HARRISBURG, N.C. — Warrants are revealing disturbing new details about an alleged predator living in our community.
Between computers, hard drives, phones, and more, investigators found over 18,000 illegal media files on Christopher Brownstead’s devices. Like many cases against alleged child sexual predators, this arrest stemmed from a tip -- it turns out that Google tipped off investigators when they discovered the files.
State investigators told Channel 9’s Hannah Goetz on Tuesday that while the information in the search warrants is alarming, it’s not completely uncommon.
Brownstead was arrested on a slew of felony charges after his arrest in Cabarrus County last week. We know he had two homes in Montgomery County, one of which was operated as a vacation rental, according to police.
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Now, a search warrant says Brownstead had what looked like hidden camera images of minors, and he had been collecting them for at least 10 years. The warrant says thousands of media files were found on his Google account, and hundreds of those were said to be manipulated sexually explicit images.
“Eighteen thousand is large, but it’s also not uncommon. We see these over and over with tens of thousands of files; people who have been collecting for many years,” said Kevin Roughton, a special agent in charge with the computer crimes unit at the State Bureau of Investigations.
Roughton told Goetz there has been a major increase in tips for cases like this in the state.
“In a span of six years, we went from less than 5,000 tips a year to nearly 34,000 tips projected for this year,” Roughton said.
According to court documents, one of those cyber tips lead to Brownstead’s arrest. The search warrant says Google submitted a tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children; 27 files were linked to it.
Roughton says many of the tips they receive come from popular social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Google.
“Offenders still go where the kids are going to be,” Roughton said. “So it’s critical that we investigate these every single step of the way, because ultimately, in every tip, there is a child victim.”
Experts warn parents to ask questions if your child is online. If you let your child go to the park, you’d ask where they were going and who they were going with -- ask those same questions with the internet.
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