A former Camden County, Mo., sheriff’s deputy and school resource officer has been charged in federal court with distributing child pornography.
Darrin Marshall Skinner, 49, was charged in a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Jefferson City, Mo., on Thursday, May 9.
Skinner was employed by Camden County as a deputy sheriff and assigned as a school resource officer in the Macks Creek School District. Prior to being hired by Camden County, he worked as a police officer in Osage Beach, Mo.
According to an affidavit filed in support of the federal criminal complaint, the investigation began when the social media network MeWe reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s Cyber Tip Line that a user, later identified as Skinner, had uploaded images of child pornography. On June 7, 2023, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children sent the report to the Camden County Sheriff’s Department. Due to Skinner’s connection to the department, the case was taken over by the Missouri State Highway Patrol.
Investigators learned the email address allegedly used by Skinner was a member of several sexually themed social groups. On Aug. 1, 2023, law enforcement officers executed a search warrant and interviewed Skinner at his residence.
Investigators learned that MeWe had made a prior report to the Cyber Tip Line in 2020 related to a user identified as Skinner allegedly uploading multiple images of child sexual abuse through the application’s chat feature. Skinner allegedly sent child sexual abuse material on multiple occasions, including images of children under the age of 12 and a pre-school age child.
Skinner also shared a number of photos of prepubescent girls identified as being from the community with other users of the MeWe platform, the affidavit says. He cropped and adjusted these images to be more sexually suggestive. No local minors were contained in the images of child pornography. It is believed Skinner obtained some of these photos of local minors from social media since they were in gymnastics or dance clothes associated with a local gymnastics studio. The images were exchanged as part of sexually charged chats between Skinner and other MeWe users.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa A. Pierce is prosecuting this case. The Missouri State Highway Patrol Digital Forensic Investigative Unit and the Missouri State Technical Assistance Team investigated it.
