The Grooming Model: A Cautionary Tale (BONUS Episode)

A predator rarely “shows up” as a stranger in the dark. Sometimes he shows up as a trusted helper with a badge, a friendly smile, and the perfect reason to be near your child. In the final episode of Season 7, we talk with Conference on Crimes Against Women presenter Chris McGhee, the father of a survivor and a relentless advocate for criminal justice reform, to unpack how sexual assault grooming actually works and why it can fool entire families.

Chris breaks down grooming as a deliberate playbook: selecting vulnerability, building trust, crossing boundaries in small steps, then using shame and fear to keep a victim quiet. He shares how his daughter Grace was targeted by a school resource officer who first positioned himself as a mentor, then weaponized his authority, his community reputation, and Grace’s relationships to trap her. We connect these real-world details to the grooming model described by Dr. Georgia Winters and Dr. Elizabeth Jeglic so listeners can recognize the patterns, not just the headlines.

We also talk about the aftermath: PTSD, triggers, and the unique pain of watching a case end in a plea deal that doesn’t feel like justice. Chris explains how disappearing-message platforms like Snapchat can complicate investigations, and how survivors can experience secondary victimization while navigating reports, interviews, and court decisions. Finally, we focus on prevention and change: open parent-teen communication, removing blame from children who were manipulated, and pushing for anti-grooming laws and accountability when mandated reporters abuse power.

If you care about child safety, sexual assault prevention, and real criminal justice reform, listen through and share this with someone who needs the language to spot grooming sooner.

Transcript

Crimes Against Women And Grooming

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the podcast on crimes against women. I'm Maria McMullen. Grooming that leads to sexual assault is a pervasive and insidious crime that impacts thousands of people nationwide each year. To explore this topic, I sat down with Conference on Crimes Against Women presenter Chris McKee, the father of a survivor and a vigilant advocate for criminal justice reform and systemic change. Together, we discuss the complexities of grooming, the impact on victims and families, and the challenges faced by survivors. Chris shares firsthand experiences and insights addressing the nuances of grooming, how offenders build trust with victims, manipulate boundaries, and gradually gain control. Our discussion delves into the grooming model of sexual assault as defined by Georgia May Winters and Elizabeth L. Jegglick, highlighting the stages offenders follow to exploit and silence their targets. Listeners can expect to gain valuable insights into manipulative tactics used by offenders, the emotional aftermath of sexual assault, and the decisions survivors encounter when seeking justice. The episode also covers psychological and emotional effects on families, the difficulties survivors face when deciding whether to press charges, and how the legal process can result in secondary victimization. This episode was recorded on location at the 2026 Conference on Crimes Against Women in Dallas, Texas, and includes a discussion about grooming and sexual assault. You can read Chris's bio and more about his workshop on our website, conferencecaw.org. Chris, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Thank you. Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

I'm glad you're with us. You are one of the presenters at the 2026 Conference on Crimes Against Women, talking about a story

Grooming As A Predator Playbook

SPEAKER_01 1:34

that we're going to cover today, which has to do with grooming and sexual assault of your own daughter. But before we get into all of that, let's talk about what is grooming and how it differ from other forms of sexual abuse.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Yeah, the idea behind grooming is that it is a series of behaviors or a playbook, if you will, that the predator uses to really facilitate their crimes against their victim. What is really critical to understand about grooming is that it is not just grooming on the victim, but it is the grooming of the support system, the family, the caretakers, the people who are that line of defense to keep the child safe. The process really begins with this idea of selecting their victim. So everything that the predator does is by design. There is really nothing that is done by coincidence. There's a number of different factors that play into the selection of a victim, but predators are looking for people that they consider to be vulnerable, more vulnerable than others. Those people can be often, the data actually shows that they're often from single-family households, households where maybe both parents are working multiple jobs. Again, in the situation of a single parent household, in that situation, you have a parent that is not able to provide as much oversight over their children. And it is certainly not a statement on their parenting skills, but the reality is that they are stretched incredibly thin. And predators see those situations as an opportunity. Other situations that predators are looking for when selecting their victims, they're looking for kids that may be in state custody or they're in a foster home or they are within social services. Because in those situations, I think most of us are aware that many of these state-run programs are incredibly underfunded. And so those programs do not have the resources to do the background checks maybe that they need to be doing on the people working with kids. There is also a high likelihood of peer-on-peer abuse that happens in these situations. When they're selecting their victims, they're also looking for maybe kids who are marginalized, kids who maybe are from immigrant families that maybe do not have the social network to support them. Maybe they are struggling with language. Certainly, kids who are living in poverty. Again, they may not have that social safety net where they have folks that are able to provide as much oversight. So predators are looking at the people that they feel are going to be the easiest for them to take advantage of and manipulate and ultimately exploit and commit their crimes.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

How does all of that align with the grooming model of sexual assault?

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Most predators really, again, following that playbook. And I know in my own family's situation, when it was all said and done, and I was able to look at what happened with a clear head, I, while doing some research on grooming, it was startling just how clearly the predator followed the playbook for grooming. It was startling that predators, they know what they're doing and they have it down to a process to help them do what they're going to be doing. And it is rare that it happens by coincidence that they are following these steps because they're finding

Who Predators Choose And Why

SPEAKER_00 5:40

that unfortunately it works.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

So your daughter Grace was a victim of groomings and sexual assault, and she was a child when all of this happened. Can you share with us what happened to your daughter?

SPEAKER_00 5:53

So in 2021, my youngest daughter, Grace, had been raped by a classmate. And after that rape, Grace suffered from PTSD and eventually tried to kill herself. Now, fortunately, she was not successful. And my wife and I were able to get her into therapy and get the support that she needed to heal. And part of what we wanted to do was we wanted to surround her with people that would help her see the good in the world. And so we were connected to the York City Police Department, was holding weekly community walks. And they were just that. It was the members of the police department and walking through some areas of York City as a community outreach. And there were a number of officers, there were probation officers, the police commissioner was there. And it was a very informal walk. And one of the officers who attended the weekly walks was Joseph Palmer. He was a school resource officer and a juvenile engagement officer. And he had expressed a willingness to help Grace deal with what she was dealing with. When we learned that he was a school resource officer, my wife and I reached out to him to find out, you know, other additional resources that we should be taking advantage of. And almost immediately he said he'd really like to help her and talked about mentoring her. And very quickly, while he was building that trust with Grace and getting to know her, he was also working to get to know myself and my wife. And very quickly began sharing things about himself and challenges that he was having balancing his work and his family life. And he was married and had two young kids. And so I could certainly identify with that. And we both had a love of motorcycles. So we began to develop a friendship so that we had things to talk about other than just things that were happening with Grace. And about seven, eight months after meeting Joseph, we learned of the assault that he had been committing against Grace. And he had, over several months, was doing very similar to what he was doing with us. He was trying to build that trust. He was having age-inappropriate conversations with her, talking about his own marriage and the challenges that he was having, certainly not appropriate for a grown man to be having with a child. She was 15 at the time. And also began laying some traps for her and inviting her to smoke marijuana with him and would share information about things happening in the department. And so when you're 15 years old and you have a police officer that is sharing things that he probably shouldn't, as you might expect, makes you feel special. And so she certainly felt special and she felt privileged that here's this celebrated police officer that is entrusting her with this information. And soon after he began to assault her. And it didn't feel right. She was very confused, very upset about this. And almost immediately he began to remind her that number one, she had claimed to have been raped once before. And because of that, nobody was likely going to believe her, which is part of the maintenance stage of the grooming model. He also reminded her that he is a police officer. He is a very respected member of the community. And it is highly unlikely that anyone is going to believe her over him. Again, that is right in line with the maintenance stage of the grooming model. And he also reminded her that he was friends with me and that I would definitely believe him over Grace if she were to say something. And that really backed Grace into a corner because for all of the reasons that he just laid out, no one was ever going to believe her. And then to know that your dad is not going to believe you and support you was really difficult for her. Now, when we did learn of the assaults, we immediately let her know that we supported her and that what happened to her was absolutely wrong. But she was terrified up until that point. And with Grace's support, we reached out to the police department.

A Police Officer Gains Control

SPEAKER_00 10:55

And in fact, it was about 1 a.m. that night when we called the police commissioner on his cell phone and told him what was going on. And within two hours, we had two investigators in our kitchen taking police reports so that we could begin the process of pressing charges.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

That sounds like an absolute nightmare. Every parent's nightmare, right? How did you, in fact, find out about the assaults he was committing against Grace?

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Grace had been struggling for months to get away from Joseph. She was trying to ignore his texts and his phone calls. He would occasionally show up at her work. She worked at a restaurant. He would occasionally show up in uniform. And the manager of the restaurant was always thrilled when a member of the police department came in. And so the manager would say, you know, Grace, the officer is here to see you. Go ahead and take a break. Take as much time as you want. And she couldn't get away from him. And as he continued to remind her of his position and the authority that he had, she was becoming increasingly anxious about it because she did not feel that she had any options to get away from him. And at some point, Grace's older sister was becoming concerned about things that Gracie had been saying to her and did not come right out and say what was happening, but that she was getting very, she didn't want to talk to Joseph anymore. She wanted him to leave her alone. And her sister one evening just simply asked her, is something going on? And Grace admitted what happened. And so literally within moments, Grace had told us what was going on. And you know, the the absolute shock of that moment seems like an understatement to say it was shocking. You know, we all hear about that expression of, you know, time standing still. And I remember the moment just as if it happened yesterday, and it was a very surreal moment because friends don't do that. Friends don't do that to your children. Certainly, police officers don't do that to children. And so nothing made sense. And I and I vividly remember having pause and try to collect my bearings because I just the words were not making sense of what was going on. Once I was able to begin processing this information, we began making phone calls and making sure that Grace was safe and putting an end to this.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

Yeah, it's really horrifying. First of all, thank you for sharing all of that with us. I know it's, you know, going over it again and again, you've probably done it many times. It helps to give us the context for grooming in kind of the form of a story, which helps listeners understand contextually how this works and what it looks like. I think the whole thing is horrifying, obviously. And one of the things that really stands out to me is how you explained it. He weaponized his authority against her, his uniform against her. He weaponized her closest relationships, the relationships with her parents, with you, against her, and as you said, backed her into a corner. I mean, it took

How Grace Finally Disclosed

SPEAKER_01 14:35

so much courage for both of your daughters to be able to vocalize this realization and have the outcomes that you had, right? So let's move on to how he was investigated, prosecuted, and what happened.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

So, with so many cases that involve police officers, there's a fear that it's it's the police department and they're not going to believe us. And this is just a terrible idea. But Gracie wanted an opportunity to say what she felt she needed to say. She wanted an opportunity to sit in the stand and speak to his defense and let the world know what he did. And after a year and a half, he received a plea deal. It started out with probably a dozen, a little over a dozen different charges. And after a year and a half, he received a plea deal to a misdemeanor charge, corruption of a minor of a sexual nature. He received no jail time. He received five to seven years of probation. There was no registration on the national database of sex offenders. He received a $2,000 fine. No idea how they came up with that number. And that was it. Did he keep his job? He did not keep his job. But he will be able to petition to be able to carry again once he is done with his probation. It's also worth noting that within three months of that plea deal, he did violate his probation when he was seen at a campus with children there. And so the message that he received at that final hearing with that plea deal did not take all that well for him to go back to a school campus so soon after certainly spoke to how seriously he took that plea deal. And my wife and I were really struggling with the plea deal because while Gracie wanted the opportunity to speak her truth and to call him out, my wife and I were struggling about is this in her best interest? It's a horrible process. She's having to tell the story so many times and incredibly intrusive questions, and it is hard not to feel for victims to feel as if they are the criminal in this process. So we struggled. And we wanted to get her started. So when the DA asked us if we were able to support this plea deal, it was with incredibly mixed emotions that we went along with it. And Grace was really upset by the plea deal. Well, we were too. It certainly did not feel like justice, but our main priority was to protect Grace. And that's what we thought was in her best interest. Now, whether or not it was, I can't say for sure. Because sexual assault is a crime

Plea Deal Fallout And Lost Evidence

SPEAKER_00 19:25

about taking away someone's power. And we didn't give Grace that opportunity. We did not give her that opportunity to get up and share her side of this. But as a parent, you do what you think is best.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Yeah, I'm curious. She is a minor. She was 15. How do you get offered a plea deal when you sexually assault a minor? I just don't understand how that works.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Predators start with the playbook. Again, let's let's go back to that. Okay. And predators know how to utilize technology to their advantage. So almost immediately, he was moving all communications to Snapchat. And if your listeners do not know what Snapchat is, it is a social media tool that after messages are shared, they disappear. And he knew that. We had the Snapchat records subpoenaed, and we we were able to see them, and they they we got some information, but most of the material had been lost. And the prosecutor said to us, we couldn't find that smoking gun. And they couldn't find the thing that would just seal the deal. The frustration was that they had a very willing victim that wanted to get up there and wanted to testify and wanted to see this through. And we felt that the district attorney took the easy way out. So several weeks after that final hearing, I did literally a 30-second Google search. And I was floored how many police officers in the state of Pennsylvania had received the exact same plea deal for very similar crimes. Some involving the providing of alcohol to cases very similar to what my daughter experienced. And the exact same plea deal. And it was very hard not to at that point think this something's not right here. Because this just all of a sudden felt like this is a standard operating procedure. Member of law enforcement, okay, this is the deal that you're gonna get. And then it's it's all said and done. With that information, the lack of justice that I felt was even greater at that point when it just seemed like this was all pointless. So I actually reached out to my local elected representative, Representative Joe D. Orsi, and I asked for a meeting with him. And I laid out on the table probably uh half a dozen of these cases that I had found in my very quick Google search. And I shared our story. And I said, I don't know what I'm asking for. I'm just curious if you're okay with this. Because I certainly am not. And he he took lots of notes. He was absolutely horrified at our story. He shared that he had a young daughter and could not imagine what we

Turning Pain Into Policy Change

SPEAKER_00 22:55

had been going through. And was just as shocked that a police officer could admit to hurting a child and get off with the equivalent of parking tickets, in my opinion. And about a month later, Representative Diorsi met with me again and he had language for a bill to be introduced to the state capitol in Pennsylvania to make it a felony for police officers who are convicted of corruption of a minor. And the bill was introduced a few months later. And I began the process speaking to lawmakers to try to get this thing passed. And during that process, the bill was gutted. Moved from being a felony officer hurts a child to enhancing sentencing guidelines if a mandated reporter hurts a child. So in the summer of last year, the bill was signed into law. It was passed unanimously in the House and the Senate in the state of Pennsylvania. And Governor Josh Shapiro signed it into law. And while it certainly felt good, certainly felt like an accomplishment, I met with a member of the sentencing commission in Pennsylvania. And I and I said, okay, let's let's walk through this. If this law had been in place when our case came to a close, how would it have changed things? And the gentleman told me it would not have changed the outcome. It would not have changed the sentencing. So what did I accomplish? You know, it it certainly felt like we we did something, but in the end we didn't do anything. And so the fight continues. We've gotta we gotta

Healing Triggers And Family Aftermath

SPEAKER_00 24:50

continue to work on those laws to better protect survivors.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

What have been the effects up to this point of all of this on Grace?

SPEAKER_00 25:01

You know, like just about any survivor, she struggles. She has some good days, she has some bad days. We're about five years removed from this now. Unfortunately, the good days far outnumber the bad days. But healing from a trauma such as that is never linear. It is you can be triggered by something. Maybe it's a song, maybe it's it's a smell or an object. For Grace, seeing police officers is a trigger. That's a pretty that's a tough one for her. And so I'm not sure if she will ever get past that, but is she doing better? Certainly. We have definitely moved from survive to thrive today. She is a floral designer in upstate New York. She's doing well. And and I I just couldn't be more proud of her. But she still struggles. She still has some challenging days. My wife and I still have challenging days. The harsh reality is that we were groomed. We were manipulated, we were lied to. We let this monster into our family, so to speak, and we provided access to her. So the trauma we experienced was certainly not to the extent that Grace experienced, but there are certainly moments where I'm driving through York and I'll pass corners that we went to on the community walks. And Joseph and I would stand there and talk about things happening, motorcycles or whatnot. And I think about those moments, and I know there were, he was just lying. And that's the scene of the crime and the betrayal when he was simply using me to get access to my daughter. But fortunately, we have more good days than bad days.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

You also mentioned that he was caught on the campus with ch on a campus with children subsequent to his sentencing. So what happened to him after that?

SPEAKER_00 27:02

So when he violated that probation, that this the school campus by being on that campus, he was sentenced to jail for five months. And my daughter wanted to see him in jail. She wanted to see him put in handcuffs, and she wanted to know that he spent some time in jail. And because of the plea deal, it didn't happen. So one might think, well, okay, he ended up in jail. But he ended up in jail for violating his probation, not for harming my child. And that's a real tough pill to swallow.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

I can feel the difference in that. I think it is unjust and unfair. You're still working on this, right? What are you doing today to try to change things for survivors?

SPEAKER_00 27:58

Well, the first thing is attending incredible conferences such as this, a conference on crimes against women, and sharing our story. We're not talking enough about grooming. We're not talking enough about the grooming model and understanding all of the things are part of the playbook. We've got to begin to normalize these conversations. It's important for parents to understand these things. It's important for parents to not live in fear, but to have a healthy dose of skepticism, to ask questions and to not apologize for being engaged in their children's lives. So to me, it's really important to share our story so that others can learn from it. And that's a way for us to be proactive, make sure these things don't happen in the first place. My advocacy also involves addressing failures within our laws. And I'm currently working on developing some language around grooming for a bill to be introduced in Pennsylvania. There are, I believe at this moment, there are 17 states that have adopted anti-grooming laws. And it's again another step in the right direction. I'm proud of what we were able to accomplish, even though it certainly didn't go far enough. But it was a move in the right direction. I want survivors to know that there are people that are engaged in this fight and are fighting for them and are not allowing our elected officials to sit back and ignore this problem. We as a society have got to do better. And if you're not happy with things, you got to demand change and sometimes you got to be part of the process.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

I couldn't agree more. Looking back on this whole situation, especially the way that this individual groomed you and your wife, were there any warning signs that you can share with us that other people might be

Warning Signs And Prevention Tools

SPEAKER_01 30:05

able to identify?

SPEAKER_00 30:06

It's difficult because I look back on all of that and how likely is it that I ever would have been able to conceive that a police officer would do this? Family friends, physicians, teachers, coaches. I I mean, what I'm saying is probably the exact same thing that most other families say in this sort of situation because predators are really good at what they do. And they're really good at deceit and manipulating. And they typically do it to more than one person. We know that there were four other individuals that he had hurt, but they were not willing to come forward and press charges. They spoke with the prosecutors, but they were not at a place where they could move forward with it. So he was really good at what he did. He had a lot of experience with it.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

Yeah, he's a serial predator.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

He is. He absolutely is. And when I look back on that time when he was grooming us, there were a few things that now I look back on them and I'm like, okay, maybe that wasn't right. He had asked my wife to begin communicating with her via Snapchat. And my wife was like, I'm an adult, I don't use Snapchat. They she said, you know, more text, they would text about things happening with Grace. And she was like, Well, you know, what why do we're good with that? What's the point of that? Right. And so then we can't help but wonder if, you know, was he gonna ask me to begin texting him on Snapchat, or did he have ulterior motives with my wife? Who knows? Looking back though, there are things that I wish I would have done. There are things I fell into the trap of thinking, okay, I have an officer that is offering to take my daughter bowling or take her for ice cream or give her a ride home from those community walks. Certainly an officer is not going to harm my child. I mean, that that's just a ridiculous thing to think about. And I knew who was in the vehicle. I knew that it was the two of them. And I said, just, you know, remember it's a school night, so be home by nine o'clock, or something to that effect. And maybe I could have asked more questions about the conversations that they were having. Ultimately, though, I'll never really know. What I do wish is I wish that my daughter would have felt safe enough to come to us right away. But that's all part of the manipulation. He had been laying the groundwork by gaslighting her, by lying to her. And as soon as things did not feel right, I wish that she would have felt safe enough to come to us, but she didn't. And so that's why one of the things that I talk about with parents is to make sure that they're having that open communication, to make sure that their children feel safe enough to come to them without fear of punishment. One of the things that most predators will do is they will try to trap them with alcohol or drugs or something like that. And then they will use that against the victim. So don't forget, you took the alcohol, you took the cigarettes or the weed or something.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

Yeah, I mean, you said it best early in this episode, they trap them. So they tempt them with the stuff that they know the teens are interested in because that you know it's all taboo and it's a temptation. And then once they have them take the bait, they trap them.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

They're trapped. And he would remind her of that. And in those situations, this is something that I stress to parents that if a child has been groomed and manipulated and lied to, the child is not responsible for anything. If the child was lied to and given alcohol or something like that, that's not a separate conversation. It's not a, okay, I'm so sorry about what happened. This was terrible. We'll talk about the drinking later. No, no, there's nothing to talk about later. The child was lied to, the child was manipulated. 100% of the responsibility is on the abuser. The child has zero responsibility. I was lied to and my daughter was lied to. The responsibility is on Joseph Palmer. And therefore, the shame is on Joseph Palmer.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

But it's got to be crystal clear for parents that part of that grooming process is trapping them with gifts. And once the child falls into that trap, the child has no responsibility. The child has been lied to. They've been manipulated. A lot of times, so often victims are questioned about how they responded. And all of it is a way to put responsibility on the victim. And they have no responsibility. They are trying to get through a situation they've or they've been lied to. And the child has to feel safe enough to come forward.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

I also think there's an opportunity here for education of teens and children because we do a lot of teen dating violence education at the conference and Genesis Women's Shelter and Support. I think giving teens the language and the tools and the opportunities to understand what's happening and to recognize, you know, any warning signs, any types of abusive or predatory behaviors is really key. And then give them the language to communicate it. Give them the opportunity to talk to parents, counselors, or other adults in a position of trust or that they can turn to would be really important to maybe making some change in this area.

Resources And Goodbye

SPEAKER_01 35:57

Chris, I want to thank you for the work you're doing, for sharing the story, for your courage, for your family's courage, especially Grace for coming to you when she did, and your older daughter as well. We're really fortunate to have you here at the conference. And we all benefit when parents like you speak up and take action. And I thank you for all of that and for talking with me today.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

Maria, thank you for inviting me and let me allow me to share her story.

SPEAKER_01 36:27

Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe. Learn more at conferencecaw.org and be the first to know about all conference details, as well as the latest on the Institute for Coordinated Community Response, Annual Conference Summit, Beyond the Bounds, and the National Training Center on Crimes Against Women. When you follow us on social media at NationalCCAW.