The story so far: After Harrisburg police refuse to even question Musa Harris’ potential predator catches, prosecutors debate the merits of his evidence as the series concludes. Catch up with Part 1 and Part 2.
Prolific predator hunter Musa Harris keeps expanding his hunting grounds into an increasing number of counties in Pennsylvania and beyond.
In doing so, Musa and his controversial predator “captures” made on social media are dividing law enforcement jurisdictions into two camps: Those, like his hometown of Kingston, Luzerne County, that will pursue prosecutions based on his evidence. And others, such as Dauphin County, which won’t.
Reached for comment about his policy on citizen predator hunters like Musa, Dauphin County District Attorney Fran Chardo tells PennLive his office will consider evidence from anyone. However, Chardo says when one of his assistants investigated a case generated by Musa’s hunting in Harrisburg a few months ago, the evidence just didn’t measure up.
“Our prosecutor looked at it and it just wasn’t viable. I wish we had gotten (the suspect tip) earlier; maybe it would have been,” Chardo says.
Among the problems the DA cites with the case were questions about whether Musa had entered the suspect’s house without permission and concerns that the suspect wasn’t aware he was being videotaped, a possible wiretap issue. Also, a prosecutor’s duty to provide full discovery of all evidence to the defense could be problematic when that evidence originates with a third party who might not have turned over everything, he adds.
Chardo’s advice to Musa and other citizen predator hunters is to turn over information about suspects to prosecutors before confronting them. That way, Chardo says, law enforcement can take over the investigation, bringing to bear more powers to uncover the suspect’s identity through internet provider addresses and file harsher criminal charges.
“Let our people work the case,” Chardo urges. “We’ve got professionals who do this who are really good at it. We document, document, document – so somebody can’t make a claim it was an improper method. Instead, he (Musa) alerts the person that somebody knows about them. It may allow the perp to remain out there.”
Under Pennsylvania law, the strongest charges that can be brought against a suspect snared by a citizen like Musa are lower-grade felony counts of attempted unlawful contact with a child and attempted involuntary deviant sexual intercourse.
But when a member of law enforcement conducts a similar investigation, the statute treats the case as an actual child sex incident, not merely an attempt, resulting in lengthier prison terms, Chardo says.
“We can only bring an attempt charge, rather than a higher charge,” the DA said of such cases. “Let’s get these guys. But let’s do it the right way.”
Hometown hero
In Musa’s hometown of Kingston, Luzerne County, there’s a different legal view.
Police and prosecutors there have found a way of working with Musa’ evidence, bringing charges in nearly a dozen cases and securing convictions in five or six, so far.
“We consider him a witness,” Kingston Police Chief Richard Kotchik says of Musa. “Every incident he has brought to our department, the detective has looked it over. We were able to make arrests.”
Kotchik and his detective on these cases, Steve Gibson, say when the evidence is there, they file charges of attempted unlawful contact with a child as well as underlying charges based on the child sex act the suspect was seeking. These include attempted statutory sex counts right up to attempted involuntary deviant sexual intercourse, they say.
Finally, because a cell phone is used to orchestrate the child sex attempt, charges of criminal use of a communication facility are brought, too.
Thus far, the convictions Kingston has secured on Musa’s cases have ended with plea deals, Gibson says. Typically, the suspects accept punishment on counts of attempted unlawful contact, a felony. That’s usually enough to secure jail time, and more importantly, a requirement for the person to register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law for the next quarter-century, he says.
“We take and go over a lot of his cases,” Gibson says.
In the three years Musa has been catching predators, the chief says the citizen hunter has gotten better at delivering evidence police and prosecutors need to bring charges.
“Recently, they’ve been better. He’s learning,” Kotchik says. “The beginning cases were not up to par. The evidence wasn’t there. Or there was something wrong with the case.”
That said, both the chief and the detective stress Musa never acts as an agent of the department. In fact, they’d prefer he and others like him weren’t out there hunting predators, leaving the work to professionals.
“We don’t guide him. We encourage him not to do it,” Kotchik says.
Still, the department has watched in appreciation as the former career criminal whom it once arrested did a complete 180, becoming their ally.
“I do think there’s something there. He does believe in his cause. I will say that,” Kotchik says. “He has a passion for it. This is something that probably makes him feel good. And he has a lot of followers.”
With Musa expanding his hunts to farther-flung jurisdictions and other citizen hunters following him into the fray, police departments across Pennsylvania have been calling Kingston to learn how they deal with this phenomenon to pursue criminal cases.
“We get numerous calls,” Gibson says. “They’re asking how we do what we do. They’re at least looking at it, I can tell you that.”
Musa says he won’t be satisfied until every department follows suit and make cases from his evidence. Recently, he was invited to meet with a state lawmaker in Harrisburg to discuss strengthening Pennsylvania law to increase child-sex prosecutions on evidence supplied by citizen hunters.
“They give me the runaround,” Musa complains of many jurisdictions. “They say, ‘talk to these people over here.’ Nah, man. You all take the evidence or not. I’m still going to do what I’m going to do.”
Musa insists police and prosecutors should want to put away as many predators as possible. And everyone from Kotchik to Chardo admits there’s no shortage of potential pedophiles seeking sex with children and teens.
“We have tons and tons of these cases,” Chardo says. “Unfortunately, there’s so many of these people out there.”
No mercy
The uneven enforcement by Pennsylvania police and prosecutors has led Musa to tap his biggest strength — his online audience. He often takes to social media, urging followers to pressure reluctant prosecutors to “do their jobs” when it comes to punishing the child predators he captures on video.
“That’s why I do these videos — so the people can see who to vote out of there,” Musa says. “They elect them. And if they don’t want to work for us, vote them out. Look, the next charge right under murder should be messin’ with a child.”
Musa points to the progress he’s made with prosecutions in Luzerne County as proof of his followers’ power.
“You all made that happen,” Musa says during one of his livestream chats. “The people! You all are making a change!”
Musa’s online audience, which numbers in the tens of thousands across all his social media platforms, is also critical in identifying many of the potential predators he exposes — more than 500 in just three years.
“Initially, I don’t know who they are,” Musa says. But after tagging the community where the catch is made and blasting the video out on various social media platforms, — everything from YouTube, Facebook and Instagram to Rumble, Twitch and Locals — his viewers almost always put a name with a face.
When the person is high-profile, as in several of Musa’s “catches”, the social media shares soar and the video goes viral. Among the most notable, Musa says: “a coroner, firefighters, harness racer, NASCAR mechanic, dentist, teachers, cop, 911 dispatcher.”
His oldest catch was 84. One was a woman seeking sex with a teen boy. That’s just to mention a few.
All those he exposes suffer maximum reputational damage due to the actions and reactions of his followers, Musa says.
“I’m trying to destroy your life,” he explains. “I want to destroy you the same way that kid would be destroyed. I want to make sure you lose your job. I want to make sure everyone knows about it. I want to make you uncomfortable.”
At least two of his catches ended up taking their own lives in the days and weeks after their exposure, Musa says. He harbors neither sympathy nor mercy.
“I feel like it’s the coward’s way out,” he says. “It makes you think what skeletons they had to make them do that. I feel bad for the family. For him, I don’t feel bad.”
Worst nightmare
Musa’s haunted most by the ones who get away.
He tells of one who surprisingly bared his twisted soul during a candid exchange, revealing the depths of his child sex obsession.
“I said, ‘what’s the youngest you ever had?’” Musa recounts. “He could have said any age. He said he gave a 3-year-old oral sex. A 3-year-old female.”
Musa called police, but they let the man go, he says.
Later, Musa learned that not only was the man listed on the child sex predator registry, his 3-year-old granddaughter was living in the home at the time. The thought still sends chills down Musa’s spine.
His cause is personal. Musa’s passion for it, genuine. And among his motivations is keeping his own children safe. He’s also out for revenge on behalf of many of the sexually abused women with whom he’s had relationships over the years.
“At least 90 percent of the females I’ve interacted with my whole life have been molested,” Musa says. “It mostly comes from, like, family members. Trusted people within the family.”
Among them was his significant other, Lynn, who died unexpectedly last year at age 31, due to what Musa says was an adverse reaction to her medication. She wasn’t feeling well that morning last June, but Musa says he went out on a predator hunt, anyway. By the time he checked on her around 8 p.m., she was dead in their bed.
“I was out there catching,” Musa recalls. “Afterwards, it was like, the guilt. I don’t like to talk about it.”
Before the tragedy, Lynn often accompanied Musa on some of his weekend predator hunts. In a way, she still does.
He keeps a prayer card with her picture tucked on his dashboard. And sometimes, while waiting for a predator to take the bait, he sings along to her favorite song, “I Still Think About You” by A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie.
“It reminds me of my girl,” he says. “She rides with me every day.”
For all these reasons, Musa says he’ll never stop working to snare predators.
But will the community guidelines of social media platforms put a stop to Musa?
‘That video stays’
Predator-catching makes for some very graphic, often R-rated, content.
Musa admits there’s plenty of swearing and sexual slang when he confronts potential predators. He presses them to explain their actions. Sometimes, he pressures them to confess to family members. Other times, he instructs them to perform pushups or even “slap themselves” if they believe they’ve done wrong. All of this is captured on his videos.
“I get them crying all the time,” Musa says. “They’re crying because they’re caught, not because of what they did. You got got!”
Some of Musa’s videos containing this raw, un-edited footage have run afoul of social media community guidelines on cyberbullying, harassment, profanity and other violations. As a result, some have been demonetized or banned outright. Musa’s YouTube channel has been shut down three times.
Each time, Musa must start from scratch, creating a new channel with a different name and rebuilding his audience.
“I’m always getting banned on these apps,” Musa says. “I just lost almost 50,000 subscribers on YouTube. I just go back and make another one.”
These days, Musa says he’s doing more editing of his posts, bleeping out profanity and ensuring there is no doxing – online speak for publishing an individual’s private information. “I’m cleaning my stuff up more,” he says, hoping this will spare his content from social media censors.
As for critics who claim Musa — who hasn’t held a full-time job since the pandemic — is in this for the money, he points to the paltry video monetization and sporadic online donations from followers. The small monthly sums don’t even cover his costs, he says. Rather, he’s frugal, having saved YouTube payments when the money was better, along with COVID-19 stimulus money and his enhanced unemployment benefits during the pandemic.
“If I did it for the money, I’d quit ‘cause the money sucks,” Musa says.
What irks Musa most is that by banning his content, social media companies are unwittingly aiding predators.
This is something Musa has steadfastly refused to do, despite plenty of pressure and some lucrative offers to delete his predator-catching posts.
“I have been offered money to take videos down,” he says. “I had a guy offer me ten grand to take it down. I said, ‘No. That’s your punishment. That video stays up there’.”
‘Daddy’s out here hunting’
It’s getting late, and the hunt in Cumberland and Dauphin counties didn’t go as planned. But during one of Musa’s livestream chats, he gets a shout-out from his biggest fan – his son, Amari.
“My little man said, ‘what’s up’ to me,” Musa exclaims, his face and voice lighting up. “His mother is watching right now, and he told his mother to tell me, ‘Hi’.”
In this moment, Musa is no longer the predator catcher, just a proud dad.
“Tell him I love him. I miss him,” Musa says. “Tell him, Daddy’s out here hunting. Gotta get them bad guys. Gotta get them all!”
The proud poppa then gushes to the PennLive reporter shadowing him for the night: “I told you my son watches my videos. On weekends, he knows what I’m doing. My six-year-old wants to be just like me. I’m saving kids. I’m trying to be a deterrent from (predators) even thinking about messing with a kid.”
Best of all, tomorrow’s Sunday. Musa and Amari will be together then.
“Tell him I’ll be there to get him,” Musa says to Amari’s mother. “I’ll pick him up tomorrow.”
Read the full series:
- Central Pa. ‘predator catcher’ uses teen persona, ambush videos to expose villains
- What happens to the men in predator catcher’s videos? Several have been arrested
- Harrisburg cops on predator hunter’s gotcha videos: ‘You’re going about it the wrong way’
- Pa. predator hunter’s ambush tactics divide prosecutors, break social media rules
Ad Choices