By Jeff Lehr

jlehr@joplinglobe.com

A 42-year-old California man is the latest suspect caught by a former Diamond police chief who conducts stings of child-sex predators on the Internet.

Police in Glendale, Calif., arrested Rumaldo Garza on Friday after an investigation that began in February, when a Granby woman discovered her 12-year-old daughter and a friend chatting with a man from California on the Internet.

Diamond police Chief Keith Brumfield said the mother became suspicious of the man and initiated an Internet chat with him posing as a 15-year-old girl. She later contacted Brumfield’s wife, and the police chief referred her information to Jim Murray, a former Diamond police chief and current reserve officer who conducts Internet stings of suspected child-sex predators.

Murray said he approached the man, who was going by the name “Ray Garcia,” on the Internet under the guise of a 13-year-old girl named “Betty Sue Roads.” Murray said the suspect allegedly expressed an interest to him in girls as young as 6.

“He wanted ‘Betty Roads’ to get a 6-year-old girl to perform on a webcam with her,” Murray alleged in an interview with the Globe.

The suspect allegedly sent pornographic images of young girls to Murray via Yahoo Instant Messenger, and suggested meeting “Betty Roads” and her 12-year-old cousin when they went to Disneyland. He allegedly told Murray he would take condoms and a camera to a motel in Anaheim and take nude pictures of the girls.

Murray said the investigation was prolonged because he and California investigators initially believed “Ray Garcia” lived in Rialto, Calif. Murray said he could not get the suspect to send him an e-mail to track him down through a server.

Murray said the break in the case came when Garza allegedly made a telephone call to Diamond that was traced to the Los Angeles area.

Glendale police executed a search warrant at Garza’s apartment and arrested him Friday. Two computers were seized along with items that allegedly were visible in a photograph he had sent Murray during their chats.

Garza is charged with attempted seduction of a child via the Internet. Glendale police have told Murray that a second charge of possession of child pornography may be filed if such images are found on his computer. Murray said police there have told him that Garza allegedly acknowledged that there was child porn on his computers.

20 arrests

Jim Murray has conducted similar Internet stings over the past five years, resulting in 20 arrests, including the former mayor of Collings, Mo.