US undercover investigator Greg Squire can spend 18 hours a day befriending child sex abusers, to try to identify them and get justice for victims. He reveals the toll the work has taken on him
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reg Squire can never forget the video that opened his eyes to what child sexual abuse could mean. It was a Sunday and he was at his home in New Hampshire, sitting out on his deck, his two young children running around, playing. This was 2008, about a year into Squire’s career as an agent for Homeland Security – he’d been a postman before this – and he reached for his laptop, checked his inbox and saw that the results of an email search warrant for a suspect had come in.
He clicked on a video. A girl was sitting in an adult bed, a child’s picture book beside her. Squire watched as a man came into the frame and began reading it to her. For a moment, it could have been a normal scene – maybe it would be – until the man proceeded to remove the girl’s clothing. Then he raped her. Squire watched her “endure” it – “it looked like her soul left,” he says.
It’s hard for him to describe how it felt to watch. “I had no idea …” he says. “It was unexpected …” There’s a pause. “It was very intense for someone only one year on the job. It upset me, but like anything in life, what do you do with those emotions? Do they cripple you or do they fuel you? I was lucky to have a great team around me, and we could move quickly and get that girl rescued.”
