An FBI agent gave jurors in Josh Duggar’s child pornography trial a tour of the computer drive where he found the files that led to the reality TV star’s arrest earlier this year.
James Fottrell, director of the agency’s high-tech research unit, first explained the highly technical process he used to get a close look at the computer Duggar used at Wholesale Motors, the used car lot where he worked. Fottrell said he found files there with such titles as “Jailbait,” “Pedo Mom,” and “Daisy’s Destruction,” the UK tabloid Daily Mail reported.
“Daisy’s Destruction,” he said, was particularly heinous — “one of the most offensive videos that I’m familiar with throughout my career.” It featured a 3- or 4-month old girl, naked and tortured with hot wax while she screams and cries.
Fottrell also explained that the file for that video did not contain the actual footage. Instead, it held a set of instructions to find it on the dark web. “Like a recipe for a cake,” he said.
The FBI man testified that his forensics analysis revealed that Duggar’s HP desktop computer at work contained a hidden partition using a Linux operating system in addition to its normal Windows operation system. The Linux partition was behind the password “intel1988,” which Fottrell said was the same password Duggar used for his internet banking. It was on that partition that the porn files were found.
On the Linux partition he found two peer-to-peer programs installed just two days after the partition was set up.
“The purpose of that is to be anonymous. I don’t want to say I’m from Arkansas, I want to hide my identity and appear like I’m coming from somewhere else,” he testified.
Despite using the partition and the anonymous programs, investigators found thumbnail images and file names like “ultra hard pedo pedophilia” in cache. And, he said, the media player on the partition had an encrypted list of recently viewed files, identified in FBI databases as child pornography.
Jurors were shown some of the deleted images found on the computer as well as the only non-porn-related file found on the Linux partition — a sales receipt for a vehicle, with “Joshua” listed as the sales agent.
Duggar, now 33, was the oldest of TLC’s “19 Kids and Counting” until 2015, when the network canceled the show after a 2006 police report surfaced accusing Duggar of molesting four of his sisters and a babysitter. He admitted the molestation and apologized. He also reportedly apologized to his wife, Anna, and agreed to have a monitoring program installed on his electronic devices that would notify her if he accessed questionable material. That program does not work on a Linux operating system, as CrimeOnline previously reported.
The trial began Tuesday with opening statements and a ruling from US District Court Judge Timothy L. Brooks that evidence about the molestation can be entered as evidence. It is expected to run through next week.
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[Featured image: Josh Duggar/Washington County Jail]
