June 11, 2026 • 40 mins
What does it take to hunt down society’s worst offenders while protecting its most vulnerable? In part one of this compelling two-part episode, Alicia sits down with Agent Will Britt to explore his intense, high-stakes work in the Internet Crimes Against Children task force. He also opens up about his unexpected creative side that keeps him grounded. From opera singing to The Power Rangers and SpaceGodzilla, Will leans into his unique hobbies to help him decompress and cope with the darkest realities of the job.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm Alicia Kazakh and this is the Alicia Cozac Podcast.
And I have waited such a long time to say
that I'm a survivor of child abduction and online exploitation,
and for more than twenty years, I've been a speaker
and a child protection advocate. Some of you might know
me from my story, from Alicia's Law, or from my
(00:22):
work with law enforcement across the country. If you don't,
here's what you need to know. When I was thirteen
years old, someone I met online lured me away from
my home. I was kidnapped, held in abasement, and abused while
the world searched for me. A stranger on the internet
had become a monster in real life, but I survived.
(00:44):
I was rescued, and pretty quickly, about a year later,
I started telling my story so that other kids wouldn't
have to live it. I have now spent most of
my life speaking out fighting predatory crime, and I get
to work with heroes in this space, the investigators, the
prosecutors and advocates who fight chat exploitation every single day,
(01:09):
and that's why I really wanted to make this podcast.
There are a lot of shows and podcasts that focus
on crime, but most of them zoom in on the
worst moments and they just stop there. And I'm not
doing that here. This is not about sensational true crime.
This is instead about real crime and real crime. It
(01:30):
isn't sexy. It's grim and it's grisly, and it leaves
unimaginable pain in its wake. It's the kind that doesn't
end when you click pause or the episode ends. But
I also want to focus on hope. If you know me,
I am all about sparkles and light and hope. I believe, no,
(01:55):
I know that we can make a difference together through
this work. I have met and I've worked alongside people
who fight to protect kids every single day. They have
become my closest friends and my support systems because we
know that world and we have faced true evil. The
(02:15):
stories that they've shared with me, they make me laugh,
they make me cry, they make me literally want to
throw up or sometimes want to burn the world to
the ground, but they never fail to inspire me. And
I want to introduce you to them. I want you
to meet them not as people who are wearing a
(02:35):
badge or a uniform, but as the people that they are,
the people that I know, and I want you to
understand what they actually do, how it affects them, how
heavy it is, and why.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
They keep going.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Anyway, you're going to hear some really heavy things on
the show. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, and I'm
not going to shy away from it. We are talking
about child abuse, about X exploitation, and about the absolute
worst things people do online and offline. But you're also
going to hear about courage and ridiculous gallows, laughter and
(03:12):
friendship and the weird, little, joyful things that keep people going.
My hope is that you walk away with more understanding,
more hope, and experience that dark humor that often gets
us through the day. I like to say that my
guests and I live in that darkness so that kids
don't have to. And that's what's really at the heart
(03:33):
of this podcast. So come join me for a little
while and I'll bring you into this world, this world
of darkness and wild humor that helps us to survive
it and to meet the people whose light keeps pushing
back against it. So with that, let's start where I
live most days, with one of those real life heroes.
(03:56):
For our very first episode, I'm starting with one of
my favorite people on the planet. Wilbrit is a special
agent with the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. He
works one hundred Internet crimes against shot in cases. But
get this, he's also an opera singer and a full
blown Power Rangers and Transformer's nerd who is actually currently
(04:18):
surrounded by toys.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
He is one of.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Those rare people who can walk straight into the darkest
places and still bring light and humor and heart. Thank
you so much for joining me Will on my very
first podcast. I'm so excited and honored to have you here.
So we just went over your very official title. But
(04:44):
for everyone listening, what does that actually mean?
Speaker 1 (04:47):
What do you do?
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Well? For lack of a better term, I hunt pedophiles.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
That is such a powerful sentence and what a thing
to do. But I often hear I could never do that,
and I'm sure you hear it a lot too.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Yes, I hear it all the time. So because of that,
I've actually come up with a little thought exercise to
kind of explain why I do what I do, And
if you'd like, we can go over it right now.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, I'm a little nervous, but let's let's give it
a go, let's see.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Okay, so just whenever I ask a quick question, it's
just yes or no. That's it, that's all it is. Okay, ready,
got it? All right, I do this. Have you ever
thought about stealing something?
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Of course. Have you ever thought about hurting somebody? Yes,
of course everybody has. Have you ever thought about killing somebody? Yes,
everybody has. Have you ever thought about running a red light?
And guess yeah, you probably did it even today. Now
(06:07):
have you ever had unsolicited sexual thoughts about another person?
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Yes, yeah. You don't walk up to every single attractive
person because we're all human beings. You don't walk up
to them and go, hey, excuse me, I apologize, but
do you mind if I have sexual fantasies about you later? Like?
You don't do that. That's not obviously, that's not normal.
So now, last one, have you ever had sexual thoughts
about a five year old? No? Why not?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
That would be bafful I'm not attracted to five year olds.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Uh, that's not something that is in my makeup.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
So that's why the immediate the reaction that you just
had to that question, where you kind of like recoiled
a little bit, and then you even struggled to formulate
an answer. It's not that, oh what do I say?
It's literally, why is this even a question? Why am
I being questioned on this? So every single crime, the
(07:08):
type of crime, can be explained away by the human condition.
So we've all had how do I put this, We've
all had the thoughts, We've all had the tendencies to
want to do things that are against the law, that
are against our better judgment, that are against our fellow
man or woman. But because of patience, because of self
(07:29):
control and varying other varying other things, we don't do
it right. But when you come to that that is
not human, that is not.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Normal, that's well stop.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Yeah, exactly. That is why. It's because when I hunt
these when I'm investigating these crimes, and I'm interacting with
these type of people, I'm not acting. I'm not talking
to the average Joe. I'm talking to somebody who is
deeply troubled and struggles, whether not willingly or you know,
anything along that line. With one of the absolute most
(08:05):
abhorrent acts a human being can commit towards another, and
especially because it's aimed at the most innocent of all
the population and obviously that's children.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Do you feel that it is an affliction that these
people have, that it's something that they're struggling with use
the word willingly or unwillingly? Is it something that they're
struggling with against their will?
Speaker 3 (08:32):
So the way that that's worded is pretty interesting, but
how it's been explained, and a lot of research shows
it's not a lot of people will associate it with
an addiction. Okay, they'll associate it with something like drugs, like, well,
you can cut the addiction, you can, you can cut this.
When you start dealing with the sexual fantasies, the sexual
(08:53):
side of things, you're not dealing with an addiction anymore.
And don't get me wrong, we're not talking about pornography.
We're not talking about anything is. There's this brilliant speaker,
doctor Michael Burke, and what he talks about is the
pornography rabbit hole. Okay, everybody's heard this term. Everybody. Everybody's like, oh, well,
you start here and you end up here. That's that's
(09:15):
not how that works. So what he talks about is
you never focus on the rabbit hole itself. You focus
on the endpoint. So pornography is nothing more than something
just to replace our fantasies. Right, It's it's nothing more
than that. It's something that's a placeholder for a fantasy,
(09:37):
that's all it is. So when you are constantly looking
for new pornography, it's because what's here does not replace
what's already here. Okay, it might have doled it, but
it didn't replace it. It didn't it didn't help ease it. Right,
So that's why that that's why that constant downward spiral occurs,
(09:57):
because it's not again where you're it's not where I'm sorry,
it's not the path you took, it's where you end up.
Because that shows the final fantasy, that shows the final
for us millennial kids, the final destination. So if you
were to look at the vast majority of people who
(10:20):
look at pornography, they might change the models that they
look at. They might get a little bit maybe a
little bit more kinky or something like that. But you're
not going to take an average Joe and he's not
going to go from looking at I don't know, blonde hair,
blue eyes to dogs. That's not how that works. That
(10:41):
is not even close to how that works. There's already
something there. And so when this occurs. This has already
been breeding here, and with how fast and how deep
technology has gotten, especially with the Internet, people are meeting
their endpoint faster and faster, if that makes sense, Whereas
(11:03):
before it used to occur much later in life because
you know, you were younger, you didn't have access to
all these different things. But now even children have a supercomputer.
So that's why we're seeing such an uptick in all
this different type of stuff is because people are just
getting access to it easier and easier and easier. Now
(11:24):
you don't ever just stumble across it. That's not how
that works. Anybody who says they, oh, I just stumbled
across it like I was on Google Images, and oh,
that's not how that works. That's not how that works
even slightly. But it is becoming easier to seek out,
and unfortunately it is infecting much more populated maybe areas
(11:50):
of the Internet, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Absolutely, And it is so true that kids have access
to this. Everybody has access to any kind of pornography that.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Can really be imagined.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
But I do like that you say that you can't
really just stumble across it, because you do hear that
where people are like I wasn't looking for it.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
It just showed up.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
And it makes me think about how yeah, and it
makes me think about how in the earlier days of
the Internet there were these pop ups.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Do you remember pop ups?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
And think they would get worse and worse and worse,
and they wouldn't stop, and then your computer would lock
up and you would get a virus, which is something
we don't even talk about anymore these days.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
It would lead you, it would.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Lead you further and further into this this dark hole.
And yes, and that happens now, but more easily. It
used to be that pornography was something that was on
that channel that had the squiggly lines on it that
you weren't allowed to watch, and it had like the
(12:52):
music and.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
The Yeah, you're constantly looking over your shoulder making sure
your parents don't walk in or anything.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
So it's like the magazine. But now the thing is
that the magazine it's all interactive and it talks back
to you, and it's so it's not easy to stumble
across see sam necessarily or these images of children being harmed,
but it is easy to.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Go darker and darker and darker.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
And that's probably something that you see a lot. I
would imagine in your line of work as people who
start out with one thing and then end up do
they do need more and more and more to feed
the beast, if you will. And then there and then
there are those who, like you said, will end up
(13:45):
in those areas because it was already something that they
were interested in. You stop there, you cross the line there,
like or you you put up.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
A wall there, there's no more. There's that's the end.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
You find the absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
When it comes to an Internet Crimes against Children investigator,
I don't think people really know what that job entails.
I've heard people say, oh, they just look at porn
all day in the basement. What do you actually do
on a day to day basis? What is it that
you literally every day when you wake up? What does
(14:25):
a typical day for you look like?
Speaker 3 (14:28):
So much to my wife's dismay, my alarm clock goes
off at five am on a normal day so I
can get up and work out. Unfortunately, with this field,
you do need a lot of coping mechanisms for obvious reasoning.
So I work out and I have a whole bunch
of other as. If you can't tell from what's around
(14:48):
me other coping mechanisms that I go through, but then
go into work. With my job being at the SBI,
I deal with cyber tips, so I will triage reports
pretty much. That's all it is. It's just another way
of receiving a report and a law enforcement capacity for
(15:08):
people potentially accessing child pornography across the Internet. And with that,
with those investigations, naturally there's other steps that go into them.
If I have forensics lined up for phones or computers
or anything along that line, I'll be processing those, going
through seeing if I can find evidence of this or that.
(15:30):
I'll do phone extractions, type up everything. Because with law enforcement,
you can have fun for two hours and then you're
typing for three weeks. It is what it is. When
I was in b LET, which is the acronym for
Basic law Enforcement training, they said, if you do not
like writing, this is the wrong field for you. So
(15:52):
that's the running joke is that you go have fun
for two hours and then you're typing for three weeks.
So I have to if it does, if it's not
in the report, if it's not in the case file,
it didn't happen. So you've got to make sure you're
constantly keeping up with what you're doing. Blah blah blah.
As of late, we have been traveling NonStop. I've been
going to multiple search warrants a week. And because I'm
(16:14):
in the state of North Carolina and I'm with the
North Carolina State Year of Investigation, i travel all over
the state to assist with a search warrant here or
something over there. It's not uncommon for me, Like, in fact,
there was about a few weeks ago I was waking
up at one am in the morning to make sure
(16:35):
I got my workout in before traveling two and a
half hours to a search warrant. So yeah, and then
hopefully if I'm not dead to the world, then by
the time I come home, I can kiss my wife
and hopefully try not to may be too much of
an absolute ice box when I come home.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
So, when you're not chasing people who at kids, when
you're not waking up at one am to do all
of these search barns all over North Carolina, you're singing
opera and you're dressing up as a power ranger. How
did that guy? How did you that guy end up
doing this job? What were you before you were a
(17:21):
police officer.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
I was a very confused person that was not sure
of where to go. So I have been a staunch
advocate for purpose finding purpose. I'm very devout in my faith,
so I'm a strong Christian. Pretty much throughout life, I
(17:49):
genuinely felt like I wasn't sure what I was supposed
to do, if that makes sense. I have worked various
different jobs. I've worked at Gamestyle, I sold video games.
I've worked at an adult boutique, so that was fun.
But I also was a tai chi instructor. So again,
(18:13):
it's all these varying things. It's trying to figure out
where it goes. I always had a quote unquote strong
sense of justice. So if you look behind me, this
is my Power Ranger collection, or at least a part
of it. Obviously that could fit on camera. What I
have currently set up is something that pretty much showcases
the entire thirty year legacy of Power Rangers. And I've
(18:36):
been a fan since I was three, apparently, as my
mother lovingly reminds me, because I came out when I
was three, But there was a certain point in life
where I didn't exactly have many good role models. However,
you want to take that. So I am very happy
(18:57):
that the Lord allowed me to see the Power Rangers,
see the various Transformers, my Digimond characters, my Green Lantern,
various comic book heroes, and many other many other things
that kind of helped shape me and mold me into
(19:17):
who I'm today. So it wasn't until I was discussing
with a with a woman who's like a mother to me,
and we were kind of discussing where I would go
in life or what I would even do, and law
enforcement would always come up, but it would never go anywhere.
(19:39):
And I always said, if I joined law enforcement, the
only thing I would want to do is SVU. But
I couldn't do that. I'd be like Elliott Stabler from
Law and Order SVU and get fired within the first
five minutes, you know, like that's that's that's that's TV.
You'd get fired so fast if you acted like that.
But she told me something. She told me, She said, sweetheart,
(20:03):
you're going to have to remember these children do not
need revenge, they need justice. With that being said, that
ended up sticking with me. So I have sat across
from somebody telling me about how they raped their biological
(20:24):
daughter from six to fifteen years of age, and I'm
just sitting there listening and the obviously you do have
that instinct that what is across from you is evil, right,
you do have that kind of like, oh my god,
what is going on, like the red flags all that
type of stuff. But because I was able to focus
(20:47):
on who I was speaking with in the purpose behind it,
because all I could think of was that child. Now granted,
obviously the child was much older by the time this
report came out, but he admitted everything. But when I
was talking to him, because I was able to focus
on the child, it allowed me to keep calm and
(21:08):
listen to him and talk to him just like it's
another conversation. And to the point actually that when I
dropped him off at the jail after processing and arresting
all that fun stuff, when I dropped him off for
the final part, he turned around and said, Detective brit
I just want to say thank you for treating me
(21:28):
like a human being. Wow. Yeah, And I just simply
nodded and I said, you're welcome, siring good luck.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
So, yeah, you will likely get a lot more answers
out of somebody who has They don't have to like
you or what you're doing. You can be the bad
guy in their world, but that you have an amount
of I don't know if it's respect, but that you
do see them and treat them as a human, that
(22:00):
they feel they didn't lose their humanity because and I
say it a lot, and we're probably going to say
it in this podcast, the number of times we call
them monsters and those are.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Two different things. You have humans and you have monsters.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
And so when you take that person who's doing monstrous
things and you see them as a human, I feel
that they're probably much more likely to open up to
you and also be able to reflect on them that
they that they're I don't necessarily and say that they're
more than that, but that yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
That they have to stare at that in the face.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Absolutely. So what a lot of people don't really understand
is everybody, how do I put this, Everybody wants to
be heard. Everyone doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't
matter how introverted, extroverted personality types MBTI classifications, it doesn't matter.
(23:02):
None of that stuff matters. Everybody ultimately at some point
wants to be heard. Everybody wants their story told. You
just have to be willing to.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Listen, and that's how you'll get justice.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
That's the idea.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah, yeah, And I really love that that they these children,
they need justice, they don't need revenge.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
That pulls on.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
My victim survivor heartstrings so much because revenge it doesn't work.
People ask me all the time, would you do this?
Do you wish he was this? Do you all these things?
And I think that's such a beautiful thing that I
can say to them, is that I've never wanted revenge.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
All I've wanted was justice. So thank you for giving
me those words. That's so powerful.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
And the woman, I will pass that on to her.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
So she knows what she's talking about.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
And that had to be something that really motivated you.
And also it sounds like put your work into perspective
and speaking a perspective. I want to zoom out a
little bit here and completely change gears because I am
just so curious about all of these and you told
me I can call them toys. I wasn't sure if
I could say toys or action figures. You called them toys,
(24:28):
so we're going to call them, yeah, toys, And I
love that because I believe that you actually treat them
as toys and not so necessarily is just as these
protected little collectibles.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
My wife is very patient if you can't tell, and
I'll be watching. Let's say I was watching one of
my favorite seasons, Poweringer's Time Force. I cosplayed as the
Red Ranger from that season. In fact, I even just
recently at what was a Ranger stop last year in Orlando, Florida,
(25:01):
I got a photo with the Time Force Red Ranger,
Jason Font, the actor Jason Font, in my Red Time
Force suit, so standing next to him, so I was
always that was always a great moment. I even proposed
to my wife in a Power Ranger costume. Yeah, and
she actually said yes, even though she's not a fan
of Power Rangers.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Are any of them particularly special to you? Do they
have any personal meaning? Why do you collect the ones
that you collect? Is it just you take in any
ones you can find, or do they mean something more personal?
Speaker 3 (25:35):
So if you look at my collection, a lot of
people will. Some people like to collect very specific characters,
some people like to collect all toy lines, some people
like to collect a series or something. What I tell
people is I don't necessarily have a collection. I mean,
(25:55):
obviously I do. I do have a collection, but what
I view it as is more of a monument to
my heroes. To go back a little earlier to the
boring part where I kind of talked about my childhood
where I didn't have many role models. We'll just put
it that way. The Power Rangers again were my role models.
(26:17):
The cast of Transformers, Beast Wars, which is a whole
nother collection I have that's actually over there, some Digimond again,
Zoid's Green Lantern, Battle Tech, Gundom, I've got a lot
Saint Sayah, all these different things. So with all that
(26:37):
being said, I want my collection to be a monument
to my heroes. So in my eyes, these are people
or not people, obviously the characters that were able to
get me through very hard times and still to this
(26:57):
day helped me get through hard times. Cause like to
give you a quick example, when I was back at
the Cumberland County Sheriff's office, I was on the road.
I was road patrol for two years. So you know
you're down, and I'm the one. I'm the one who
shows up, or me and a few other people show up.
And I had a pretty rough day. A lot of
stuff was going on personally as well as at the job,
(27:21):
and I was feeling a little overwhelmed, actually very overwhelmed,
to the point where I almost like burst into tears.
It was it was, it was a bad day. And
I got into my room and I sat on my bed,
and I was again, it was a bad day, you know,
and I was doing the whole spiraling thing right. I
(27:44):
looked up and in front of me, I saw my
Hal Jordan's statue, my John Stewart statue, two green lanterns,
my two favorite green lanterns, and then my Ultrasord, so
that the Ultrasord is the original combination from Mighty morphin
Power Rangers Season one with the Dragon Megazordan Titanus. And
then I look over and I see my Godzilla monster arts,
(28:05):
and I see other Megazords, and I see some Digimond statues.
And then I look over here and I see some
Evangelian Mecca, and I see some Zoids, and all I
thought was, wow, I am so weak. These characters have
saved the world, if not the universe, countless times. What
(28:30):
the hell do I have to complain about? Obviously that
might not be the most healthy I have, but it
has helped me tremendously. So again, when I look at
my collection, I don't look at it like, oh my god,
I've amassed all these toys. I'm so happy because if
(28:52):
I was brutally honest, I hardly had any of this
stuff when I was a child, hardly any of it
for very reasons. But I still watched the show. I
still kept up with everything, and I never stopped. That's
the thing. I never stopped watching Power Rangers. For example.
(29:13):
I've never stopped watching it. I kept up with it
every year into high school. You know when girls and
sports are like the total thing. Yeah, No, that that's
not how I was. It was very much still into
Power Rangers. In fact, my senior year of high school,
I even was tasked with what was it? Was it Macbeth?
I think it was Macbeth. I was tasked with coordinating
(29:38):
a specific part of Macbeth. But in the inspiration for
all the characters was to act like they were Power
Ranger characters. So I took Yeah, exactly, so I took.
I took my friends who were involved in my specific part,
and I brought them home and I showed them all
(29:59):
the original my more from Power Angers movie, and we
all kind of took like kick character notes and like
the see you know, like the Tommy like everybody's favorite
Jason David Frank I've got I've met that man so
many times. I've sang for him a whole bunch. And
the amazing thing was he actually remembered me, which was
(30:21):
really cool. So yeah, he was actually the first power
Ang River met. Yeah. Oh does that answer your question?
I feel like I'm rambling.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
No, you're not rambling at all. It absolutely answers the question. Yeah,
you're doing great. So I want to.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
To see what, like, can you bring me over like
one of your favorite toys. I want to see what
up close and personal?
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Okay, so let's see. Well, so much to my wife's dismay,
I love this one.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Oh I got to see this. Oh I love it.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
So this is my This is my X plus Space.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Godzilla, Space Godzilla.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Space Godzilla. You can tell it's from space because he's
got space crystals. But oh yeah, so I love Space Godzilla.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
He's scary.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
I love Space Godzilla and I love Space Godzilla. So yeah,
but no, so I'm also obviously a huge Godzilla fan,
but I have to limit my collection of Godzilla just
for space, reasons to space. Yeah, so that's some of
(31:49):
my favorite stuff. Let's see, so talking about transformers. So
this is my trans Metal Optimist Primal and it is
actually at a factory. I don't know if y'all can
tell by the color, but it's more of a purple.
He's supposed to be blue. Don't ask him what cost.
(32:12):
But he is a huge inspiration, one of the greatest
leaders to me in all fiction. So yeah, so this
is definitely one of my prized possessions.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Makes me think about when I met you, now that
you're saying that. So I smoke at the conference here
in North Carolina and you came up to me and
introduced yourself and we started talking. We really hit it off,
and you start telling me a little bit about what you.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Do and I was like, okay, I don't quite get that.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
And then I remember looking up your Instagram and seeing
that it was Opera Ranger and I was like, Oh,
this guy's serious. You're dressed up all the time as
these characters you're singing on your Instagram.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
This is so much. It seems a.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Part of your identity and you live in these different
worlds where you have these monsters that you fight, and
then these monsters that you collect and look up to,
and this hobby it seems to be, like I said,
so much of your identity and how does that fit
(33:12):
into your work? How does does it make you stick out?
Is it something that you're open about or that you hide?
And does your office on a similar vibe, like are
you collecting things?
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Yeah too, I have a Alex Ross green lantern painting
in my office. The painting is like as big as
my torso and like you're yeah, Like you walk in,
it's the first thing you see. I have powering direction
figures in there. I've got some powering autographs in there.
(33:44):
I've got some Pokemon in there. I've actually got my
six favorite Pokemon, a little stuffed animals or a little
stuffed Pokemon of them. I've got myself drawn as a
Digimont tamer, as a Pokemon trainer. I've got some common
writer stuff. I've got more green lantern. I've got Gundam
dragon ball Z. Vegeta is my guy. I love Vegeta.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
And I feel like when you're in law enforcement, it's
one of those careers that's kind of macho and you
have to toughen up a lot, and it might be
difficult sometimes to show your true self, which it seems
like you're doing.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Oh yeah, absolutely, And don't get me wrong, like I'm
I've been. I've been in martial arts for a long time.
I'm actually a indoor disciple of David Chin. He passed away,
but I was under him for ten years before he
passed away. Speaking of my CFO, I even have a
photo that he gave me on the wall that when
(34:48):
you're leaving the office you always see it. So it
always reminds me to keep his teachings at heart. But no,
so like I hit stones. In fact, at the house
I have my iron palm training stuff set up. Again.
My wife is very patient. I have a tell a
little pole in the backyard that I hit, so if
(35:10):
you if you can hear this, I hear it. Yeah,
so that's not really a normal sound. I've been hitting
stuff for over a decade now, so I've got the
quote unquote macho side. I mean it is what it
is like with law enforcement. You are required to be
able to at least tap into a type a personality
(35:31):
when it calls for it. But if you're going to
survive in that constant, go go, go, go go. You
have to have a counterbalance. You just have to, especially
as well as in the field that I'm in. You know,
(35:53):
you're you're having to. Our job literally requires us to
watch children being raped. So I don't know if people
knew this or not, but it order for us to
charge those those charges, we have to legally be able
to say we viewed it and can confirm this is
a video or photo of a child being sexually assaulted.
(36:17):
Every time, So everybody, so it's sorry, no, no, absolutely,
it's a coping mechanism, one hundred percent. It is so.
And you know a lot of people like, well, I
couldn't do it. No, you can. You might not be
able to do it forever, but as long as you
have positive focus point on positive, as long as you
(36:37):
have positive coping mechanisms, you'd be find again. I I
work out. I have a very regimented workout. Some days
it's calisthenics and bump dumbbells. Other days it's my kung
fu training. Other days it's more tai chi, which is
(36:57):
more just relaxation type thing. It's just to make sure
I keep the blood flow, you know. Blah blah blahlah blah,
so again with the whole macho side of things. It's
it's interesting because I'm so unapologetically myself for better or worse,
let's be honest, for better or for worse, that others
who might not be end up actually allowing themselves to
(37:22):
somewhat be as well, to where they'll come up to
me and go, hey, actually, I've been collecting this for years. Really,
may you never talk about it? Well, I don't know
if it's necessarily cool to talk to me about it.
Bro give me some photos, let me see this stuff. Hell, yeah,
let's do this.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Yeah. I was going to ask you that, how does
it How does it impact your coworkers, because obviously you're
not doing this alone.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
You have other people.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Who are on a team who are having to watch
these videos and be a part of these investigations too.
How does this does this impact them in any way?
I think that you're so inspirational. Do you think that
you don't?
Speaker 1 (37:57):
It's a hard thing. Did you think you inspire some
co workers?
Speaker 3 (38:00):
So I will tell you I actually am inspired by them.
I work with amazing people. In fact, I had a
case to where I really got to meet This was
before I actually came to this unit. I worked with
them on a case and I got to meet them
and the camaraderie and how much they were so mission
(38:21):
driven but still at the same time being so mission driven,
but being able to look out for each other, like
their mental health and stuff at the same time on
scene of a search warrant. I'd never seen that before,
So I don't know if I actually inspire anybody. That'd
be great if I did, But I am the one
(38:42):
that is constantly being inspired by who I work with.
It's I am blessed so far beyond what I deserve.
It's ridiculous, and my job is easily one of those blessings. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
One second, hey, sweetheart, I really thought long and hard
about who was going to be my first guest, and
I said it unwill for a reason. He brings a
rare passion and joy to not only this work, but
every aspect of life. I know we alluded to the
opera ranger, and I was fortunate enough this past weekend
to attend his first concert where he's sang Broadway tunes
(39:17):
accompanied by those who have actually been on the Broadway stage.
We'll hear more about how we'll use this incredible voice,
not only as an emotional release, but how he uses
it to help victims.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
And now I leave.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
You with a little bit of the opera Ranger.
Speaker 4 (39:49):
Thank you so much for tuning in. We really appreciate it.
We'll be releasing new episodes every Thursday. Make sure you
check out our YouTube channel and hit us up on
our social media on at Alicia Coe for extra content
around each episode, and please remember to subscribe on Apple, Spotify,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hello.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm Alicia Kazakh and this is the Alicia Cozac Podcast.
And I have waited such a long time to say
that I'm a survivor of child abduction and online exploitation,
and for more than twenty years, I've been a speaker
and a child protection advocate. Some of you might know
me from my story, from Alicia's Law, or from my
(00:22):
work with law enforcement across the country. If you don't,
here's what you need to know. When I was thirteen
years old, someone I met online lured me away from
my home. I was kidnapped, held in abasement, and abused while
the world searched for me. A stranger on the internet
had become a monster in real life, but I survived.
(00:44):
I was rescued, and pretty quickly, about a year later,
I started telling my story so that other kids wouldn't
have to live it. I have now spent most of
my life speaking out fighting predatory crime, and I get
to work with heroes in this space, the investigators, the
prosecutors and advocates who fight chat exploitation every single day,
(01:09):
and that's why I really wanted to make this podcast.
There are a lot of shows and podcasts that focus
on crime, but most of them zoom in on the
worst moments and they just stop there. And I'm not
doing that here. This is not about sensational true crime.
This is instead about real crime and real crime. It
(01:30):
isn't sexy. It's grim and it's grisly, and it leaves
unimaginable pain in its wake. It's the kind that doesn't
end when you click pause or the episode ends. But
I also want to focus on hope. If you know me,
I am all about sparkles and light and hope. I believe, no,
(01:55):
I know that we can make a difference together through
this work. I have met and I've worked alongside people
who fight to protect kids every single day. They have
become my closest friends and my support systems because we
know that world and we have faced true evil. The
(02:15):
stories that they've shared with me, they make me laugh,
they make me cry, they make me literally want to
throw up or sometimes want to burn the world to
the ground, but they never fail to inspire me. And
I want to introduce you to them. I want you
to meet them not as people who are wearing a
(02:35):
badge or a uniform, but as the people that they are,
the people that I know, and I want you to
understand what they actually do, how it affects them, how
heavy it is, and why.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
They keep going.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Anyway, you're going to hear some really heavy things on
the show. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, and I'm
not going to shy away from it. We are talking
about child abuse, about X exploitation, and about the absolute
worst things people do online and offline. But you're also
going to hear about courage and ridiculous gallows, laughter and
(03:12):
friendship and the weird, little, joyful things that keep people going.
My hope is that you walk away with more understanding,
more hope, and experience that dark humor that often gets
us through the day. I like to say that my
guests and I live in that darkness so that kids
don't have to. And that's what's really at the heart
(03:33):
of this podcast. So come join me for a little
while and I'll bring you into this world, this world
of darkness and wild humor that helps us to survive
it and to meet the people whose light keeps pushing
back against it. So with that, let's start where I
live most days, with one of those real life heroes.
(03:56):
For our very first episode, I'm starting with one of
my favorite people on the planet. Wilbrit is a special
agent with the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. He
works one hundred Internet crimes against shot in cases. But
get this, he's also an opera singer and a full
blown Power Rangers and Transformer's nerd who is actually currently
(04:18):
surrounded by toys.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
He is one of.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Those rare people who can walk straight into the darkest
places and still bring light and humor and heart. Thank
you so much for joining me Will on my very
first podcast. I'm so excited and honored to have you here.
So we just went over your very official title. But
(04:44):
for everyone listening, what does that actually mean?
Speaker 1 (04:47):
What do you do?
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Well? For lack of a better term, I hunt pedophiles.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
That is such a powerful sentence and what a thing
to do. But I often hear I could never do that,
and I'm sure you hear it a lot too.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Yes, I hear it all the time. So because of that,
I've actually come up with a little thought exercise to
kind of explain why I do what I do, And
if you'd like, we can go over it right now.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, I'm a little nervous, but let's let's give it
a go, let's see.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Okay, so just whenever I ask a quick question, it's
just yes or no. That's it, that's all it is. Okay, ready,
got it? All right, I do this. Have you ever
thought about stealing something?
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Of course. Have you ever thought about hurting somebody? Yes,
of course everybody has. Have you ever thought about killing somebody? Yes,
everybody has. Have you ever thought about running a red light?
And guess yeah, you probably did it even today. Now
(06:07):
have you ever had unsolicited sexual thoughts about another person?
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Yes, yeah. You don't walk up to every single attractive
person because we're all human beings. You don't walk up
to them and go, hey, excuse me, I apologize, but
do you mind if I have sexual fantasies about you later? Like?
You don't do that. That's not obviously, that's not normal.
So now, last one, have you ever had sexual thoughts
about a five year old? No? Why not?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
That would be bafful I'm not attracted to five year olds.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Uh, that's not something that is in my makeup.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
So that's why the immediate the reaction that you just
had to that question, where you kind of like recoiled
a little bit, and then you even struggled to formulate
an answer. It's not that, oh what do I say?
It's literally, why is this even a question? Why am
I being questioned on this? So every single crime, the
(07:08):
type of crime, can be explained away by the human condition.
So we've all had how do I put this, We've
all had the thoughts, We've all had the tendencies to
want to do things that are against the law, that
are against our better judgment, that are against our fellow
man or woman. But because of patience, because of self
(07:29):
control and varying other varying other things, we don't do
it right. But when you come to that that is
not human, that is not.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Normal, that's well stop.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Yeah, exactly. That is why. It's because when I hunt
these when I'm investigating these crimes, and I'm interacting with
these type of people, I'm not acting. I'm not talking
to the average Joe. I'm talking to somebody who is
deeply troubled and struggles, whether not willingly or you know,
anything along that line. With one of the absolute most
(08:05):
abhorrent acts a human being can commit towards another, and
especially because it's aimed at the most innocent of all
the population and obviously that's children.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Do you feel that it is an affliction that these
people have, that it's something that they're struggling with use
the word willingly or unwillingly? Is it something that they're
struggling with against their will?
Speaker 3 (08:32):
So the way that that's worded is pretty interesting, but
how it's been explained, and a lot of research shows
it's not a lot of people will associate it with
an addiction. Okay, they'll associate it with something like drugs, like, well,
you can cut the addiction, you can, you can cut this.
When you start dealing with the sexual fantasies, the sexual
(08:53):
side of things, you're not dealing with an addiction anymore.
And don't get me wrong, we're not talking about pornography.
We're not talking about anything is. There's this brilliant speaker,
doctor Michael Burke, and what he talks about is the
pornography rabbit hole. Okay, everybody's heard this term. Everybody. Everybody's like, oh, well,
you start here and you end up here. That's that's
(09:15):
not how that works. So what he talks about is
you never focus on the rabbit hole itself. You focus
on the endpoint. So pornography is nothing more than something
just to replace our fantasies. Right, It's it's nothing more
than that. It's something that's a placeholder for a fantasy,
(09:37):
that's all it is. So when you are constantly looking
for new pornography, it's because what's here does not replace
what's already here. Okay, it might have doled it, but
it didn't replace it. It didn't it didn't help ease it. Right,
So that's why that that's why that constant downward spiral occurs,
(09:57):
because it's not again where you're it's not where I'm sorry,
it's not the path you took, it's where you end up.
Because that shows the final fantasy, that shows the final
for us millennial kids, the final destination. So if you
were to look at the vast majority of people who
(10:20):
look at pornography, they might change the models that they
look at. They might get a little bit maybe a
little bit more kinky or something like that. But you're
not going to take an average Joe and he's not
going to go from looking at I don't know, blonde hair,
blue eyes to dogs. That's not how that works. That
(10:41):
is not even close to how that works. There's already
something there. And so when this occurs. This has already
been breeding here, and with how fast and how deep
technology has gotten, especially with the Internet, people are meeting
their endpoint faster and faster, if that makes sense, Whereas
(11:03):
before it used to occur much later in life because
you know, you were younger, you didn't have access to
all these different things. But now even children have a supercomputer.
So that's why we're seeing such an uptick in all
this different type of stuff is because people are just
getting access to it easier and easier and easier. Now
(11:24):
you don't ever just stumble across it. That's not how
that works. Anybody who says they, oh, I just stumbled
across it like I was on Google Images, and oh,
that's not how that works. That's not how that works
even slightly. But it is becoming easier to seek out,
and unfortunately it is infecting much more populated maybe areas
(11:50):
of the Internet, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Absolutely, And it is so true that kids have access
to this. Everybody has access to any kind of pornography that.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Can really be imagined.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
But I do like that you say that you can't
really just stumble across it, because you do hear that
where people are like I wasn't looking for it.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
It just showed up.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
And it makes me think about how yeah, and it
makes me think about how in the earlier days of
the Internet there were these pop ups.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Do you remember pop ups?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
And think they would get worse and worse and worse,
and they wouldn't stop, and then your computer would lock
up and you would get a virus, which is something
we don't even talk about anymore these days.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
It would lead you, it would.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Lead you further and further into this this dark hole.
And yes, and that happens now, but more easily. It
used to be that pornography was something that was on
that channel that had the squiggly lines on it that
you weren't allowed to watch, and it had like the
(12:52):
music and.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
The Yeah, you're constantly looking over your shoulder making sure
your parents don't walk in or anything.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
So it's like the magazine. But now the thing is
that the magazine it's all interactive and it talks back
to you, and it's so it's not easy to stumble
across see sam necessarily or these images of children being harmed,
but it is easy to.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Go darker and darker and darker.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
And that's probably something that you see a lot. I
would imagine in your line of work as people who
start out with one thing and then end up do
they do need more and more and more to feed
the beast, if you will. And then there and then
there are those who, like you said, will end up
(13:45):
in those areas because it was already something that they
were interested in. You stop there, you cross the line there,
like or you you put up.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
A wall there, there's no more. There's that's the end.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
You find the absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
When it comes to an Internet Crimes against Children investigator,
I don't think people really know what that job entails.
I've heard people say, oh, they just look at porn
all day in the basement. What do you actually do
on a day to day basis? What is it that
you literally every day when you wake up? What does
(14:25):
a typical day for you look like?
Speaker 3 (14:28):
So much to my wife's dismay, my alarm clock goes
off at five am on a normal day so I
can get up and work out. Unfortunately, with this field,
you do need a lot of coping mechanisms for obvious reasoning.
So I work out and I have a whole bunch
of other as. If you can't tell from what's around
(14:48):
me other coping mechanisms that I go through, but then
go into work. With my job being at the SBI,
I deal with cyber tips, so I will triage reports
pretty much. That's all it is. It's just another way
of receiving a report and a law enforcement capacity for
(15:08):
people potentially accessing child pornography across the Internet. And with that,
with those investigations, naturally there's other steps that go into them.
If I have forensics lined up for phones or computers
or anything along that line, I'll be processing those, going
through seeing if I can find evidence of this or that.
(15:30):
I'll do phone extractions, type up everything. Because with law enforcement,
you can have fun for two hours and then you're
typing for three weeks. It is what it is. When
I was in b LET, which is the acronym for
Basic law Enforcement training, they said, if you do not
like writing, this is the wrong field for you. So
(15:52):
that's the running joke is that you go have fun
for two hours and then you're typing for three weeks.
So I have to if it does, if it's not
in the report, if it's not in the case file,
it didn't happen. So you've got to make sure you're
constantly keeping up with what you're doing. Blah blah blah.
As of late, we have been traveling NonStop. I've been
going to multiple search warrants a week. And because I'm
(16:14):
in the state of North Carolina and I'm with the
North Carolina State Year of Investigation, i travel all over
the state to assist with a search warrant here or
something over there. It's not uncommon for me, Like, in fact,
there was about a few weeks ago I was waking
up at one am in the morning to make sure
(16:35):
I got my workout in before traveling two and a
half hours to a search warrant. So yeah, and then
hopefully if I'm not dead to the world, then by
the time I come home, I can kiss my wife
and hopefully try not to may be too much of
an absolute ice box when I come home.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
So, when you're not chasing people who at kids, when
you're not waking up at one am to do all
of these search barns all over North Carolina, you're singing
opera and you're dressing up as a power ranger. How
did that guy? How did you that guy end up
doing this job? What were you before you were a
(17:21):
police officer.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
I was a very confused person that was not sure
of where to go. So I have been a staunch
advocate for purpose finding purpose. I'm very devout in my faith,
so I'm a strong Christian. Pretty much throughout life, I
(17:49):
genuinely felt like I wasn't sure what I was supposed
to do, if that makes sense. I have worked various
different jobs. I've worked at Gamestyle, I sold video games.
I've worked at an adult boutique, so that was fun.
But I also was a tai chi instructor. So again,
(18:13):
it's all these varying things. It's trying to figure out
where it goes. I always had a quote unquote strong
sense of justice. So if you look behind me, this
is my Power Ranger collection, or at least a part
of it. Obviously that could fit on camera. What I
have currently set up is something that pretty much showcases
the entire thirty year legacy of Power Rangers. And I've
(18:36):
been a fan since I was three, apparently, as my
mother lovingly reminds me, because I came out when I
was three, But there was a certain point in life
where I didn't exactly have many good role models. However,
you want to take that. So I am very happy
(18:57):
that the Lord allowed me to see the Power Rangers,
see the various Transformers, my Digimond characters, my Green Lantern,
various comic book heroes, and many other many other things
that kind of helped shape me and mold me into
(19:17):
who I'm today. So it wasn't until I was discussing
with a with a woman who's like a mother to me,
and we were kind of discussing where I would go
in life or what I would even do, and law
enforcement would always come up, but it would never go anywhere.
(19:39):
And I always said, if I joined law enforcement, the
only thing I would want to do is SVU. But
I couldn't do that. I'd be like Elliott Stabler from
Law and Order SVU and get fired within the first
five minutes, you know, like that's that's that's that's TV.
You'd get fired so fast if you acted like that.
But she told me something. She told me, She said, sweetheart,
(20:03):
you're going to have to remember these children do not
need revenge, they need justice. With that being said, that
ended up sticking with me. So I have sat across
from somebody telling me about how they raped their biological
(20:24):
daughter from six to fifteen years of age, and I'm
just sitting there listening and the obviously you do have
that instinct that what is across from you is evil, right,
you do have that kind of like, oh my god,
what is going on, like the red flags all that
type of stuff. But because I was able to focus
(20:47):
on who I was speaking with in the purpose behind it,
because all I could think of was that child. Now granted,
obviously the child was much older by the time this
report came out, but he admitted everything. But when I
was talking to him, because I was able to focus
on the child, it allowed me to keep calm and
(21:08):
listen to him and talk to him just like it's
another conversation. And to the point actually that when I
dropped him off at the jail after processing and arresting
all that fun stuff, when I dropped him off for
the final part, he turned around and said, Detective brit
I just want to say thank you for treating me
(21:28):
like a human being. Wow. Yeah, And I just simply
nodded and I said, you're welcome, siring good luck.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
So, yeah, you will likely get a lot more answers
out of somebody who has They don't have to like
you or what you're doing. You can be the bad
guy in their world, but that you have an amount
of I don't know if it's respect, but that you
do see them and treat them as a human, that
(22:00):
they feel they didn't lose their humanity because and I
say it a lot, and we're probably going to say
it in this podcast, the number of times we call
them monsters and those are.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Two different things. You have humans and you have monsters.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
And so when you take that person who's doing monstrous
things and you see them as a human, I feel
that they're probably much more likely to open up to
you and also be able to reflect on them that
they that they're I don't necessarily and say that they're
more than that, but that yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
That they have to stare at that in the face.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Absolutely. So what a lot of people don't really understand
is everybody, how do I put this, Everybody wants to
be heard. Everyone doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't
matter how introverted, extroverted personality types MBTI classifications, it doesn't matter.
(23:02):
None of that stuff matters. Everybody ultimately at some point
wants to be heard. Everybody wants their story told. You
just have to be willing to.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Listen, and that's how you'll get justice.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
That's the idea.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah, yeah, And I really love that that they these children,
they need justice, they don't need revenge.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
That pulls on.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
My victim survivor heartstrings so much because revenge it doesn't work.
People ask me all the time, would you do this?
Do you wish he was this? Do you all these things?
And I think that's such a beautiful thing that I
can say to them, is that I've never wanted revenge.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
All I've wanted was justice. So thank you for giving
me those words. That's so powerful.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
And the woman, I will pass that on to her.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
So she knows what she's talking about.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
And that had to be something that really motivated you.
And also it sounds like put your work into perspective
and speaking a perspective. I want to zoom out a
little bit here and completely change gears because I am
just so curious about all of these and you told
me I can call them toys. I wasn't sure if
I could say toys or action figures. You called them toys,
(24:28):
so we're going to call them, yeah, toys, And I
love that because I believe that you actually treat them
as toys and not so necessarily is just as these
protected little collectibles.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
My wife is very patient if you can't tell, and
I'll be watching. Let's say I was watching one of
my favorite seasons, Poweringer's Time Force. I cosplayed as the
Red Ranger from that season. In fact, I even just
recently at what was a Ranger stop last year in Orlando, Florida,
(25:01):
I got a photo with the Time Force Red Ranger,
Jason Font, the actor Jason Font, in my Red Time
Force suit, so standing next to him, so I was
always that was always a great moment. I even proposed
to my wife in a Power Ranger costume. Yeah, and
she actually said yes, even though she's not a fan
of Power Rangers.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Are any of them particularly special to you? Do they
have any personal meaning? Why do you collect the ones
that you collect? Is it just you take in any
ones you can find, or do they mean something more personal?
Speaker 3 (25:35):
So if you look at my collection, a lot of
people will. Some people like to collect very specific characters,
some people like to collect all toy lines, some people
like to collect a series or something. What I tell
people is I don't necessarily have a collection. I mean,
(25:55):
obviously I do. I do have a collection, but what
I view it as is more of a monument to
my heroes. To go back a little earlier to the
boring part where I kind of talked about my childhood
where I didn't have many role models. We'll just put
it that way. The Power Rangers again were my role models.
(26:17):
The cast of Transformers, Beast Wars, which is a whole
nother collection I have that's actually over there, some Digimond again,
Zoid's Green Lantern, Battle Tech, Gundom, I've got a lot
Saint Sayah, all these different things. So with all that
(26:37):
being said, I want my collection to be a monument
to my heroes. So in my eyes, these are people
or not people, obviously the characters that were able to
get me through very hard times and still to this
(26:57):
day helped me get through hard times. Cause like to
give you a quick example, when I was back at
the Cumberland County Sheriff's office, I was on the road.
I was road patrol for two years. So you know
you're down, and I'm the one. I'm the one who
shows up, or me and a few other people show up.
And I had a pretty rough day. A lot of
stuff was going on personally as well as at the job,
(27:21):
and I was feeling a little overwhelmed, actually very overwhelmed,
to the point where I almost like burst into tears.
It was it was, it was a bad day. And
I got into my room and I sat on my bed,
and I was again, it was a bad day, you know,
and I was doing the whole spiraling thing right. I
(27:44):
looked up and in front of me, I saw my
Hal Jordan's statue, my John Stewart statue, two green lanterns,
my two favorite green lanterns, and then my Ultrasord, so
that the Ultrasord is the original combination from Mighty morphin
Power Rangers Season one with the Dragon Megazordan Titanus. And
then I look over and I see my Godzilla monster arts,
(28:05):
and I see other Megazords, and I see some Digimond statues.
And then I look over here and I see some
Evangelian Mecca, and I see some Zoids, and all I
thought was, wow, I am so weak. These characters have
saved the world, if not the universe, countless times. What
(28:30):
the hell do I have to complain about? Obviously that
might not be the most healthy I have, but it
has helped me tremendously. So again, when I look at
my collection, I don't look at it like, oh my god,
I've amassed all these toys. I'm so happy because if
(28:52):
I was brutally honest, I hardly had any of this
stuff when I was a child, hardly any of it
for very reasons. But I still watched the show. I
still kept up with everything, and I never stopped. That's
the thing. I never stopped watching Power Rangers. For example.
(29:13):
I've never stopped watching it. I kept up with it
every year into high school. You know when girls and
sports are like the total thing. Yeah, No, that that's
not how I was. It was very much still into
Power Rangers. In fact, my senior year of high school,
I even was tasked with what was it? Was it Macbeth?
I think it was Macbeth. I was tasked with coordinating
(29:38):
a specific part of Macbeth. But in the inspiration for
all the characters was to act like they were Power
Ranger characters. So I took Yeah, exactly, so I took.
I took my friends who were involved in my specific part,
and I brought them home and I showed them all
(29:59):
the original my more from Power Angers movie, and we
all kind of took like kick character notes and like
the see you know, like the Tommy like everybody's favorite
Jason David Frank I've got I've met that man so
many times. I've sang for him a whole bunch. And
the amazing thing was he actually remembered me, which was
(30:21):
really cool. So yeah, he was actually the first power
Ang River met. Yeah. Oh does that answer your question?
I feel like I'm rambling.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
No, you're not rambling at all. It absolutely answers the question. Yeah,
you're doing great. So I want to.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
To see what, like, can you bring me over like
one of your favorite toys. I want to see what
up close and personal?
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Okay, so let's see. Well, so much to my wife's dismay,
I love this one.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Oh I got to see this. Oh I love it.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
So this is my This is my X plus Space.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Godzilla, Space Godzilla.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Space Godzilla. You can tell it's from space because he's
got space crystals. But oh yeah, so I love Space Godzilla.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
He's scary.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
I love Space Godzilla and I love Space Godzilla. So yeah,
but no, so I'm also obviously a huge Godzilla fan,
but I have to limit my collection of Godzilla just
for space, reasons to space. Yeah, so that's some of
(31:49):
my favorite stuff. Let's see, so talking about transformers. So
this is my trans Metal Optimist Primal and it is
actually at a factory. I don't know if y'all can
tell by the color, but it's more of a purple.
He's supposed to be blue. Don't ask him what cost.
(32:12):
But he is a huge inspiration, one of the greatest
leaders to me in all fiction. So yeah, so this
is definitely one of my prized possessions.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Makes me think about when I met you, now that
you're saying that. So I smoke at the conference here
in North Carolina and you came up to me and
introduced yourself and we started talking. We really hit it off,
and you start telling me a little bit about what you.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Do and I was like, okay, I don't quite get that.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
And then I remember looking up your Instagram and seeing
that it was Opera Ranger and I was like, Oh,
this guy's serious. You're dressed up all the time as
these characters you're singing on your Instagram.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
This is so much. It seems a.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Part of your identity and you live in these different
worlds where you have these monsters that you fight, and
then these monsters that you collect and look up to,
and this hobby it seems to be, like I said,
so much of your identity and how does that fit
(33:12):
into your work? How does does it make you stick out?
Is it something that you're open about or that you hide?
And does your office on a similar vibe, like are
you collecting things?
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Yeah too, I have a Alex Ross green lantern painting
in my office. The painting is like as big as
my torso and like you're yeah, Like you walk in,
it's the first thing you see. I have powering direction
figures in there. I've got some powering autographs in there.
(33:44):
I've got some Pokemon in there. I've actually got my
six favorite Pokemon, a little stuffed animals or a little
stuffed Pokemon of them. I've got myself drawn as a
Digimont tamer, as a Pokemon trainer. I've got some common
writer stuff. I've got more green lantern. I've got Gundam
dragon ball Z. Vegeta is my guy. I love Vegeta.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
And I feel like when you're in law enforcement, it's
one of those careers that's kind of macho and you
have to toughen up a lot, and it might be
difficult sometimes to show your true self, which it seems
like you're doing.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Oh yeah, absolutely, And don't get me wrong, like I'm
I've been. I've been in martial arts for a long time.
I'm actually a indoor disciple of David Chin. He passed away,
but I was under him for ten years before he
passed away. Speaking of my CFO, I even have a
photo that he gave me on the wall that when
(34:48):
you're leaving the office you always see it. So it
always reminds me to keep his teachings at heart. But no,
so like I hit stones. In fact, at the house
I have my iron palm training stuff set up. Again.
My wife is very patient. I have a tell a
little pole in the backyard that I hit, so if
(35:10):
you if you can hear this, I hear it. Yeah,
so that's not really a normal sound. I've been hitting
stuff for over a decade now, so I've got the
quote unquote macho side. I mean it is what it
is like with law enforcement. You are required to be
able to at least tap into a type a personality
(35:31):
when it calls for it. But if you're going to
survive in that constant, go go, go, go go. You
have to have a counterbalance. You just have to, especially
as well as in the field that I'm in. You know,
(35:53):
you're you're having to. Our job literally requires us to
watch children being raped. So I don't know if people
knew this or not, but it order for us to
charge those those charges, we have to legally be able
to say we viewed it and can confirm this is
a video or photo of a child being sexually assaulted.
(36:17):
Every time, So everybody, so it's sorry, no, no, absolutely,
it's a coping mechanism, one hundred percent. It is so.
And you know a lot of people like, well, I
couldn't do it. No, you can. You might not be
able to do it forever, but as long as you
have positive focus point on positive, as long as you
(36:37):
have positive coping mechanisms, you'd be find again. I I
work out. I have a very regimented workout. Some days
it's calisthenics and bump dumbbells. Other days it's my kung
fu training. Other days it's more tai chi, which is
(36:57):
more just relaxation type thing. It's just to make sure
I keep the blood flow, you know. Blah blah blahlah blah,
so again with the whole macho side of things. It's
it's interesting because I'm so unapologetically myself for better or worse,
let's be honest, for better or for worse, that others
who might not be end up actually allowing themselves to
(37:22):
somewhat be as well, to where they'll come up to
me and go, hey, actually, I've been collecting this for years. Really,
may you never talk about it? Well, I don't know
if it's necessarily cool to talk to me about it.
Bro give me some photos, let me see this stuff. Hell, yeah,
let's do this.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Yeah. I was going to ask you that, how does
it How does it impact your coworkers, because obviously you're
not doing this alone.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
You have other people.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Who are on a team who are having to watch
these videos and be a part of these investigations too.
How does this does this impact them in any way?
I think that you're so inspirational. Do you think that
you don't?
Speaker 1 (37:57):
It's a hard thing. Did you think you inspire some
co workers?
Speaker 3 (38:00):
So I will tell you I actually am inspired by them.
I work with amazing people. In fact, I had a
case to where I really got to meet This was
before I actually came to this unit. I worked with
them on a case and I got to meet them
and the camaraderie and how much they were so mission
(38:21):
driven but still at the same time being so mission driven,
but being able to look out for each other, like
their mental health and stuff at the same time on
scene of a search warrant. I'd never seen that before,
So I don't know if I actually inspire anybody. That'd
be great if I did, But I am the one
(38:42):
that is constantly being inspired by who I work with.
It's I am blessed so far beyond what I deserve.
It's ridiculous, and my job is easily one of those blessings. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
One second, hey, sweetheart, I really thought long and hard
about who was going to be my first guest, and
I said it unwill for a reason. He brings a
rare passion and joy to not only this work, but
every aspect of life. I know we alluded to the
opera ranger, and I was fortunate enough this past weekend
to attend his first concert where he's sang Broadway tunes
(39:17):
accompanied by those who have actually been on the Broadway stage.
We'll hear more about how we'll use this incredible voice,
not only as an emotional release, but how he uses
it to help victims.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
And now I leave.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
You with a little bit of the opera Ranger.
Speaker 4 (39:49):
Thank you so much for tuning in. We really appreciate it.
We'll be releasing new episodes every Thursday. Make sure you
check out our YouTube channel and hit us up on
our social media on at Alicia Coe for extra content
around each episode, and please remember to subscribe on Apple, Spotify,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
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