A registered sex offender is facing new charges in Texas, after authorities allege he dropped a thumb drive loaded with child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in the parking lot of a sheriff’s office.
William Raymond Catron was required to check-in with the Parker County Sheriff’s Office in Weatherford to verify his registration as a convicted sex offender and did just that on Wednesday, March 18, according to FOX 4.
For some reason, he decided to bring a thumb drive with him containing over 2,000 images and videos of CSAM, along with a bunch of selfies he’d taken.
Gravity worked against Catron, 66, as he was leaving, police said. FOX 4 reports he dropped the thumb drive outside the sheriff’s office, in the very lot where the deputies park their vehicles.
After a visitor found the thumb drive and turned it over to police, surveillance footage was reviewed and allegedly showed it falling from his pocket as he was digging around for his car keys.
Catron is being held on a $750,000 bond after being charged with felony possession of child pornography depicting the assault of a child under 10 and failure to comply with sex offender registration requirements.
“A twist of fate and bad decisions would lead to his arrest,” police said in a statement on the arrest. “This is the kind of criminal that we love to catch and put behind bars.”
Catron was later asked to return to the sheriff’s office to speak with investigators, and he allegedly confessed to being the thumb drive’s owner.
Police later searched his residence and allegedly located additional electronic devices, which they seized.
Sgt. Shane Cartwright with the Parker County Sheriff’s Office spoke to FOX 4 and said that Catron’s been checking in with them since 2019.
“I don’t think he ever expected to get caught. Not in a million years,” Cartwright added. “He’s been flying under the radar — until now.”
Catron was apparently oblivious to the fact that he’d even dropped his thumb drive.
“He came, unknowing, he didn’t know what was going on at the time,” Cartwright said. “Told us that he had a problem, that he knew that he had a problem, that he’d been praying about it for some time.”
“That’s divine intervention,” Cartwright told FOX 4. “That’s the man upstairs knowing that you don’t need to be out there running loose. That’s what that is.”
It was unclear if Catron had been asked to enter pleas or retained legal counsel for his defense.
