Eleven law enforcement agencies across the state are questioning more than 30 people who supplied phone numbers to Terrance David Nordwall, 34, of Faribault, a man accused of meeting at least three teenage victims in online chat rooms and eventually sexually assaulting them.

According to a criminal complaint, he has admitted to establishing relationships with young girls over the Internet and having sex with them. He is currently facing felony charges in two counties.

Investigators say that Nordwall is one of a startling new breed of sexual predators called Internet travelers, people who use the Internet to procure victims outside of their community. Much like other sexual predators, they find vunerable people and gain their trust. They distinguish themselves by using the Internet to find, manipulate and deceive victims. Often predators use the profiles that victims supply in online chatrooms to size up potential victims.

&uot;It’s so easy to prey upon your victims once you find out who they are and what their interests are. (Predators) can be whoever the victims want them to be,&uot; said Investigator Dan Silkey with the Rice County Sheriff’s department, who investigated Nordwall in the cases where he’s been charged. He explained Nordwall’s approach like this: &uot;He finds out about the victims, is very nice to them, comes across as a nice young man, comes across as fun guy to date, and they’re attracted to him.&uot;

Silkey said the victims were embarrassed because they put themselves into situations most people consider dangerous. &uot;They made a mistake as we all do.&uot; He said embarrassment is one reason many victims never come forward.

In two of the cases that involved 17-year-olds in Albert Lea, Nordwall allegedly met the girls in Internet chatrooms and learned their interests from profiles they provided, Silkey said. In one case Nordwall supplied a picture of a handsome young man, saying it was him. The girls, in separate instances met with him, realized he had lied to them and still spent time with him. One went to a haunted house and a movie before driving to a isolated location where she was allegedly raped. The other invited him into her house where, she says, he fondled her.

Silkey was tipped off to the crimes after searching Nordwall’s home in Faribault and got more than 30 leads on other girls who may have been victims. The search resulted from a 2002 case for which Nordwall has been charged. In it, Nordwall allegedly contacted a 15-year-old girl online and eventually met her and supplied her with alcohol before sexually assaulting her. It came to the attention of law enforcement after Nordwall called the victim at home and mistook her mother for the victim, according to the criminal complaint. The victim’s mother contacted authorities.

Commander Michael Moorhead of the Minnesota Internet Crimes Against Children in St. Paul said generally victims are insecure, have low self-esteem or are rebellious. Predators sympathize and gradually gain the victim’s trust, using more and more personal forms of communication. Moorhead said meetings often start out in public chatrooms, then private ones, then e-mail, then telephone and sometimes face-to-face meetings. Moorhead said the question is what happens when they meet. He said often the victims are raped; sometimes they disappear or are murdered. And the parents haven’t got a clue what happened. Often the rapes go unreported.

At some point, he said, the predator will admit that he lied about his age, but the victims are already so emotionally invested that they forgive him, he said.

Moorhead said that while pedophiles used to hang out near schools, it’s now common for them to search the seemingly unlimited supply of possible victims online.

A study funded by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children found that of children ages 10 to 17, 20 percent had received a solicitation for sex on the Internet.

Moorhead said it’s important for parents to be involved in a child’s life and be aware of what their child is doing on the Internet. He recommended that parents become more computer literate to better understand the threats waiting online. He also warned against giving out specific information on the Internet.