A Glen Rose man used pre-paid cell phones to send lewd pictures and obscene text messages to young girls in at least five counties, police said.
James Ray Smith, 41, was charged Friday with online solicitation of a girl under 14, a second-degree felony. He was booked into the Parker County jail.
"By the phone records, he made hundreds of calls to different phone numbers," said Lt. Mark Arnett of the Parker County Sheriff’s Department.
Smith called cell phone numbers at random until he heard a young-sounding female voice, and then would call back repeatedly, sending graphic text messages and sexually-explicit photos, Arnett said.
The photos included naked pictures of himself, Arnett said.
"He'd call numbers in sequence until he identified a potential victim, being a young female. And then he'd target that person, that victim, with his acts and behaviors."
Tracking the suspect was not easy, investigators said, because he used unregistered pre-paid cell phones and would frequently replace them.
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"And then he would repeatedly call those girls, over and over and over again,” Arnett said.
At least a dozen victims as young as 12 were located in Parker, Wise, Somervell, Young, and McLennan counties. Five of the girls were in Waco, police said.
Police tracked the cell phone signal to Glen Rose, and finally to Smith. Texas Rangers and sheriff’s deputies searched his home Thursday night.
Police said the random calls started in October. Smith got out of prison in March after serving a six-month sentence for drug possession, said a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Smith had nothing to say to a reporter on his way to jail.
Investigators said more charges are likely.
"Multiple agencies across the state of Texas are looking at this guy for the same conduct,” Arnett said.
