Law&Crime Sidebar - Man in Target Caught Taking Disturbing Photos of Women Shopping: Cops

Episode Date: April 21, 2024

Police in Greenville, North Carolina have charged Thomas Elliott, 21, with multiple counts of felony secret peeping after reviewing Target store security footage from earlier this week. Elliott is accused of using his phone to take photos or videos of women without their permission. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber discusses the process of analyzing Elliott’s phone for evidence with digital forensics expert John Lucich.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Get 50% off of confidential background reports at https://www.truthfinder.com/lcsidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Excuse me, what are you doing? Stunning video shows a man allegedly using his phone to take photos up a woman's skirt in a North Carolina Target store. Now, police say, he's facing even more charges. We're breaking down this brazen bad behavior and talking about the evidence police have against the suspect with digital forensics expert John Lusich. Welcome to Sidebar presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Greenville, North Carolina police are charging a 21-year-old man with more felony charges after he was allegedly caught on camera peeping up women's skirts

inside of a store. Yes, this happened in the middle of the morning on Monday in the small city. First, we want to get you to this video shot by a fellow Target customer. She shared the clip on Facebook saying, quote, I stopped by the baby section to look at clothes for my grandbaby. A young man was suspiciously close to me and holding his phone at a very weird angle. I thought maybe he was trying to Bluetooth my info from my phone that was visible for my jumper. I was wearing a wide leg one-piece jumper. I gave him a look, and he murdered. something about sorry he was just looking at clothes then I noticed he was getting really close to another woman in the store I decided this was too much of a

coincidence and decided to follow him in a distance I stuck my phone in the cup holder of the shopping cart and turned it on video to record him to see what he was up to excuse me what are you doing no I just saw you put that underneath her dress absolutely you did you absolutely did man I really did the show me your phone no we're going to call security you absolutely did and you were following me over in the children's section because i have a sister who's pregnant ma'am i really wasn't you've been extremely close to me this whole time please show me your phone no i really don't let's get security because this is absolutely wrong i really don't mean to no you obviously did i really no ma'am please i really

no let's get security well greenville police have identified the man in this video as thomas Elliot. He actually looks around multiple times almost to see if anyone is watching him. That's the way that I look at that. But he must not notice that the other customer's phone is out there recording him. In her post, the customer said, quote, the asset protection man came and talked to us both. I showed him the video and he told me to call 911. The police came, three of them, and spoke to me, her, and the guy. After viewing my video, they arrested him. He tried telling them he lost his balance. Now, Thomas was seen in handcuffs. being led from the store. It seems though

that he was released. That is until the very next day when police in his hometown of Clinton picked him up, booked him into the jail on a $20,000 secured bond. This is according to local media outlets. You see, police originally charged Thomas with felony secret peeping, as it's called in North Carolina.

But police charge Elliot with two more felony counts of secret peeping. So it sounds like there could be more victims out there. In fact, the Greenville police department is asking people who might have been in the store on that Monday to call the detective working the case. So as I mentioned, he was booked under a $20,000 secured bod. Since then, there's been a very disturbing twist because now it has come to light that Mr.

Elliott had involvement with both a local church and an elementary school. A Pitt County school spokesman said that Elliott was a volunteer at Eastern Elementary School in Greenville in a statement Tom McKellen said, quote, we are disturbed and deeply concerned by video footage of the individual that has been shared on social media and news outlets. And based on the footage, the individual will not be returning to our campuses as a volunteer or hired as an employee. Then a large church called Open Door in nearby Winterville, they also released a statement saying, quote, Thomas Elliott was immediately terminated upon notification of his arrest on Monday.

but the church did not say what Elliott's involvement with their organization might have been. Police say Target is fully cooperating with the investigation and detectives were concerned that they might find other things on his phone like child sexual abuse material on Elliot's phone, but they say so far there's been no evidence of that, no evidence of any kind of inappropriate contact. There is a warrant that we know, a warrant for his phone, and this warrant has been reported to say that Elliot denied any wrong. wrongdoing and showed law enforcement the recent pictures he had on his cell phone. But the warrant apparently seeks other things like video files, digital photographs, text messages, and, quote, deleted information that may be recovered via a forensic examination. Elliot had his first court appearance on Tuesday. The woman who posted the video on social media ended her post by saying, quote,

I am sharing the videos so you can all be alert and aware of your surroundings, speak up, and get the attention of people in the store. see this happening. We as women need to look out for each other. Well, with that, let me bring on right now digital forensics technician, expert. John Lusich, founder of e-ph forensics, retired from the New Jersey Attorney General's office. John, thanks so much for coming here on Sidebar. Before we even get into any of the details of the extraction of the phone, let's tell me your overall thoughts on this case, because it is pretty wild. You know, it never ceases to amaze me what people will do, there. And I think they get these ideas from the internet. You know, I saw just recently also

a substitute teacher was caught naked in her car with a 17 year old boy. I think they see this stuff online and they get involved in these and start living these fantasies out in real life. And it's a shame because I think porn has destroyed and continues to destroy lives. You know, he's innocent until proven guilty, having said that he was hit with additional charges once they viewed his phone. Why in your experience do we see people record this? So imagine he really did this. Why did you think he used the phone? Why would somebody like this have a collection of photographs and videos? I'm not saying he has a collection of photos and videos, but just assuming for a moment, that's what we're dealing with. And I mean, the allegation at the very least is he used the phone to, you know, why do we see people using technology like this? Well, you know, it goes back more than a decade where we see kids using it to take pictures on themselves. and distributing those nude photos of themselves. We see pictures of kids beating up other kids on video. It's a wild west out there.

And I will never know to the motivation. It's very possible that these things mean something to him, that he's driven by some fantasy and he wants to review them over and over again. Again, I don't know that, but I'm just saying these are possibilities. My gosh, what a story. You know, in a similar way, how you have to keep your eyes out for people around you, it's always a good idea to just keep tabs on the people in your life, especially new people in your life, new friends, new dates, new social media buddies.

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I'll be the guinea pig here. You type in Jesse Weber. And when you do that, you automatically get access to all these different kinds of reports, information like phone numbers, addresses, associates, previous arrests, criminal convictions. No, I don't have any of those, but you get the idea. By the way, if you type in an address, let's say your home address, by the way, especially since we're focusing on a case of an alleged peeper in a store, Truthfinder tells you the registered sex offenders that may live in that surreference.

area too and that's the point unless you use truth finder you may never really know what's going on with the people around you now aside from all the nefarious stuff truth finder is also just a really awesome tool that you can use to reconnect to people that you've lost touch with long lost friends family members you haven't spoken to in a while if you need their information if you want to try to track them down truthfinder dot com can help you well right now you can get 50% off of confidential background reports just go to truthfinder dot com slash LC Sidebar. Hope you check it out. Walk me through what you think they did with his phone in order to analyze it and extract information. Well, they probably just asked him to see the recent

videos because there's very little you can do on a phone. So the fact that he agreed to do that, there's no warrant requirement. So they're able to take a look at that. And based on what they saw on that phone, they made the arrest. Later on, what they did when they came back is they looked that video from the store footage and saw him doing this to other women and I think that's where the additional charges came from. But there's a lot, a treasure trove of information

that can be found on a phone including location information. And I think that's why they're seeking the warrant for a forensic examination. Do you think that they look through other places on a phone where you might store information, so not just in your photo role, but text messages,

emails, before we even get into the idea of deleted information. Where are other places someone could store material that could potentially be a legal material? Where else might they store it on a phone that we're not thinking about? Well, you literally said text messages email. They can email it to themselves. They can save it anywhere on that phone that they have access to. They can save it in their, you know, their videos and under their, what these cops were doing at the time, they just needed to see if he was actually doing this and he had evidence on it. So once they saw those photos, they probably

made the arrest and then they seized his phone pursuant to that arrest now they didn't warrant to take a look at the rest of it and then they're going to get a full examination of that phone how long does it take to do an examination of a phone a full examination of a phone and its contents so cell phones can go to a terabyte now so just to image that would take two to five hours maybe and maybe even less depending upon how much data's on there the age of the phone but without a doubt the size of the phone once they image it then they can analyze that and start taking a look at. And it's nice.

The software and there's many different private software out there. There's sell up right. There's gray key and there's XRY. All great, very expensive products that can bring back deleted files. Can actually cause links between one phone and another phone. But they'll probably do keyword searches, look at all those text messages. We're sharing this stuff with because that's going to be important. What keyword searches he was doing on his phone?

And I cannot believe that it's going to end here. going to get that warrant, it's going to probably ask for any and all computers at his house. They want to know what he's doing. And all storage devices, whether it's a thumb drive or an external hard drive, and even online systems. And if they really want to find out what this guy was up to, they can go out and hit subpoenas with his provider and get what they call detailed records, which shows location information of where you are at any specific time. Maybe they want to use that information to find out what other stores he was at. If he had a droid, Google has a great thing called Google Timeline, they can access that

Google Timeline and find out exactly where he's driving. Is he driving around other schools? Is he driving around areas where he doesn't belong and he's just looking in neighborhoods for kids? Again, I'm not saying he's doing that. These are all potential possibilities that cops. And I got to believe they're going to do all that. That's a really good point in terms of how it could expand beyond what's just.

on his phone. I have to ask you the big part, and this is the million dollar question, if he deleted something, can it be recovered, and how can it be recovered? Yes, it can be recovered by forensic software. However, it all depends on the activity of the phone and the size of the phone. So the smaller, the device, like whether it's a 64 gig or 128 gig, data will last a lot less on a phone in timeline as opposed to a terabyte drive or terabyte storage on it on a cell phone. So then in the activity, am I getting a lot of emails in?

I'm getting text messages. I'm getting videos and pictures, all kinds of multimedia emails back and forth, all that activity. Hopefully if a guy like this is a loner, there's not going to be a lot of activity and they'll have a much better chance in recovering anything and everything that's been deleted. Hey, everybody. So one of my favorite things about being a host here on law and crime is how, passionate our audiences. You guys, you don't just sit back and watch. No, you engage. You leave comments. You give us feedback. You make your opinions known. Can't tell you how much we appreciate that and

value that. And one of the most popular opinions that we have seen is how much you love our police interrogations. And I have to agree because they are so unpredictable. They let you see firsthand how detectives uncover the truth behind a crime, the strategies they use, what suspects defendants say. It is so important at trials. Can't tell you enough. Well, I am excited to tell you that we here at Long Crime, we have heard you loud and clear. And we have launched a whole new YouTube channel

dedicated only to interrogation videos. It is aptly named Law and Crime Interrogations. And it is your new destination for all of the most gripping and unique interrogations on the internet. We're talking the moments when killers crack, false confessions, the most elaborate cover-up schemes that still seem to fail.

You can check it out. go subscribe, let us know what you think. Click the link in the description to step inside the interrogation room on law and crime interrogations. Can you determine when something was deleted? Yeah, so the date of deletion is based on on or on or app, I'm sorry, on or before the last access date because once you delete something, you can't access it again, right? So if it's got a deletion date of today, for an example, 418, it couldn't have been accessed after that, so it had to be deleted that or before.

nothing has a deleted date on it that says it was deleted because depending upon how it was deleted it may not change the access date but if you last access on the 18th and certainly it was still on your phone on the 18th so it's either on or before the last access date and just to clarify if something was deleted five years ago versus five months ago it's harder to extract that get that data back first of all I don't think people have both for five years but I know I don't but let's that that's the case. No, it's not, it's not going to be a lot harder. It's going to be almost impossible because based upon all my experience, and I've been doing this for 35 years, I did it with the state organized crime bureau when I was with the Attorney General's office, and I've

been doing it 25 years in the private sector. Based on all my experience, that we measure data loss in days and weeks, not months and years. I've seen data last on a hard drive for over three and a half years and we can bring it back, not on a cell phone. But they grabbed this guy, no idea they were coming for him. So they got him by surprise. And I got to believe that he didn't have a chance to delete a lot. And purely making an assumption, if you're that reckless, and by the way, look, this could also be a situation. You know, if he really did do this, this could, it could be somebody who clearly has trouble with containing inhibitions. But the reason I mentioned that is because if he's so reckless to go into a public store and use his phone in

that way, and, you know, that's what the allegation is. I can't, I don't know if he'd be the same kind person to just delete information once he gets it or would he keep it um you know i don't know if he was that conscious of it again this is allegations at this point and with that idea i should tell you the reporting is they haven't found anything regarding children regarding any kind of child pornography or anything that would exploit a child in which way i actually looked up north carolina law and there's a statutes regarding sexual exploitation of a child very serious felony that would be if you're videotaping children engaged in sexual activity. Again, let me be clear. He has not been charged with that. They have not found evidence of that. But what do you think they were looking on his phone

with respect to children? Because if he did have this kind of, he was working with or an association with an elementary school, what specifically were they looking for on his phone and making the determination at this point? We haven't found anything that would suggest that. Well, anytime someone's arrested for a crime such as like this, right? And they know, that they worked with children, they're going to be looking for C-SAM, sexual, I'm sorry, child sexual abuse material, without a doubt. It's just a investigative step that they need to take. They don't want to be surprised and find out that they had somebody. They didn't follow up on it, and he was into that. So like I said, I think this warrant's going to expand a welder on beyond his phone.

They can go into his home. They're going to grab all his devices that he has. That's anything electronic. So additional cell phones, even old cell phones, thumb drive, external hard drives, and any and all computers, whether it belongs to him or not. They'll find out that later, you know, because you don't want to go in and find out that someone lied to you and said, well, that was not his. That was somebody else's and you didn't take it. They're going to take everything. John Lusich. My goodness. What a great education. Let me ask you real quick, before I let you go. Do you specialize in cell phone triangulation, how to pinpoint somebody or anything like that? We do so much of it. We work homicides with.

it we work drug deals with it we absolutely do using persons in that case i want everybody to take a good look at john because i'm going to call john back when we talk more about the brian koberger case there was a big development about whether or not the defense is going to be fighting back against the cell phone evidence placing him at certain key points i love john's perspective on that so that's what i'm going to tell my producers at the end of the show that i want john back to talk about that case because i think john lucidge from founder from e forensics what a what a great resource we We offer our services free for law enforcement. Anybody who needs our help will help them go down the right road with ideas and even manpower.

Awesome. John, Thank you so much for coming on. Really appreciate it. Enjoyed the discussion. Thank you. God bless. And that is all we have for you here on Sidebar.

Everybody, thank you so much for joining us. As always, please subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.