South Bend Tribune,
Indiana
April 3, 2007
Local case described in crime book
Chapter follows Mitch Kajzer's work to convict teacher.
PABLO ROS
Tribune Staff Writer
SOUTH BEND -- When a renowned investigative journalist asked
the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to share
with him some of its success stories, the organization pointed
him to St. Joseph County.
It was here that a police investigator with the county prosecutor's
office named Mitch Kajzer had jailed a school teacher in 2005
for sexually abusing one of his students. It had been Kajzer's
persistence in the case that solved it and made him a name among
those who fight child pornography.
"They told me I must reach Mitch. They said he's just so
dogged, so determined," said
Julian Sher, a journalist whose book on Internet child pornography
devotes a chapter to following Kajzer in his investigation of
Timothy J. Wyllie.
The book, titled "Caught in the Web: Inside the Police Hunt
to Rescue Children from Online Predators," is in stores this
month.
Kajzer is now commander of the county's High Tech Crimes Unit,
which is featured in Sher's book along with the FBI, the Department
of Homeland Security and New Scotland Yard.
"We are honored to be recognized as one of the leaders in
protecting children from online predators and child pornographers,"
St. Joseph County Prosecutor Michael Dvorak said.
Wyllie was arrested in 2004 and pleaded guilty to sexually molesting
a 10-year-old girl. Wyllie was caught because he took nude photos
of the girl and posted them online. The case made local headlines
and is the subject of a lawsuit against the Penn-Harris-Madison
School Corp.
In his book, Sher details how law enforcement agencies are working
with each other and with Internet service providers in unprecedented
ways to fight online child porn.
"The Internet has become a public playground," said
Sher in a phone interview with The Tribune last week. "The
use of social networks like MySpace and the explosion of wireless
technology have made children more vulnerable and predators more
difficult to find."
The number of reports of child pornography the NCMEC receives
each year has grown from 24,000 five years ago to 340,000 in 2006,
partly because of better reporting, according to Sher.
"It's the new face of crime in the 21st century, and we're
still grappling with it," Sher said.
Sher said he became interested in Wyllie's victim, a girl he
names "Ann" in his book, because unlike other victims
of child abuse, she had the strength and courage to report her
abuse.
Kajzer met Ann in 2003, a month after becoming an investigator
with the St. Joseph County prosecutor's office.
"It was one of these cases that you knew the victim was
telling the truth," Kajzer recalled.
Because there was no evidence against Wyllie at first, believing
Ann was important.
In child pornography cases, a single picture can make the difference.
Where enough evidence exists to file charges, Kajzer said, the
conviction rate is 100 percent. That's because the evidence is
strong: a visual record of the crime in progress.
"How often do you get a video of someone being shot or murdered?"
Kajzer explained.
And yet, finding even a single picture in the vast universe of
the Internet can be excruciatingly difficult. It took Kajzer more
than 15 months to find his first piece of evidence against Wyllie.
"It was a consuming investigation," he said.
Kajzer led 91 Internet investigations in 2003, a number that
grew to 301 in 2006.
According to Sher, about 30 percent of children say their parents
wouldn't approve of their Internet activities -- if they knew.
Most victims of child abuse never report it, either because they
lack the strength or because they can't, according to Sher, who
said almost half of child pornography victims are under age 5.
The St. Joseph County High Tech Crimes Unit was formed in 2005,
the same year Wyllie was sentenced to 30 years.
Since then, Kajzer has solved hundreds of cases. But Ann's always
will be special to him.
"She's doing fairly well," Kajzer said of Ann, who
is now in high school.
