Thorough investigation captures alleged sexual predator
A cleaning lady at a Ferdinand hotel was surprised to find videos featuring naked teen girls showering and using the restroom on a Secure Digital “SD” card she found on a special camera pen.
According to court documents, the cleaning lady promptly reported the video to the Perry County Sheriff’s Department on December 4, 2014.
The investigation that ensued, as well as the serendipitous occurrences through the investigation, depict the reality of criminal investigation not seen on popular fictional police dramas like CSI.
Unlike the weekly hour-long episodes, it took six weeks of thorough investigation before law enforcement officials arrested an Indianapolis man who had stayed at the Ferdinand Comfort Inn where the cleaning lady worked.
Mark A. Upton, 27, of Kansas Street, is now sitting in the Dubois County Security Center after being arrested last Thursday on a warrant issued from the Dubois County Circuit Court for four felony charges: two C felony charges of child exploitation and two D felony charges of voyeurism.
According to court documents, this is what happened.
First, the cleaning lady found the pen.
She told the investigator she didn’t remember when she had picked up the pen, but it had appeared on her cleaning cart at work one day and eventually ended up in her car. The pen then floated around in her car for about a month until she brought it into her house where it suddenly quit working.
Rather than throwing the pen away, the cleaning lady’s daughter decided to take the pen apart to possibly fix it. When she did, she found the digital card. These cards are commonly used to hold data for cameras and other recording devices. They decided to take a look at the card and when they plugged it into their computer, they found two movies.
The movies displayed a time stamp of March 12, 2008 and featured a man setting up a camera followed by two girls using a bathroom and then showering.
In one of the two videos, a man is seen placing the pen and then stepping from the bathroom. A girl enters and the camera records her using the restroom.
When police reviewed the movie, they noticed the girl was wearing a sweatshirt featuring the name of a middle school located in the Indianapolis area. And, due to the insignia on the shirt, they felt the girl was on a middle school track team at that Indianapolis middle school.
They also heard a girl’s name mentioned during this first video.
The video ends when it appears the man recovers the pen after two girls use the restroom.
In the second video, police catch a glimpse of a wristband similar to those used at Holiday World and Splashin’ Safari as a man sets up the camera again. He walks out of the bathroom and a male voice is heard telling the unknown girls to take a shower.
As one of the girls being recorded takes a shower, she begins singing a song. This is helpful to the investigation as the song the girl sings was released in April of 2014, thus informing the investigators the time stamp on the videos is incorrect.
This, added to the fact the girls were wearing swimwear when they entered the bathroom and the appearance of the wristband led police to believe the recording occurred sometime between April and September of 2014.
In another serendipitous moment, one of the girls calls for someone named Mark and another girl’s name is mentioned.
Police now have a place, a time frame and three names associated to the videos.
The sheriff’s department then enlisted the help of a computer forensic examiner through the Indiana State Police who recovers four previously deleted videos on the digital card. One features a man setting up the camera and then filming himself taking a shower.
A test run of sorts, perhaps.
The investigation went digital as police narrowed down the location of the school the girls went to and began to survey social media and photos to attempt to locate them. One girl is found on social media but Mark doesn’t show up as a family member or friend for her on the site or school records.
Through this girl’s social media page though, police felt they had positively identified the second victim named in the video.
To further clarify who Mark is, investigators also attempted to locate him through the Comfort Inn’s computer records in Ferdinand. Unfortunately, they ran into a road block when they learned the inn had recently updated its computer system. No digital records existed for the time frame officials thought Mark and the girls may have stayed at the inn.
Fortunately, physical records and receipts are available. One caveat though, officials will have to comb through thousands of receipts looking for everyone named Mark who had rented a room during the peak of Holiday World’s season.
Police trudged through the records and compiled a list of receipts and attached driver’s license information for all the individuals named Mark who had stayed at the inn during that time. They cross referenced the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicle (BMV) records and were able to narrow the search down to Upton.
According to court documents, Upton had several characteristics that made police believe he was the person who had placed the camera in the bathroom to film the girls.
Using these records, police eventually found Upton in a photo featured on one of the victim’s social media pages.
Through the image and BMV records, the investigators directly linked Upton to one of the victims as her stepfather.
Confident Upton was the suspect, police arrested him in Indianapolis last week.
Friday, he appeared in Dubois County Circuit Court where he entered a preliminary plea of not guilt and was assigned pauper council. His bond was set at $3,500 and he is currently residing in the Dubois County Security Center.
