Child porn case grows in two counties

A school bus driver arrested early last month on suspicion of downloading child pornography at a Bellflower cyber cafe is under investigation in connection with the molestation of scores of children in Los Angeles and Orange counties, authorities said Tuesday.

Federal and Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators confiscated more than 10,000 sexually explicit images from computers belonging to Terry Lee Shields, 51, of Anaheim, including some depicting the molestation of infants, department spokesman Steve Whitmore said.

Authorities said they have also tied Shields to sexual assaults on four Orange County girls between ages 7 and 14 and are seeking to charge him with kidnapping, rape, forced oral copulation, lewd acts with a child and production of child pornography.

Sheriff’s investigators called the case one of most disturbing they had seen, not only because of the sheer volume of evidence but also because of its graphic nature.

“This is unbelievable stuff and something you don’t believe could happen, but it has,” said Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca. “I’ve never encountered a child pornographer-predator on this scale. He is every possible predator wrapped into one person.”

Detectives recovered high-powered binoculars, digital cameras, elementary school identification cards, school yearbooks, Elmo dolls and other children’s toys, Whitmore said.

Also seized were a logbook with copious notes documenting Shields’ alleged stalking activities and prescription medicines.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials said Shields befriended the families of many of his victims while driving school buses in Los Angeles and Orange counties beginning in the early 1990s.

The alleged assaults on the four girls took place between 2002 and 2004. Although he would not elaborate, Det. Bryan Sirkel of the sheriff’s Special Victims Unit said investigators think Shields may have victimized 50 to 100 girls in cases dating back a decade or more.

Shields, who rented a room from a woman in Anaheim, has no criminal convictions, though sheriff’s officials said that in 1996 he was found not guilty on a single count of misdemeanor child annoyance in Orange County.

According to authorities, the case against Shields began to unfold early last month when employees of the AdrenaL@N PC and Boba Cafe in Bellflower noticed Shields downloading child pornography and alerted deputies at the Lakewood sheriff’s station.

They arrested Shields on suspicion of possessing illegal pornography before contacting investigators in the Special Victims Unit. Those deputies, in turn, seized thousands of images when they served warrants at Shields’ residence, on a 2002 burgundy Kia and at a storage facility in South Gate, authorities said.

Sirkel said the seized images led them to an Orange County girl who told detectives that when she was 7, Shields lured her into his vehicle and took her to an unknown location and sexually assaulted her.

The girl, now 9, told investigators that the suspect took pictures of the attack, which was corroborated by evidence, authorities said. Additionally, Sirkel said, evidence seized from Shields led them to three other girls in Orange County who said they had been sexually assaulted and filmed.

“You see this stuff and you say, ‘How can you do this to a child?’ You get angry and you say you can’t believe you’re seeing what you’re seeing,” Sirkel said. “There is no doubt this is the scariest individual I’ve come across.”

Eric Daniel, 22, a cashier at the Bellflower cafe where Shields was arrested, said he was serving Shields a smoothie when he noticed the suspect looking at adult pornography on a website. The cafe shut down the computer program and Shields left, but eventually he returned and asked for a computer that would enable him to use a floppy disk. Later that evening, Daniel said, he walked past Shields and again noticed pornography on his computer screen.

As he was about to tell Shields to leave, Daniel said, he noticed explicit images of child pornography on a minimized window on the computer screen. “I saw a picture of a child as he scrolled down, and then I saw more pictures,” he said.

Daniel approached police officers who were across the street, responding to another incident. He said they came to the cafe, saw Shields at the computer, inspected his floppy disk and arrested him.

Sheriff’s officials ask that anyone with information about Shields contact them toll free at (866) 247 5877.

andrew.blankstein@latimes. com hector.becerra@latimes.com