Tacoma man arrested for making child porn was live-in nanny to one victim, charges say
A Tacoma man arrested last week on suspicion of filming himself sexually abusing children was a nanny to one victim for several years, according to charges filed Monday.
Alan Stanley Spurrell, 40, was charged in Pierce County Superior Court with first-degree rape of a child, first-degree child molestation, five counts of sexual exploitation of a minor and three counts related to possessing and distributing depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
Pleas of not guilty were entered on Spurrell’s behalf at arraignment Monday afternoon. Court Commissioner Philip Thornton set bail at $250,000. Court records show Spurrell does not have a felony criminal history in Pierce County.
Investigators located photos and videos of Spurrell sexually abusing one 9-year-old boy and sexually explicit images of another boy, 12. According to the declaration for determination of probable cause, Spurrell was a live-in nanny to the older boy from 2017 to 2019. Detectives learned that when they found an email sent in August that contained the defendant’s resume. According to court records, Spurrell was more recently working at a driving school.
Tacoma Police Department detectives arrested Spurrell on Friday at a residence in Tacoma while serving a search warrant with assistance from state and federal investigators. According to charging documents, detectives were investigating cyber tips sent by Google to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children regarding concerns of manufactured child pornography.
To get the images, detectives obtained search warrants to examine Spurrell’s email and other accounts, as well as GPS data referencing his former residence in Tacoma. More than 20 files labeled in court documents as child sexual abuse material were uploaded to a Google account that belonged to the defendant, records say.
Charging documents don’t detail how Spurrell allegedly distributed child pornography, but they reference a Google messaging service he used this year to talk with another person about his activities with one of the children.
When he was arrested Nov. 4, detectives seized a cell phone with an associated email address that turned up in Google’s cyber tip. According to the probable cause document, a forensic review of Spurrell’s devices is ongoing, and prosecutors could file additional charges.
Spurrell was interviewed by detectives the day of his arrest. He allegedly told them he started viewing child pornography about 10 years ago, and that he and the older boy “just did a couple things” after the child found him masturbating in his room one day. Spurrell denied ever touching the boy inappropriately.
While interviewing Spurrell, detectives brought up another video that allegedly showed the defendant forcing sexual contact on another boy, and Spurrell put his head onto the interview table, records say. The defendant didn’t deny the existence of the video. Detectives asked Spurrell if the children had been threatened, and while sobbing, the defendant told them no.
