A new docuseries explores how a 38-year-old mother-of-three from Connecticut uses costumes, makeup, and other tricks to convince online sex predators that she is a teenager – so she can track these men down and turn them over to the authorities.
Roo Powell, from New Haven, has dedicated her life to helping law enforcement catch predators who pray on underage girls through her nonprofit organization, SOSA (Safe from Online Sex Abuse), which she launched in 2020.
She has created over a dozen aliases, each one with its own fake name and background story – and at any given time, she might be talking to 30 ACMs (Adults Contacting Minors).
‘I have to be a believable teenager. I have to sell it, but I’m also gathering as much information as possible,’ she explained to Fox News.
Once she has been able to determine that a man is a threat and identify him, she turns him over to the police.
Her exploits are now the subject of a docuseries on Discovery+ called Undercover Underage, which premieres February 24.
Roo Powell has dedicated her life to helping law enforcement catch online predators through her nonprofit organization SOSA (Safe from Online Sex Abuse)
She transforms herself into a teenager with hair, makeup, and clothes convince predators that she is much younger than she is
She also transforms her bedroom with decorations a teen would like
‘I have to be a believable teenager. I have to sell it, but I’m also gathering as much information as possible,’ she explained
Roo (pictured while dressed up as a teen) has created over a dozen aliases – and each one has its own fake name, background story, and social media accounts
Roo talks to the older men in chatrooms and over direct message, texting, and FaceTime, pretending to be a teenager by dressing up in trendy clothes, wearing sparkly makeup, sporting youthful hairstyles, and utilizing dim lighting.
She even transforms her bedroom before video chatting with the predators by setting up colorful decorations and hanging up fake polaroid pictures that depict a high school student at parties or football games.
Other touches include Christmas lights and posters of young stars like Tom Holland or Harry Styles.
She makes social media accounts for each of her characters, which she uses to talk to the ACMs.
Once, she pretended to be a 15-year-old girl named Alex. Her username was @ur_wasian_baby and her bio read, ’15 and lovin lifeeeee chicago.’
‘Alex lived with her dad and her mom was kind of in and out,’ she told the New York Post during a recent interview.
‘She didn’t like her stepmom and had to move to a different school. But she was a normal teenage girl with a normal Instagram account.’
But there’s much more to it than just creating a social media account and a backstory. Roo explained that her work takes extensive preparation and studying.
At any given time, she might be talking to 30 ACMs (Adults Contacting Minors)
Roo (pictured as two of her aliases) said she is not law enforcement and does not want to do what cops or prosecutors do. ‘Once I’ve played my part, I’m hands-off,’ she explained
Despite the immense amount of stress it puts on her, Roo (pictured as one of her aliases) knows that she has to ‘stay in character’ because she’d rather go through it than an actual teen
She must come up with many details – like an astrological sign, a favorite color, and a pet – to make sure it’s believable.
‘We can’t just take a picture, put it on Instagram and see what happens,’ she told Fox News.
‘Every teenage girl – a real girl – has a very layered life. I have a teenage daughter, and she has friends, favorite classes and extracurricular activities.
‘So when we build a teenage decoy, we have to give her that same layered life. She has an astrological sign, a favorite color, a pet with a name – all the things that make her a believable person.
‘She’s tweeting a certain way, posting photos a certain way and making TikToks a certain way. That’s when the messages come in.’
Through Alex’s Instagram, Roo started talking to a former cop named Cullen Jones, 45, in March 2021.
After their conversation turned sexual and they made plans to meet up, Roo contacted the police and discovered that Cullen was actually awaiting sentencing for a previous soliciting sexual conduct/communications with a minor charge.
He was later sentenced to 10 years in prison thanks to Roo’s work. But once she hands the information over to police it’s out of her hands what happens next.
While costumes are a big part, Roo also has to come up with a detailed backstory to be believable, learning her characters’ favorite foods and astrological signs
‘She’s tweeting a certain way, posting photos a certain way and making TikToks a certain way. That’s when the messages come in,’ she said of her characters
Her exploits are documented in the new Discovery+ docuseries Undercover Underage, which premieres February 24
Picture is Roo’s collection of wigs, which she uses to transform into her different aliases
‘I’m not law enforcement,’ she explained to the Post. ‘I don’t want to do [the cops and prosecutors’] job and once I’ve played my part, I’m hands-off.’
Roo has now turned over several ACMs to authorities.
The new TV series documents how Roo and her team create the aliases, rope the men in, track them down, and ultimately, gives the information they find over to the cops.
‘For us, raising awareness is so important,’ she told Fox News while discussing the upcoming series.
‘I’ve been working in the tech space, and we have seen a lot of predators online. And when the pandemic started, more kids were online and, as a result, more perpetrators.
‘It felt like there wasn’t enough being done, and it also seemed like uncharted territory.
‘We were not raised with phones in our hands. So it felt like there needed to be a stronger effort to tackle this issue.’
Roo (pictured as one of her aliases) helped gather information on a former cop who was eventually sentenced to 10 years in prison
Roo said ‘raising awareness’ is the most important part of the show, and that she wants to end the sigma around online abuse
‘I’m looking for any clues as I take a look at the background. I can’t get angry during those calls when the abuse is happening,’ she said
Pictured: one of her fake online profiles
Roo admitted that she sometimes feels ‘overwhelmed and upset’ while talking to the men, and that her mind is often ‘going a million miles a minute.’
But despite the immense amount of stress it puts on her, Roo knows that she has to ‘stay in character’ because ‘the cost is too high.’
‘I’m looking for any clues as I take a look at the background. I can’t get angry during those calls when the abuse is happening.
‘I can’t break character. Those are probably the most stressful times for me. I still get nervous before every call. And once the call starts, I have to get through it. There’s no room for error.’
She added: ‘It’s better if I go through it than an actual teenager, an actual child. I’m an adult with reasonable coping mechanisms and support.
‘I’m less vulnerable. And I feel strongly about that. Our children are vulnerable and it’s our job to protect them.’
Although Roo said she feels a ‘sense of relief’ when she aids in jailing a predator, since ‘they can no longer [pursue] any new victims,’ she doesn’t count it as a victory.
She said to the Post: ‘I don’t go around clinking gin glasses because, ultimately, it’s very sad.’
Roo admitted that she sometimes feels ‘overwhelmed and upset’ while talking to the men, and that her mind is often ‘going a million miles a minute’
Although Roo (pictured in the show) said she feels a ‘sense of relief’ when she aids in jailing a predator, she doesn’t count it as a victory since the whole thing is ‘still very sad’
According to Roo, most of the predators that she has assisted in catching look like the ‘men we come across in our everyday lives.’
‘It could be the person that coaches your kid, the community leader, a family friend, the one with the wife and kids who’s always nice,’ she said.
‘The truth is that it could be anyone. There’s no particular profile. It’s not the troll under the bridge.’
Roo started her career off as a writer for the publication Adweek in 2010. She moved on to advertising, creating taglines and weighing in on branding for companies like Whole Foods, Target, Nordstrom, Barnes & Noble, and Stop & Shop.
She became interested in child safety after working on a project for Medium about the ‘ubiquity of predation online.’
Besides putting away predators, one of the main reasons she started SOSA is to try to end the sigma around abuse.
She told Distractify, ‘The biggest reason why people don’t get reported, and the biggest reason why kids don’t get support, is because they’re engulfed by shame.
‘The goal really isn’t to point out perpetrators one by one, it’s to empower an entire society to combat this.
‘That first starts with awareness, and I think this show is doing a really good job of doing that.’
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