71-year-old Joe Eddie Stephens was on trial in a child pornography case over his family’s suspicions. It turned out that Stephens smashed his computer with 24 hammer interventions to prevent the authorities from seizing the data on his computer.
The case began in May 2019 when Joe Eddie Stephens’ son learned that his father had taken in two young girls from his granddaughter’s elementary school. Stephens was taking pictures of two teenage girls in swimsuits. Suspicious, Stephens’ son checked the browser history on his father’s computer and found that his father had previously accessed child pornography. After the discussions that followed, the police were called and an application was made to the court.
Old man who smashed his computer sentenced to 22 years in prison
Faced with his family for child pornography, Stephens claimed that the call logs were not his, but someone else had accessed his computer. Unable to answer questions from family members, the old man threatened his relatives with suicide. The suspect’s family called the police. Enraged, Stephens threw his computer to the ground before the police arrived. Then he smashed the computer he took to the garage with a hammer. Stephens’ wife recorded the moments when he smashed the computer. Police obtained a search warrant and confiscated his computer and cell phone. District Attorney Jeff Swain said the computer was destroyed and authorities had no access to any of the videos. But Stephens had a video of girls in swimsuits doing gymnastic moves on his cell phone.
Travis Warner, the Assistant District Attorney in charge of the case, said they found numerous erotic images of children on the defendant’s phone. “These images were of pre-teen girls dressed in underwear posing in sexually provocative ways,” Warner said. After the old man was sentenced to death when his computer was destroyed and thus inaccessible to evidence, Swain said, “Destroying the evidence that would lead to the conviction of a defendant does not contradict the suspect’s allegations. As a result of the court investigations, 71-year-old Joe Eddie Stephens was sentenced to 12 years in prison for incitement to child pornography and 10 years for attempting to destroy evidence.
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