UPDATE 10/17/23: Rhoden’s next court appearance on state charges is for a criminal setting on December 5.
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – The investigation into a former Walmart worker charged with sex crimes against children is ongoing.
“I can tell you is it’s a very serious case, obviously, based on the nature of the offense, the length of time that it was ongoing, a period of approximately ten years.” Greene County Prosecutor Dan Patterson said. “The defendant is currently being held without bond in the Greene County jail.”
According to police, Craig Rhoden had taken explicit photos of children while he was working at a Springfield Walmart.
“All child pornography cases are disturbing. This is certainly one where there are many, many images.” Patterson said. “When you read the description of the types of images, it’s certainly upsetting. Within the realm of child pornography. However, the kinds of things we’re seeing here, unfortunately, are not that unusual.”
Ozarksfirst.com reached out to Walmart for a response.
The retail giant says, “This person no longer works for us and we refer all other questions to the police report.”
Rhoden’s activity was reported as early as 2021 by Dropbox and then in 2022 by Yahoo!.
Some of the photos shared through accounts included children as young as a few days old.
“The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has a cyber tip line and electronic service providers, in this case, Yahoo! and Dropbox look at their sites and if they identify potential child pornography, they voluntarily report that to that cyber hotline,” Patterson said. “That cyber hotline takes those tips and transmits it to law enforcement so they can conduct an investigation.”
According to police, Rhoden uploaded photos to a Russian website, commonly known for sharing inappropriate child images.
“There’s certainly the opportunity for an investigation in, generally speaking, for these kinds of investigations to lead to more investigations,” Patterson said.
Patterson says Rhoden could possibly face more charges.
