Law enforcement officers from around the state gathered in Little Rock Tuesday for their annual summit meeting. This year, the focus was on crimes against children.
Police learned several things that will help them investigate online child exploitation, and many of the details can't be shared with the public. But one officer, Rick Woody, is eager to spread his message of Internet safety.
Police learn at the summit how to better build cases and collect evidence against online predators. But one group of presenters has a more personal message.
Greenbrier High School student Sam Mann says, "We got online all the time - that was our main thing to do."
Mann was a friend of Kacie Woody, the 13-year-old who was kidnapped, taken to a storage building and murdered by a man she met in an online Christian chat room.
Another friend, Brianne Pickard, says, "She was so trusting and so loving and never saw evil in anybody."
But Woody wasn't the only one who trusted 47-year-old David Fuller. Mann says she and another friend also believed Fuller was a 17-year-old named Dave Fagin.
She says when it was all over, "They went on his computer and they had a picture of me and a bunch of other girls."
Rick Woody says, "So, he had them all fooled. That’s how these predators work; they're good at what they do and they're patient."
Woody is Kacie's father. He had no idea a predator from California would target his home in rural Faulkner County. That's why he's counting on Kacie's peers to help warn other parents and kids.
The 10 students travel all over the state to share Kacie's story. Every month, they make a dozen presentations and they say helping even one family makes the effort worthwhile.
Woody says, "Kacie was all about helping other people and loved to help other people and I’m going to let Kacie continue to help other people by sharing her story, so that maybe we can keep this from happening to someone else."
Woody says he's proud of Kacie's peers, but is not satisfied with Internet safety education on the national level.