ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — “Rainy day boredom,” was the title of the ad on a local online classified site that happened to catch the eye of RNC Const. Terry Follett one day in June 2016.
Follett, an investigator in the internet child exploitation division of a joint RNC/RCMP unit, was doing one of his usual scans of Craigslist, looking for potential predators.
“Hey, crappy day out, anyone want to chat, see where it goes? Up for anything, have pics to share xo,” read the rest of the ad, which also included “W4W,” meaning “woman for woman,” indicating the ad had been posted by a female looking for another female.
Follett responded, using a covert identity of a teenage girl.
“I’m 15 and bi, is that too young for you?” he replied to the ad.
Over the next five months, Follett and the poster of the ad, who used the name Al D, exchanged a series of emails, eventually moving to text messages. The conversation was often sexual, with Al D asking for nude and sexy photos and, in one case, a video. In return, she sent Follett’s covert identity pictures of herself, appearing as an adult woman and topless in at least one image.
Follett inserted into the conversations references to going to school, having a curfew and having to sneak out of the house.
The chat ended in November 2016 with the arrest of Jeffrey Fowler of C.B.S., whom police allege was posing as a woman for the purpose of luring a child. The photos he allegedly sent Follett’s covert 15-year-old identity belonged to a woman he had reportedly met on a dating app.
Fowler, 32, was arrested at work and charged with internet child luring and making sexually explicit material available to a child.
He has pleaded not guilty and his two-day trial got underway Monday in provincial court in St. John’s, with Follett taking the stand.
Follett said he had been led to Fowler after a cellphone company provided him with subscriber information for the number he had been texting.
Upon his arrest, Fowler gave a recorded interview to Follett and his partner, which was played for the court. In it, he acknowledged having created and posted the Craiglist ad, but insisted he had never pretended to be a woman online and couldn’t recall chatting with a 15-year-old or anyone as a result of the ad.
“So someone with access to your phone is using your number to chat with this girl?” the RNC officers asked Fowler, who told them it was possible, but that he also regularly chatted with a woman who had a similar phone number and could have gotten confused.
“I must have thought it was her,” Fowler told police.
When Follett pointed out that someone using Fowler’s number had repeatedly asked the child to send them photos, Fowler said, “Yes, because I thought it was (the woman).”
Follett showed Fowler photos his covert teenage identity had texted back, asking him, “If you saw those pics, how old would you think she is?”
“Fifteen or 16,” Fowler replied.
Fowler’s former common-law wife also testified at trial, telling the court she had never made a Craigslist post or used his phone, and couldn’t recall if the phone had been password protected.
Under cross-examination by defence lawyer Rosellen Sullivan, the woman confirmed Fowler had always had a habit of deleting text messages and emails from his cellphone.
Sullivan is expected to present her case when the trial resumes Tuesday.
Twitter: @tara_bradbury
