Petersen’s criticism has been taken up by his family, who recently filed a federal lawsuit against the Conroe Police Department. “This is the type of accusation that destroys a career and a life.” That he might ultimately beat his charge in a courtroom was “irrelevant,” the junior-high teacher wrote. Instead, he argued, they sometimes became “dragnets” that could ensnare men with no history of such desires or crimes. He said he’d always supported law enforcement’s efforts to catch predators in stings-until he realized they were not always targeted operations to catch men explicitly hunting and soliciting minors. You were, to me, a guy my age role-playing as a younger guy,” Petersen wrote about the memo, directly addressing Dunn, who is Black. “It was almost adorable how funny the message was as you pretended to be a 14-year-old white boy.
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Although Dunn admitted to sending it, the memo was never stored as evidence-something Petersen’s family and their attorney say would have exonerated Petersen.
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In a note penned before his death, Petersen claimed he always knew he was talking to an adult due to a dated photograph shared by Dunn, inconsistent details about what school the boy allegedly went to and, most tellingly, he claimed, the voice memo. But the teacher left behind his own version of events, one his family is now using to point the finger at what they describe as overzealous law enforcement. Less than 48 hours after bonding out of jail, Petersen died by suicide. Instead, it was a cop: 41-year-old Conroe Police Detective Darrick Dunn, who arrested Petersen for online solicitation of a minor. Later that day, driving around in circles at a parking lot where the two were supposed to meet, Petersen learned he was speaking neither to a teenager nor a potential romantic partner.
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What It’s Like to Take Down the World’s Most Notorious Sexual Predator After receiving it, he said the voice was “not what I was expecting.” Hours before the encounter, Petersen became nervous and first asked for a voice message. The conversation soon turned toward a planned meeting the next day.