Predators in the Shadows: Inside the Fight Against Child Predators

Zone 7 with Sheryl McCollum

iHeartPodcasts and CrimeOnline

True Crime

4.4 • 696 Ratings

🗓️ 4 July 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ray Dawson is a former law enforcement officer and the founder of the Invictus Project, a nonprofit organization supporting task forces investigating online crimes against children by providing funding, training, and technology.

Zachary Neefe is a Special Agent with Homeland Security Investigations and a key member of a multiagency child exploitation task force in North Carolina focused on identifying and arresting child predators.

Learn more at The Invictus Project

Episode Description:

In this episode of Zone 7, CSI Sheryl McCollum speaks with Zachary Neefe and Ray Dawson—two frontline defenders in the fight against child exploitation. They take us inside the creation of the Invictus Task Force, a groundbreaking multiagency collaboration in North Carolina that brings together Homeland Security Investigations, local law enforcement, and nonprofit partners under one roof. Zach and Ray share chilling stories from undercover chat ops, explain why today’s predators are more brazen than ever, and break down how the digital world is a breeding ground for grooming and abuse. They also discuss how victim identification, school outreach, and good old-fashioned police work are changing lives—and why parental awareness isn’t optional anymore.

Show Notes:

(0:00) Welcome to Zone 7 with guests Ray Dawson and Zachary Neefe
(2:00) Building the Invictus Task Force: Collaboration over silos
(4:00) The “new white van”: Predators in the digital space
(9:00) COVID’s impact on child exploitation and online abuse
(11:00) 89.4 million images—what that number really means
(12:30) Culture shifts and the normalization of exploitation
(14:30) Identifying victims through school visits and student disclosures
(17:45) Defining a rescue: Physical extraction vs. intervention
(23:30) Victim-centered interviews with offenders
(25:30) Tips for parents navigating kids’ online behavior
(27:30) “There is no such thing as a part-time predator”
(30:00) No collateral duties: Proactive vs. reactive law enforcement
(32:00) Inside the chat rooms: How quickly predators strike
(34:30) “Let’s stop calling them sex offenders.” — Mike Lew

Thanks for listening to another episode!

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Sheryl “Mac” McCollum is an Emmy Award winning CSI, a writer for CrimeOnLine, Forensic and Crime Scene Expert for Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, and a CSI for a metro Atlanta Police Department. She is the co-author of the textbook Cold Case: Pathways to Justice and the founder and director of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute—a collaboration between universities, students, and professionals working to advance the study and resolution of unsolved cases.

Social Links:

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @ColdCaseTips

Facebook: @sheryl.mccollum

Instagram: @officialzone7podcast

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an I-Heart podcast.
0:04.4	Your instincts, your aim, your edge.
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0:30.6	Lenovo, Lenovo. And tonight do we have two folks that y'all need to hear from.
0:49.3	Tonight we've got Ray Dawson.
0:52.3	He's a sworn detective with the Randolph County Sheriff's
0:54.7	Office and he's assigned to the Invictus Task Force. He's a digital forensic examiner,
1:01.7	analyst, and investigator. Y'all, he's a member of the North Carolina State Bureau of
1:07.7	Investigation Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
1:11.5	He's a North Carolina human trafficking demand reduction task force member.
1:18.4	In 2021, Ray founded the Invictus Project, which is a 501C3 nonprofit, to combat domestic trafficking and sexual exploitation of children.
1:32.9	Y'all, he's an Army veteran, he's married, he's funny, y'all just wait on it, he's a, he's a pistol.
1:42.3	And we're also joined by Zachary Neath he's a criminal investigator with homeland security
1:48.9	he serves 14 counties in north carolina he's a member of the invictus child exploitation task force
1:57.9	special agent neath is a proactive online investigator. If you are targeting children
2:06.4	for sexual abuse material distribution or travel enticement or you are supporting anything
2:14.4	that has to do with children being targets, he is coming after you.
	...

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