Brenden Billinger joins Dr. Sandie Morgan to explain how a child 10 feet away, playing a game you've seen 100 times, can still be talking to a stranger who wants to exploit them, and what parents and grandparents can do so that child tells them early.
Chapters
- (00:00) - Ten Feet Away and Talking to a Stranger
- (01:34) - Why an Investigator Brings This Work Home
- (04:05) - How Grooming Moves From Game Chats to Encrypted Apps
- (08:06) - AI-Generated Images and California's New Laws
- (10:12) - Inside a Sextortion Investigation and What to Preserve
- (15:50) - House Rules That Make It Safe for Kids to Tell You
- (24:11) - Step One When Your Child Discloses Sextortion
- (28:52) - Warning Signs a Whole Community Can Watch For
About Brenden Billinger
Brenden Billinger is a Senior Sheriff's Investigator with the Orange County Sheriff's Department, where he has served since 2012. He began in a custody setting, then worked in compliance and training, patrol, specialized enforcement, and undercover assignments before moving into criminal investigations. On the Special Victims Detail, he investigates child sexual abuse, sexual assault, online exploitation, sextortion, and grooming cases, working alongside prosecutors, forensic interviewers, medical professionals, victim advocates, schools, and local and federal law enforcement. He has served as a crisis negotiator since 2016 and now leads his department's Crisis Negotiation Team. He trains parents, educators, and advocates on how offenders use social media, gaming platforms, messaging apps, and emerging technology to reach children, and on recognizing grooming before it escalates. He is continuing his education in criminal justice. A husband and the father of two daughters, Brenden sees protecting children as work that parents, educators, coaches, advocates, and law enforcement share, and that starts with talking early.
Key Points
• Ask who your child is talking to the way you would at a playground. Grandparents grew up warned about the stranger with a car; that stranger is still out there, and now he's online. Sit with your kids and ask: Who is that? What is that game? Did we check with that kid's parents?
• Know the pattern. Brenden's cases mirror each other: a message in a Roblox or Minecraft group chat, a move to another chat room, then to an encrypted app such as Discord, Signal, WhatsApp, or Telegram, then demands for money. The youngest child he has seen exploited this way was six.
• Set phone rules as protection, and say why. No phones in any room with a door. The phone is yours, on your passcode, charging in your room at night, and you can review messages at any time. Then tell your child the reason: "It's not to be in trouble, it's to protect you."
• Promise ahead of time that telling won't bring punishment. Many kids never report because they expect discipline. At an Ensure Justice session, two of four Orange County families whose teens had been sextorted had never told anyone, and those kids missed the follow-up care advocates provide.
• When your child's messages upset you, check whose mistake you're reacting to. Brenden catches himself angry at his 13-year-old for not understanding relationship boundaries he only learned himself in the last few years, and he works at patience and grace.
• Practice step one before you need it. Stop all communication, take the phone, delete nothing, and call 911 with the usernames. Then look after your child, down to asking whether anyone has eaten dinner.
• Watch for changes anyone can see. A kid who panics or turns secretive when the phone goes off, stops volunteering in class, isn't sleeping, or seems nervous all the time may be in trouble, and the offender has been watching that child far longer than any professional has.
Resources
• Orange County Sheriff's Department
• Special Victims Detail (Orange County Sheriff's Department)
• National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
• CyberTipline Data (National Center for Missing & Exploited Children)
• AB 1831: Crimes: child pornography (California, 2024)
• Ensure Justice (Global Center for Women and Justice)
