LINCOLNTON, N.C. — An undercover operation that has helped put dozens of suspected sex predators behind bars is expanding.
For the past two years, Detective Brent Heavener has been working with Lincolnton police to catch those trying to solicit sex from children online.
In his first major sting operation, Heavener arrested 17 men.
Now, the detective is working full-time and has since arrested 34 other people, some of which he said are in high-power positions.
The investigator thought all of the people that he charged would be people obviously suspect of crimes against children.
He now knows what one wife of a suspect is learning.
Monday Collette Skamarock, a married mother of four, got a call from jail.
Lincolnton police charged her husband Matthew Skamarock with soliciting sex from a minor.
"We have kids, a family, a great job,” the wife said. “We were amazing, perfect and normal."
Police said she didn't know that her husband met what he thought was a young girl online in May and began grooming her for sex.
Police explained how they arrested him when he thought he was meeting an underage girl.
Then she thought about websites she said he visited before.
"It didn't just start out of nowhere," she said.
Heavner said predators will connect with children using online video games or they will visit social media sites, pull pictures of children your child may know, create their own sites and make friend requests.
"In reality, it's not really them,” Heavner said. “It could be any number of these guys."
One of their latest arrests was Robert Quigg, a registered sex offender convicted of indecent liberties with a minor.
Quigg is one of 54 arrests made by Heavner.
"If
had the time and the manpower, we could be up into the hundreds of arrests," Heavner said.
Collette Skamarock said she is thankful that police arrested her husband.
"I would never want a man to do what my husband attempted to do," she said.
She said she will get a divorce.