Former Tacoma nanny used client’s young child for porn. Now the man’s going to prison
A 42-year-old Tacoma man who filmed himself sexually abusing an 8-year-old boy whom he was a live-in nanny to for several years was sentenced Friday to 16-and-half years to life in prison.
Alan Stanley Spurrell pleaded guilty Jan. 24 to two counts of first-degree child molestation and two counts of first-degree dealing in depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
Investigators found photos and videos of Spurrell sexually abusing two boys, according to court records. He was a nanny to one from 2017 to 2019. Evidence in the case showed Spurrell had been abusing boys over the course of five years and viewing child pornography for the last decade.
The boy Spurrell was a nanny to told detectives in a forensic interview that the defendant told him to “keep things a secret” or else Spurrell would hit him. The boy said no one else ever saw the abuse, and it mostly happened when they were home alone. Spurrell would reportedly go back to his own room in the residence when the parents’ car returned home.
Investigators learned Spurrell was a nanny to the victim when they found an email sent in August 2022 that contained the defendant’s resume. According to court records, Spurrell more recently worked as an apprentice mechanic at a driving school in Puyallup.
Pierce County Superior Court Judge Shelly Speir-Moss gave the defendant an indeterminate sentence at the high end of the standard sentencing range for defendants prosecuted in similar cases, about 12 to 16 years in prison. That means Spurrell must serve at least 16 years before he is eligible to petition the Indeterminate Sentence Review Board for release.
Spurrell was arrested in November 2022 at a Tacoma home after detectives served a search warrant with the help of state and federal investigators. Detectives were investigating cyber tips sent by Google to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children regarding concerns of manufactured child pornography.
Detectives also obtained search warrants for Spurrell’s email and other accounts, as well as GPS data referencing his former residence in Tacoma. Records state more than 20 files labeled in court documents as child sexual abuse material were uploaded to a Google account that belonged to the defendant.
Court records don’t detail how Spurrell allegedly distributed child pornography, but they reference a Google messaging service he used in 2022 to talk with another person about his activities with one of the children.
Spurrell does not have any prior felony convictions, according to court records.
This story was originally published March 25, 2024 at 2:10 PM.
