‘Undercover Underage’ Season 2: Roo Powell’s Team Tracks Down Even More ‘Shocking’ Child Predator Cases (Exclusive)

Roo Powell and the SOSA team are back to bust more child predators in a new season of Undercover Underage. Prior to the Monday, May 1 return of the ID show, Powell opened up to PopCulture.com about the “shocking” new cases she and her team at the nonprofit Safe from Online Sex Abuse take on in Season 2, which have led so far to the arrest of 16 alleged child predators and conviction of five.

Relocating to embed with the sheriff’s office in Canadian County, Oklahoma in Season 2 of Undercover Underage, the SOSA team launches fictitious online accounts for a 15, 14, and even a 12-year-old persona using new decoy actors to try and identify the ACMs (adults contacting minors) and build a case against the alleged predators before perpetrators can victimize real children. 

“Season 2 is wild. It is wild,” Powell told PopCulture ahead of the premiere. “If people thought Season 1 was shocking in some way, Season 2 is that much more.” The SOSA team had to deal with a “very, very sophisticated predator” this season, who Powell explained was a man attempting to meet up with the 12-year-old decoy profile who was “very, very careful” and very difficult to track down. 

“He was after our 12-year-old – drove down to meet with a 12-year-old at 11 o’clock at night,” she revealed. “He had a stuffed animal in the front seat for her, and he was arrested. And it turns out he’s got a 12-year-old daughter of his own. And he and his wife are foster parents.” Powell said each detail of the case was “worse than the thing before,” but will hopefully open people’s eyes to the fact that predators can appear to be a “nice normal-looking family guy” on the outside – which is a “hard pill to swallow.”

“The stories are told in a way that is respectful, but also informative,” Powell continued. “…I think there’s going to be a lot more gratification for folks [in Season 2] because you do see a lot of arrests [being] made.” Powell hopes everyone is watching Undercover Underage – and she does mean everyone. “A lot of people will ask me, ‘Aren’t you afraid predators are watching?’ And my response is always, ‘No, I hope they are.’”

She continued, “Maybe they’re saying, ‘Oh, wow, I can definitely see myself in this show, and I realize that I have this proclivity towards hurting children that I want to make sure I don’t do that.’ Or, ‘Oh, gosh, I really don’t want to go to jail.’ Or, ‘Oh, man, what if the 14-year-old girl I’m talking to is actually like a 50-year-old detective?’ Whatever the reason is, it doesn’t even have to be noble. I do hope that it does warn predators to either get help or stop what they’re doing or remind them that jail time is very, very real.” For more information on SOSA – a 501(c)(3) nonprofit – check out sosatogether.org. Season 2 of Undercover Underage premieres on Monday, May 1 at 9 p.m. ET on ID, streaming the same day on discovery+.