On June 8th, 2023 the stepmother of a minor female came forward to law enforcement, according to court records, alleging that she found snap chat conversations between the alleged victim and 37 year old, Michael Seth Woodson of Walnut Ridge. The alleged victim is reportedly friends with an underage minor close to Woodson. At the child advocacy center the alleged victim disclosed Woodson was sending her inappropriate messages, video, and photo’s.
A search warrant was issued for Woodson’s snap chat account. During the investigation photo’s and video of a second juvenile female appeared in Woodson’s snap chat logs. The video shows Woodson in bed exposed with the second minor female in various stages of undressed.
On July 18th Woodson was interviewed by authorities and identified the second juvenile female. Woodson denied having sex with the alleged minor victim and denied selling photo’s. After leaving the interview it was stated that Woodson attempted suicide by taking a large amount of Viagra. He was briefly hospitalized according to court documents.
July 19th the mother of the second alleged victim came forward that her child disclosed Woodson was allegedly taking and selling photo’s of her online. She also disclosed that this had been going on for a couple of years.
Court documents reveled that Michael Seth Woodson is an IT for a medical facility therefore may have a vast knowledge of technology.
On July 22nd members of Woodson’s family who live a block from Woodson’s residence came forward with a backpack they found in their shed. They stated it didn’t belong to them and had no knowledge of it. The backpack was filled with numerous sd storage cards, computer hard drives, memory sticks, and devices for storing photo’s and video. July 25th law enforcement interviewed Woodson who admitted the backpack and it’s contents belonged to him. He also stated he hid it in the shed with plans to retrieve it at a later date. He told law enforcement that it did contain child pornography and images he found on the dark web.
Woodson is arrested and charged with 2 counts of Engaging A Child In Sexually Explicit Conduct, Pandering Or Possessing Medium Depicting Sexual Conduct With A Child.
No Contact Orders have been put into place and a $25,000 bail has been set, Woodson shows to still be incarcerated in the Lawrence County Detention Center. Woodson has a court date set for September 13th, 2023.
Sources say there may be more victims, if you have any further information you are urged to contact the Walnut Ridge Police Department at 870-886-2525