Dateline: FRI1714

Overview

It's our twelfth "To Catch A Predator" investigation and this time we're set up in a 6,000- square foot home in Bowling Green, Kentucky. It's a town of about 50,000 people an hour north of Nashville, Tennessee. Each one of these investigations has its own rhythm and Kentucky is no different. Within hours I am struck by the fact that fewer men are showing up at our hidden camera house than in past investigations. Looking back I think this at least partially because the Kentucky Attorney General's office and the Kentucky Bureau of Investigation, along with local law enforcement, have been actively pursuing online predators in the past year. Before Dateline's investigation in Bowling Green, the Attorney General's office with the help of the online watchdog group Perverted Justice had conducted two previous sting operations without us, making 20 arrests. One of them was a 59-year old criminal justice instructor at an Ohio college who used to be an elementary school teacher.