telling mommy and daddy. You know, that is not a good thing. But by the time they get to 11 or 12, the language begins to change.

Starting point is 00:18:51 So find out what your child's developmentally capable of understanding before you have the talk. Oh, dear Lord in heaven. Sorry, Bethany. I just looked at a photo. Don't do that. From the post-millennial. Is it the stocking? I was reading an article.

Starting point is 00:19:11 I was reading an article. Oh, gosh. And I scroll down, and here is who I think is the perp in this case, Buck Naked, except he's got on a pair of thigh-high striped socks and gloves to match, and he's wearing kind of a cat hat. The rest of him is naked. And apparently he sent this to the little boy.

Starting point is 00:19:35 I'm not going to push it off on you. This is one from Hunter Fluffy Fox, A.D. Nancy, this is Titania. At Hunter Horny Fox what? I just want to say two things. One is why did Twitter allow this type

Starting point is 00:19:54 of content on their platform? We need to tag Elon Musk. Can I read the text for Pete's sake? Wait a minute. Is this Titania? Yes. Gee, I hate to reprimand you because you never jump in. Okay. I a minute. Is this to Tanya? Yes. Gee, I hate to reprimand you because you never jump in. Okay. I'm sorry. I'll reprimand myself for

Starting point is 00:20:09 reprimanding you. Hold on. This is Hunter Horny Fox. I would do a backflip down the stairs if Hunter Horny Fox was communicating with one of my twins.

Starting point is 00:20:25 This is why parents go shoot molesters. This is why they do it. Because honestly, right now, my fingers are tingling. Okay? My kid's 27, and I can't do it. Listen to this. To a just-turned-13-year-old, a frail-looking 12-year-old little boy, I love you so heckin' much, my lamb. I was looking at your

Starting point is 00:20:48 pictures, and then he uses Lord's name in vain. I want to slide into your throat so bad. Give daddy's tip a little kiss, then let me feel my baby boy's soft beautiful lips my love pretty please babe then he goes on to say which I started to say more disturbingly but I don't know what can be as disturbing as that my lamb and I are getting married on the trail we he he I love you lamb. I'm thinking about sharing some big news. Any mechanic furries in my neck of the desert help make sure the new car is not broken. He's going to take the boy across the desert. Guys, take a listen to our cut for our friend Andrew Adams. When we initially found out what was going on, we took all means away that we knew, that we thought anything we thought.

Starting point is 00:21:49 The family handed the device over to Layton police. But on Monday, just after the family returned from a holiday vacation, trouble surfaced again. He was communicating on an Oculus device with the suspect, and it had a record of their communication back and forth. Detectives believe Evan McConaughey left home just before midnight with a man they've since identified as Aaron Zeman of Arizona. They say the shirtless, backpack-wearing stranger seen here had used a fake name. The communication that they'd had was of a nature that is quite concerning to us.

Starting point is 00:22:22 Well, that's certainly one way of putting it and I'll use my own phrase, putting perfume on a pig. It's of sexual content, luring a just turned 13 year old little boy through his game. He's playing on a device and more from KSL. Listen, I don't understand what this person had on my son, what grasp he had on him that convinced him to just walk away. Mom has been completely distraught since. Any parent who would be standing in this position has an idea of the words that I would want to say, but I won't do that. She's hoping her son will return home safely. Nobody's mad at you.

Starting point is 00:23:09 We get it. We understand. We're your family. We're not going anywhere. We'll always be here for you no matter what. Please come home. Do you know how these ordeals typically end? In the death, the murder of the child. The search is on

Starting point is 00:23:28 for the so-called furry who says he is, quote, in love with the little boy. Listen to Andrew Adams KSL. Just repeating one more time that police just within the last little bit coming out with suspect information, new suspect information looking for 26 year old aaron zeeman of arizona also goes by the name tadashi kojima he is driving a 1998 white toyota avalon with damage to the front grill temporary arizona plate of 22225 np anybody with information call layton police well the way that as i understand understand it, Nicole Parton joining me from CrimeOnline.com, cops figured out the license tag was that they looked on the son's Oculus and they got the screen name or even the real name and then backtracked it through registration records and DMV, Department of Motor Vehicles, and got the car make and model and the license plate. Then the search was on. Is that how they did it, Nicole Parton? Right.

Starting point is 00:24:30 That's correct. And we have to remember, too, that the parents had alerted authorities of this gentleman's screen name after seeing it on their son's phone. And isn't it true, Nicole Parton, the parents say they thought they did everything, quote, right. They took away Evan's devices. They did. At one point, they made him aware of the dangers online.

Starting point is 00:24:56 They were doing everything right, correct? Right. They took the phone. They took the laptop. They had the conversations. But in the end, that gaming device was left in the room. And going back to what we've heard our experts say, that gaming device is open access. You know, something Wendy Murphy just said, following up on what Nicole Parton is saying, that any gaming device, or as Derek Ellingllington said even your fire stick that you may

Starting point is 00:25:25 use to control your tvs it has web access wendy murphy that one thing the oculus and you were saying wendy no matter how hard you try you got to realize the predators it's like the devil yep never give up once they want your child they They'll do anything to get your child. Yes. And technologically speaking, they are always a step ahead, not just a step ahead of parents, but usually a step ahead, a step ahead of law enforcement. And technologically speaking, they're even sometimes ahead of the protective mechanisms that platforms have in place to protect kids. So, you know, to me, the big bad guy in this story, Nancy, is law enforcement. I mean, the moms, they went to the police. They said, look what this guy is saying. And you read some of it. Look what this man is saying to my child. And what did the police say? Sorry, nothing we can do. Keep doing a good job

Starting point is 00:26:24 monitoring. Well, you know, the reality is, nothing we can do. Keep doing a good job monitoring. Well, you know, the reality is, and that's exactly what cops have said in the cases that I'm managing right now on behalf of similarly aged kids. When you go to the police and they see this activity and your child hasn't yet been kidnapped, they're nine times out of 10 going to say, sorry, there's nothing we can do. That's not good enough. enough it is a resources issue not a law issue we don't need new laws we need to prioritize this behavior even though it hasn't yet led to a child being kidnapped we need to prioritize law enforcement's interest in the grooming process so that these monsters get the message i better not do this or I'm going to jail. And speaking of what she found, Wendy Murphy, you're absolutely right about what she found. In one photo, the suspect posted a text about having his, quote, lamb perform oral sex on him and sent a photo of his erect penis.

Starting point is 00:27:21 Now, do I like talking about this? No, I don't like talking about this. Is this the truth? Yes, it's the truth. Do I want you to know? Yes, I want you to know because it's shocking and as revolting as it may be, this is the only way we can fight back against pedophiles. I want you to hear our cut B from our friends at CrimeOnline.com. The investigation revealed Evan McConaughey and his online friend had been exchanging sexual and inappropriate messages for about three weeks. The connection was made through the game Roblox, and the two reportedly communicated through Oculus, a virtual reality device. Now, remember, Evan's mom, Heather McConaughey, had taken steps to end the contact, but the two reportedly found new ways to talk.

Starting point is 00:28:11 McConaughey also joined a Discord chat at his new friend's invitation. It was through those chats that the two allegedly arranged to have McConaughey picked up from his home. Evan even took his passport with him after his new friend encouraged him to. Dear Lord in heaven, the child took his passport. Once they go overseas, once they leave this country, it's like finding a needle in a haystack. Titania Jordan is joining me, Chief Parenting Officer at Bark Technologies. Explain what is Discord? Discord is a very popular community and social media platform now that so many kids are on, so many predators are on, and so many parents have no idea what it is. It's essentially built around gaming and conversations around gaming, but you can

Starting point is 00:28:59 chat in it. You can video chat. You can leave messages. It's not a safe place for kids. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Wendy Murphy was bringing up something earlier, and I want to throw this to Derek Ellington and Dr. Bethany. First to you, Derek. You can find Derek, who is a PI and a forensics examiner at Ellington Digital Forensics. Derek, it is believed this guy later wrote,

Starting point is 00:29:41 I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map. M-A-P, we all know that that refers to, it's an acronym for a minor attracted person, which means a child rapist. That's what that is. It's child molester. So what are you making of what you're hearing, Derek Ellington? Well, what I want to stress, Nancy, and we're talking today about, you know, I would say an extreme case. We're focusing on the furry and everything like that. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Starting point is 00:30:12 Any child rape, which happens all the time, it's happening right now. I don't care if you're wearing a dog costume at the time you do it. That means nothing to me. What parents need to understand is the technology is a way that the predators can find their children. But it's also a way where predators can communicate securely with their children.

Starting point is 00:30:32 And what parents need to understand is while we're talking about this case and this person right now, this could easily be, and in my line of work, a little league youth coach a a youth pastor from a church a next door neighbor you know a family member so what we also have to focus on is sometimes they find our children in other ways and the platforms are how they communicate discreetly so let's not just think that we have to worry about the furries We have to worry about anyone who's interacting with our children. Agree. 300%. Is this Dr. Bethany? Jump in.

Starting point is 00:31:09 Yeah. Well, I think it's important for parents to understand there's predictable stages of grooming, whether your child is predated upon by a high school coach, the little league coach, or online. And that is they make your child feel special. They offer gifts and treats like these online coins or whatever. Then they begin to tell the child, you know, your parents don't understand you. I understand you so much better. You're so smart. You're so strong. Why don't your parents see how great you are? The child starts to fall for it and begins to drift further and further

Starting point is 00:31:43 away from the parents, which follows a very important developmental line is by the time the child is 10 11 12 they're beginning to separate from their parents and become more autonomous so this becomes a deviant form of a normal developmental trend then by the time the child is so far in, the pedophile has drawn them into a paranoid world where the child believes that nobody else can understand them, give them a better life, offer them gifts, make them feel important. But that particular pedophile, once they act out, once they have sex, once they're enticed, then they feel guilty and it becomes even more difficult for them to tell the parent. Nancy, from both the pedophile and the child's vantage point, these relationships are strong. They're strong. They get stronger every day. I once treated a patient who was predated upon by a priest many years ago and that the priest would come over for Sunday lunch and would come drop by in the evening and would bring my patient into another room and, you know, sexually accost him.

Starting point is 00:32:55 And it happened hundreds and thousands of times from the time my patient was seven or eight till he was 24 years old. The priest was so obsessed with him that he finally, finally was able to emancipate himself from the priest and get a restraining order. But this is not just some stranger raping you in the park. This is a man in this case who became obsessed with this child and now will do everything possible to gain access to the child even while he's in jail and if he ever gets out of jail he'll still be obsessed dr bethany i hear what you and ellington are saying i hear it i hear it i hear it but i got a question i don't understand a furry what do they what is the um enticement what is the appeal of pretending to be an animal? What is that somehow freeing to them that they don't have to conform to the society norms?

Starting point is 00:33:55 Why do they want to be a dog? Well, Nancy, I'll say this. Well, sorry. Go ahead. You're dealing with a lot of people who typically have social issues. Maybe they're on the spectrum. Maybe they have problems communicating in person. The furry persona gives them a bit of anonymity.

Starting point is 00:34:15 It's almost like their own cloak of protection to be an anonymous person and allow them then to communicate with other people. That's where the attraction, I think, comes from. Can you add anything to that, Dr. Bethany? I will definitely add, as with any fetish or perversion, it is on a spectrum, on a scale, as Derek said earlier so beautifully. So think about a convention of furries. They're all gathering together. At the most perverse end, you're going to have somebody for whom bodily hair, pubic hair is the most enticing sexual aspect of another person.

Starting point is 00:34:50 So they make that fancy and call it a furry. Then you're going to have, you know, adolescents, teenagers, young adults dressing up in onesies that have fur all over them. And they just think being a furry is silly. So that's at the other end of the spectrum oh my goodness my daughter said somebody at school was a furry and of course I thought that meant a sex deviant I'm like why did you say that so-and-so's a furry and she said oh she likes to dress up in the the whatever the zebra pajamas or whatever and I didn't say anything but I thought that that's not my understanding of what a furry is.

Starting point is 00:35:25 So could you please cut the chase and tell me the attraction of being a furry? Just in one sentence, Bethany, one sentence. As with any perversion, the attraction is to an aspect of the person rather than to whom the other person is.

Starting point is 00:35:41 Okay. And I guess that would be fur. Okay. You're over a sentence. Guys, I want you to hear this to this communication sent

Starting point is 00:35:50 by Hunter Floofy Fox to a just turned 13 year old boy. All supplied up now, and that's for their trip. Hello, hornied up to see my man. Oops, I guess I'm a fox after all. No, I'm in love. I'll march beside you with pride, my man. Oops, I guess I'm a fox after all. No, I'm in love. I'll march beside you with pride, my lamb.

Starting point is 00:36:08 I love you with all my heart and soul, you loving, sexy frigor. You'll be in my arms soon. Okay. With the parents thinking they had done everything right and finding out their son still communicated with this guy

Starting point is 00:36:24 on Oculus, which is a virtual reality headset take a listen our cut 13 our friend kristen mcpeak the suspect is 26 year old aaron zeeman from arizona he also goes by the name tadashi kojima police say he drove from arizona to utah and waited a few days for the 13-year-old to come back home from vacation with his family and then the two left together. It looks from the communication that they had like they had pre-arranged this and he the boy left willingly. I think the parents did everything they could in this instance. This was just a persistent suspect and perpetrator that ended up taking this boy. Do you hear the persistence the cop is talking about?

Starting point is 00:37:11 This furry child molester drives from Arizona to Utah to get the boy. All right, this is after the parents have taken away the boy's devices. He drives that far. Then he finds out the family's gone on vacation. And I see communication. Where has my little lamb gone? Little lamb is on a family vacation away from his Oculus. He waits. He waits in the neighborhood until the family gets back. And then he spies on the little boy. What we know is that a close family friend, Beth Cooper,

Starting point is 00:37:49 says she learns more about the Amber Alert System than she ever wanted to know. How did they know the car? Because a neighbor's home surveillance video caught the car and immediately turned it in. As soon as that image of the kidnapper's car was revealed, an Amber Alert went out immediately. Wendy Murphy, describe what is an Amber Alert? Well, an Amber Alert, thank God for the development of This Technology, is an incredibly helpful tool that goes out instantly, issued by law enforcement, to literally the whole world as soon as a child goes missing. Exactly. And in some jurisdictions, you need a car to go with it. In some, you don't. Thank goodness, as Wendy just said, it went out immediately when the neighbor spotted a car in the neighborhood in front of the little boy's house. If that hadn't happened, then this would never happen. Take a listen to Cole Miller, KSNB, our cut 14.

Starting point is 00:38:55 What started as a call to police about a suspicious person at a Grand Island gas station ended with a 26-year-old man in jail. And he remains there tonight, accused of kidnapping a 13-year-old man in jail, and he remains there tonight, accused of kidnapping a 13-year-old from Utah. That boy is now safe, his parents breathing a huge sigh of relief. We have learned that the boy had been chatting with 26-year-old Tadashi Kojimi, who is from Arizona, through an online video game. The conversations then moved to texts and FaceTime calls. Then the Amber Alert was issued. The boy who was missing was spotted at a gas station when the gas station attendant thought that the adult and the little boy

Starting point is 00:39:35 were in the car for way too long. To Nicole Parton joining us, Crime Online, what aroused the gas station attendant's interest? So the attendant, thank God, was paying attention and noticed the car pull up to the gas pump. But no one got out to pump gas. And the car sat there and the car was there and there and there and no one got out. Eventually, the car made a circle and went out the wrong way of the gas station, going down a one-way, pulled back in and sat in the parking lot again. And that's when the attendant noticed there was an adult man

Starting point is 00:40:11 and a young child in the car. And that caused that attendant to say, something seems amiss here. This car's been sitting, no one pumped gas. There's a child with an adult. They're not acting like a parent and a child. And so that attendant called 911. Take a listen to our cut seven. This is Lieutenant Travis Lyman, Leighton PD. Just after one o'clock this morning, we got notification from Grand Island, Nebraska, police department out there that they had located both the suspect and the victim in this case, a alert gas station attendant had actually thought something looked suspicious about the suspect and the victim in this case, an alert gas station attendant, had actually thought something looked suspicious about the car and these people that were there at

Starting point is 00:40:49 the gas station, called the police department, and they responded, looked into it, separated the two of them, and identified our victim in this case as being somebody who we had listed as kidnapped and missing, and rescued him. So we're sure grateful, as is the family, as you can imagine. You may have noticed at the beginning of our conversation, several of us were actually smiling and laughing because we knew the little boy lived. And it is so rare and joyous that a child escapes an ordeal like this alive.

Starting point is 00:41:27 Please protect your children. It's hard to understand in this world how to do that. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.

Your Ad Here

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Adult Male 'Furry' Stalks, Snatches Young Boy

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.