PICKETT COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) -- An investigation by members of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) and Pickett County authorities that lasted more than 18 months led to the arrest of a man for sexual exploitation of a minor Friday.
The TBI said special agents from its Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) squad worked with the Pickett County Sheriff's Office and the office of 13th Judicial District Attorney General Bryant Dunaway on this case.
Back in April 2023, ICAC agents got a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) about a cloud storage account containing child sexual abuse material, according to officials.
Over the course of the investigation, authorities said they identified Wade Ellis Williams, a convicted sex offender from Pall Mall, as the owner of the account. Then, in July 2023, law enforcement executed a search warrant at Williams' home, seizing multiple electronic devices that reportedly had more than 100 files of child sexual abuse material stored on them.
More than a year later, on Friday, Nov. 22, the TBI said agents and deputies arrested 51-year-old Williams and charged him with sexual exploitation of a minor. He was booked into the Pickett County Jail on a $1 million bond.
No additional details have been released about this investigation. If you have any information about online child exploitation cases, you're asked to contact the TBI Tipline at at 1-800-TBI-FIND or TipsToTBI@tbi.tn.gov. You can also report it via the NCMEC CyberTipline.