'As if it were my own child missing': DPS Special Agent receives Lifesaving Award

A special agent with the Texas Department of Public Safety recently won a Lifesaving Award for his actions in finding a missing child from Corpus Christi.

Henry J. Schultz, a special agent in the Criminal Investigations Division of DPS, was recognized by the Texas Public Safety Commission and DPS Director Steve McCraw at the PSC meeting in April for investigative work conducted on a case regarding a 16-year-old who went missing on June 10, 2023.

The agent began working the case two days later.

Through in-depth analysis involving forensic digital evidence and examination of video surveillance from surrounding businesses near the victim’s last location, he uncovered critical details that led law enforcement to find the missing minor on July 25, 2023, in Gainesville, Florida, along with the two suspects.

Schultz, who sat down with the Caller-Times for an interview Wednesday, recounted the countless hours that he spent on the case.

“I’m very appreciative and proud to have received the award although the extensive efforts that were conducted were not for recognition but for the victim and family,” he said. “I saw a distraught mother and family, and being a parent of three children, approached it with the mindset and put in the effort as if it were my own child missing.”

Schultz started with DPS in 2006 as a Highway Patrol trooper and was promoted to the CID in 2013. He said he became involved in the case when he was called in to assist the Corpus Christi Police Department.

Special agents in the CID Organized Crime Section where he works collaborate with internal and external stakeholders from across the state, as well as international partners, according to the CID division website. They work together to identify, investigate, disrupt or dismantle drug trafficking, human trafficking and criminal gang organizations.

While Schultz said he had investigated cases involving runaways, narcotics, gangs, organized crime and fraud, among other areas, this was his first time working a missing persons case as an agent.

He credited his ability to obtain video footage of the minor, the suspect and the suspect's vehicle to the cooperation and understanding of business personnel who were concerned about the missing juvenile and gave immediate consent for him to view video captured by their surveillance systems.

Digital evidence produced through a cell phone extraction and account analysis were also key to pinpointing the offender.

“I worked at a fast pace and dedicated all hours to the days and nights to follow up on every lead that came in,” he said. “I sometimes worked into the night hours and the middle of the night. A lot of leads were coming in from other cities as far as Laredo, so I had to pull videos from Laredo where people thought they had spotted the juvenile.”

Family members supplied the most leads, he said. Many other leads were shared by members of the public and posted and shared on social media.

He said he reviewed video footage from six different locations in Corpus Christi, as well as other cities that turned up false leads of suspected sightings of the juvenile.

“It was a family effort,” he said. “I met each family member and developed a relationship with them, a rapport and a trust. They saw how dedicated I was, and I told them, ‘I’m going to need y’alls help.’ We developed a group chat that was open 24/7.”

Video evidence from businesses surrounding the missing person's last location led Schultz to track the minor's movements to a spot where the suspect was shown picking up the minor in an SUV, corroborating that the case was not an abduction or kidnapping, the special agent said.

From there, Schultz coordinated with the police department and reviewed city traffic cameras to identify the vehicle, but there were no new leads without a license plate number. The missing person’s phone had been turned off, and the direction of travel was unknown, he said.

With the willingness of the victim’s mother, the agent was able to obtain an old Wi-Fi cellular phone on June 14, 2023, and conduct two extractions that eventually hit upon the crucial bit of information in the case one month later — the IP address leading to the suspect in Florida.

Florida law enforcement agencies were not aware of the case when DPS contacted them to obtain a search warrant on July 25, 2023, Schultz said.

But by compiling evidence on the case and working with counterparts and agents with whom he’d developed relationships while patrolling the border through Operation Lone Star, he was able to obtain a search warrant in Florida and have it executed in five to seven hours.

On July 25, 2023, officers with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office who were investigating the reported disappearance of the child from Texas executed a search warrant at the suspect’s residence in Alachua County, Florida, according to an April 2, 2024, press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Florida.

The report stated that the child was rescued and two suspects, 40-year-old Timothy Frederick Murphy-Johnson of Gainesville and 21-year-old Olivia Henn of Orlando, were arrested.

Murphy-Johnson faces a sentence of 15 years to life imprisonment and five years to life on supervised release. Henn faces a sentence of 15 to 90 years in prison and five years to life on supervised release.

They each pleaded guilty to conspiracy to produce child pornography and two counts of production of child pornography. Murphy-Johnson also pleaded guilty to transporting the child from Texas to Florida for the purpose of sexual abuse. The two will be sentenced at 11:30 a.m. June 25 at the U.S. Courthouse in Gainesville.

Schultz said he flew to Florida after the search warrant was executed and spent six days there working jointly with all agencies involved, including the Department of Homeland Security in Florida, the Texas DPS and Homeland Security Investigations in Gainesville. He appreciates the coordinated effort of all law enforcement.

When he looks back on the investigation, Schultz said the most difficult things to overcome was the lack of leads to help press forward, and the delay in obtaining the needed account information while waiting on close to 50 subpoenas once the leads developed through digital extractions and analytical workups.

He said that he knew he would find the victim eventually, and that he keeps in close communication with the victim's family.

This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: DPS Special Agent receives Lifesaving Award for finding missing teen