Monterey County Sheriff’s Office Investigative Sgt. Terry Keiser remembers when child pornography investigations relied on eight-track tapes and paper trails. “We were working through the Postal Service to hand-deliver evidence,” the 42-year veteran investigator recalls. 


Today, global file-sharing and instant access to online information and images makes pornography ever more accessible. In 2008, Internet Watch Foundation, an international nonprofit monitoring agency, tracked over 1,500 unique child pornography domains. 


A new breed of investigators now follows a trail of digital bread crumbs to catch perpetrators, including Pacific Grove couple Jason Wright, 40, and Rampueng Kaeorawang, 41, who were arrested at their home Aug. 29 for possessing and manufacturing child porn.


The FBI initiated the investigation of Wright in Nov. 2010, according to Pacific Grove Police Department Cmdr. John Nyunt. A posting by Wright on an Internet bulletin board where child porn collectors and manufacturers trade information led investigators to a specific IP address. The source: a computer at Wright’s workplace in P.G. 


After obtaining the computer’s hard drive, investigators retrieved thousands of deleted images containing child pornography, some of which had been shared online. On May 12, the FBI arrested Wright at his home for the interstate commerce and receipt of child pornography. He was released on $100,000 bail, and the feds sent his home computer’s hard drive to a digital data analysis lab in Santa Clara. 


Nyunt says his department regularly sends data to experts at larger agencies for analysis. The county District Attorney’s office used to have two investigators dedicated to computer forensics, but both retired last week. (The DA’s office is training two new investigators.) 


This gap in local knowledge is frequently filled by the Silicon Valley Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICAC), which covers 11 counties and encompasses 76 law enforcement agencies. In the first five months of 2011, ICAC investigated 216 child porn cases, leading to 56 arrests. The task force provides assistance from its San Jose office and in the field.


“We have procedures we have to follow to ensure that no data is altered,” says ICAC Sgt. Greg Lombardo. Though he won’t disclose specific software or strategies, Lombardo says ICAC’s efforts are aimed at preserving digital evidence so attorneys for the accused can’t argue in court that images aren’t credible.


More than two months after Wright was arrested, the data miners discovered pornographic images of Wright’s wife, Kaeorawang, and an 11-year-old girl. 


“That’s where we got involved,” Nyunt says. Using the evidence given to them from the FBI, Nyunt and his investigators were able to construct their own search warrant and make arrests. Then the investigation took an international turn.


Investigators learned through Kaeorawang’s Thai translator that the pornography had been produced in Thailand, which led federal agents to charge the couple with porn manufacturing charges. Additionally, federal officers are investigating potential sex trafficking by Wright and his brother, John, who is a registered sex offender in Pacific Grove but currently lives in Thailand. 


Jason Wright and Kaeorawang are in federal custody, though they’re due in court in Salinas Sept. 21 on the local porn possession charges. The alleged victim is in the care of Child Protective Services. 


Christina Gunter, a sexual assault investigator with the county District Attorney’s office, interviewed her. “You need to be non-leading and non-suggestive with children,” says Gunter, who’s been doing forensic interviews of children as young as 3 for a decade. Once Gunter builds a rapport with a child, she establishes ground rules for their conversation – “‘If I use a word you don’t know, don’t guess’” – and frequently repeats what the child tells her so she knows her interpretation of events is accurate. 


Hearing harrowing stories of abuse and sexual trauma takes its toll on investigators. “It’s not something you can bring up at a dinner party,” Gunter says. “Nobody wants to hear about it.” She relies on support from her husband, a police officer, and her colleagues, who talk through cases and coping strategies.


Lombardo’s ICAC investigators can only work in the unit for three years, a rule intended to prevent burnout and post-traumatic stress disorder. ICAC staff also receive training through SHIFT Wellness, a federal program that provides mental-health professionals for officers exposed to child sexual abuse images. 


Lombardo says most people who sign up for the job know what they’re getting into. “One of the detectives doing a ride-along the other day said, ‘Wow, we’re really making a difference here,’” Lombardo says. Adds Gunter: “If you have one child who you know isn’t going to fear at night because of you, then that’s all you need to keep going.”