Texas Ranger Texas Department of Public Safety, Texas Rangers, Company A
In Spring 2021, four anonymous letters were sent to four different agencies in Montgomery County, Texas. The letters stated that Norman Wilkerson, who was at that time serving as the Assistant Chief of Police for a local police department, had sexually abused two of his daughters twenty years earlier. The presenters of this case study jointly investigated these allegations and eventually identified multiple victims. Their efforts resulted in this monster being brought to justice. In this case study, the presenters will discuss some of the tactics and techniques they used to prove up a twenty-year-old cold case, including the use of aerial photography, open-source-intelligence and Zoom calls with witnesses. They will discuss the use of these very "outside of the box" and non-traditional investigative methods that were used to locate multiple victims spread across the country and prove up these allegations beyond a reasonable doubt.
Learning Objectives:
Identify "red flags" from anonymous letter that indicate that information is worth investigating further
Develop understanding of "inside-the-box" and "outside-the-box" methods of identifying potential witnesses and victims
Develop understanding of corroborative methods used in decades-old cold-case investigations of child sexual abuse
