FLORENCE, Ariz - When Det. Randall Snyder goes on patrol for the Pinal County Sheriff's Office, it's usually from his cubicle inside headquarters. His beat, however, can take him across the county, or across the country.
Snyder works undercover in the area of cybercrimes against children, trying to head-off online predators looking to exploit kids. A couple of weeks ago -- undercover, he the likes of 44-year-old Larry Hudson online.
And in just two hours he says, the chat went from, "'Hey, how you doing? I'd like to be friends,'" Snyder said. "To providing inappropriate images, to requesting inappropriate images, and conducting inappropriate chat with what he believed to be a 15-year-old girl."
Investigators say Hudson, a convicted sex offender, was no stranger to the teen and pre-teen chat world using the screen names "hottgu" or "Brian Johnson" and targeting girls between the ages of 13 and 16 from his home in Oregon. Snyder soon discovered Hudson's reach went well beyond Arizona.
"He was also talking to an undercover officer in Texas and to two actual children -- one in Illinois and one in Louisiana," Snyder said.
With a mountain of evidence, including some provided by Pinal County, Hudson was arrested by the FBI, but investigators fear there are more victims, and more like him, lying in wait for the most vulnerable in Arizona.
"We're doing everything we can to hold them accountable and to take them off the streets," Snyder said, "so they're not out there victimizing more and more kids."
PCSO is advising that if your child is a victim or if anyone has any further information about potential contact between Hudson and any child, please inform the FBI or your local law enforcement agency. The FBI's Phoenix Division can be reached at (623) 466-1999. You can reach the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office at (520) 866-5111.