This is a story about how the paths of two men recently crossed in Green Country. One is a grandfather, former preacher and police chief in Missouri. The other is a Creek County man charged with attempted enticement of a child in Missouri. The Internet brought the men together in ways neither could predict.
News on 6 crime reporter Lori Fullbright reports sexual predators have always been around, but the Internet allows them access to victims like never before. Most parents have no idea how persuasive and insidious these criminals can be. They also think it won't happen to their child. Even good kids who know better are no match for men consumed with having sex with children.
The Internet is a treasure trove of information. But investigators say lurking just beneath the surface are people obsessed with finding virgin boys and girls in order to be their first, to groom them into sexual partners. Jim Murray's mission is to find those people. He does so in a small office inside his rural Missouri home, surrounded by pictures of his grandchildren. He still works with his department investigating cyber crimes.
Last fall, he got a tip about a Creek County man trying to set up a meeting with a 12-year-old Tulsa girl for sex. Murray went online, posing as a 13 year old girl named Cindy and messaged the man known as “rootsnake†and the conversation began. “He would, not only with me, but with all the other girls, say you're cute, really pretty. Then, he would get into sexual kinds of things, " says Jim Murray. He adds, “It's just repulsive to think he was talking, sometimes the girls were as young as 8 or 9." Murray says the conversation quickly went from nice to sex to more. “He gets on his webcam and I describe it as performs a lewd act and he wants her to do the same thing,†says Murray.
Murray learned “rootsnake†was Terry Sullins, a 46 year old man with a Sapulpa address, who was working as a security guard at Tulsa Public Schools. He also learned Sullins had hundreds of email addresses for young girls and had exposed himself to 70.
Murray got an arrest warrant from Missouri, called Creek County deputies and together, last fall, they went to Sullins' home. "He kept on saying, I thought she was 18 and I said you need to stop this, you're looking at Cindy Murray. We were concerned he was going to have some kind of health problem," says Murray.
Police say Sullins' screen name, “rootsnake†was taken from the Bible, the third chapter of Genesis, where it talks about the snake being the root of all evil because he's the one who tempted Eve to eat the apple and corrupted the innocence of the garden of Eden. Sullins wrote in an email once that he sees himself as a corrupter of innocence.
Officers say they recovered sex toys, a video camera, videos of partially nude girls and body fluids in several locations in Sullins' home. Murray says Sullins also used money and presents to entice girls into meeting him. A Tulsa girl filed a police report, accusing Sullins of paying her for sex when she was underage. We traveled to Texas to meet this girl, Casey, is now 18, but, says she met Sullins online when she was 14.
She says he performed a sex act on his webcam, talked about sex and gave her money and presents. "I knew he liked young girls. When I first met him, he was working at a school as a security guard. I wanted to go tell somebody and say something but I was like, what if I’m wrong and I didn't want to get someone in trouble that is actually a good person," says Casey.
She says Sullins tried to meet her in person several times, but she declined to give him her specific address. "From the time I was 16, he asked me to move in with him. I said, what would your son think, he's just a few years younger than me,†says Casey.
Murray says he has been in contact with many of the girls found in Sullins' computer. Their stories, he says, break his heart. “I have to take a break after an arrest and trying to find victims, Murray says as a tear rolls down his face.
Sullins faces nine charges of attempted enticement of a child in Missouri. He waived extradition during a Tuesday Creek County court hearing and will be transferred to Missouri soon. The Creek County Sheriff’s Office says it’s investigating Sullins for child pornography and Tulsa Police have sent a case on him to the district attorney, but no Oklahoma charges have been filed at this time.
Sullins is no longer a security guard with Tulsa Public Schools. Securitas is the firm that supplies security guards to the school system fired Sullins. They tell us he was certified as a security guard and had passed a background check. Sullins' attorney had no comment.
