CyberTip Leads to Bryce Hospital Psychiatrist’s Arrest for Having Child Sex Abuse Material

A Cybertip from Google led to last week's arrest of a psychiatrist at Tuscaloosa's Bryce Hospital for possession of child sex abuse material.

The accused, 73-year-old Walter Joseph Crook, is reportedly a long-time psychiatrist at the state-run, in-patient Bryce Hospital here in Tuscaloosa.

According to court documents filed late last week, Google sent an alert to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children after a user reportedly stored illegal files depicting the sexual abuse of children to their cloud storage service, Google Drive. That happened in early November.

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The user's IP Address indicated they lived in Tuscaloosa County, and the West Alabama Human Trafficking Task Force began investigating the matter.

Court documents say WAHTTF obtained search warrants for the Google Drive belonging to Walter Crook, and on his accounts, police discovered five videos of illegal sexual abuse.

In Alabama, each photo or video of exploited children constitutes a felony crime, and warrants were issued in early February to arrest Crook and charge him with five counts of possession of child sex abuse material.

Crook, who lives in Tuscaloosa, reportedly turned himself in last week.

He was booked in the Tuscaloosa County Jail and released on Thursday on a consolidated $30,000 bond with the condition that he must stay away from children and electronics alike.

Crook has retained defense attorney Mary Turner to represent him in this matter.

For more coverage of crime and courts in West Alabama, stay connected to the Tuscaloosa Thread.