Deviancy on the Dark Web: The Horrific Crimes of Child Predator Peter Gerard Scully
The Unspeakable Truth
This story, which recounts horrific crimes perpetrated on the most innocent among us, is ugly in every sense of the word. While distressing on too many levels to name, the events depicted occur more often than most of us would like to believe. Taking this unfortunate reality into consideration, it’s important that these barbaric acts be exposed along with the perpetrators who would undoubtedly prefer that their misdeeds remain hidden from the world.
The internet is an invaluable tool that allows us to have the world at our fingertips. Unfortunately, it also possesses a seedy underbelly where nothing is off limits. A virtual no man’s land, the dark web is a place where the worst atrocities the mind can conjure are there for the taking.
This online netherworld can only be accessed by using specialized software developed solely for that purpose or by trudging through a lengthy authorization process. Since the typical internet surfer has no desire to dive into the murk, the dark web is seldom explored by the casual user. This suits its purveyors just fine since they were never the target audience anyway.
Among the myriad of grotesque offerings available in this moral wasteland are videos featuring behaviors deemed unsuitable for the average netizen, which include — but are not limited to — illicit drug sales and depravity in all its forms. In other words, it is the seedy part of town one would normally go out of their way to avoid.
Parlors of horror are alleged to exist deep inside the belly of this online beast. These catacombs, known as “red rooms,” are sites that cater to a clientele whose tastes cannot be met by legal means. Accessing these areas is not easy, but it can be done, for a price.
Those wishing to enter this realm know that the process involves quite a bit of clandestine back and forth, usually by way of email where payment arrangements are made between providers and clients. The events that take place in these rooms are available on a strict pay-to-watch basis whereby users pay via credit card or bitcoin for the opportunity to observe unspeakable acts being performed upon, in most cases, unwilling participants.
Much like director Eli Roth’s 2005 film Hostel, the highest bidders can request that any number of tortures be inflicted upon men, women and even children as they watch. It has been alleged that those who visit red rooms, via their computers or phones, can observe humans and animals being sexually assaulted, if that is their sick proclivity. For example, if a patron wants to see someone get their nose broken, they might bid $100 to watch it happen.
The services provided on the dark web don’t come cheap. As with any enterprise, there are people behind the scenes who procure victims by any means necessary to keep their customers coming back. One of those providers was a shady businessman named Peter Gerard Scully.
The Puppet Master
Scully is a wealthy real estate developer who fled his native Australia in 2011 after learning that he was being investigated for fraudulent business practices. In an attempt to avoid prosecution, he settled in the Philippines. It would be in the poorest areas of his adopted homeland that he would prowl for victims to be used and discarded, all in the name of the almighty dollar.
Within a few months of his arrival, forty-eight-year-old Scully and his rag-tag band of associates allegedly put a plan in motion that they were confident would make them internet millionaires. However, unlike most content creators, they had no intention of working within the confines of the law. Putting their heads together, they decided that their best bet would be to set up shop on the dark web. Scully, a father of two who was also a suspected pedophile, knew exactly what audience to cater to if they hoped to achieve success.
Baiting the Hook
Scully’s closest allies in the venture were seventeen-year-old Carme Ann Alvarez and nineteen-year-old Liezyl Margallo, who authorities believe had initially been victims of his depravity before making the transition to accomplices. With their help, he devised a plan in which they would kidnap young girls right from under their parent’s noses under the guise of offering them a better life.
Since even the most impoverished family wasn’t willing to entrust their offspring to a middle-aged foreigner, Alvarez and Margallo were tasked with doing Scully’s dirty work. Wearing smiles that oozed sincerity, one or both of the women would approach desperate parents and promise to provide one of their children, usually the youngest daughter, with food, shelter and an education — something they would otherwise never be able to afford.
While not everyone fell for the ruse, a surprising number bought their lies hook, line and sinker. Believing that they were giving their children a chance for a brighter future, the unsuspecting parents would hand their daughters over to the seemingly kind-hearted saviors. None of them suspected that they had just made a deal with the devil.
Once Scully took possession of the child, he would waste no time subjecting her to tortures too horrible to name. Since these atrocities were intended to be shared with degenerates who would empty their bank accounts to act as voyeurs, he made sure to capture every moment of the assaults on film. Despite the alleged price tag of thousands of dollars per view, clients from all over the globe paid without hesitation to see a youngster being sexually brutalized.
Among other things, the victims, some of whom were found to have been less than two years of age, were subjected to being burned with hot wax and cigarette lighters. They were also slashed with various sharp implements, including pieces of barbed wire. These cruel acts occurred before, during and after the rapes that were carried out by Scully and his female minions. On some occasions, adult males would also take part in the attacks. Cowards at heart, the assailants would often hide their identities beneath masquerade masks in case the law ever caught wind of their activities.
Not all of the victims were strangers to the group. In one instance, Alvarez allegedly convinced her cousins, ages nine and twelve, to accompany her to Scully’s home. Once there, they were made to perform sexual acts while their host filmed the sickening scene. Afterwards, the pair were forced to wear dog collars and chains that were attached to the wall to keep them from escaping.
At some point during their ordeal, the girls were taken outside and told to dig their own graves. After five days of captivity, Alvarez took pity on her thoroughly traumatized relations and, unbeknownst to Scully, set them free.
After running for their lives, the girls ended up at a local police station where they shared the sordid details of their harrowing story with authorities. Alvarez was apprehended fairly quickly, but the same could not be said for Scully who had fled long before officers arrived.
When they searched Scully’s residence, investigators found a cache of videotapes that depicted unspeakable acts being inflicted upon children of all ages. One of them, labeled Daisy’s Destruction, would be described by all who viewed it as the vilest thing they had ever witnessed. After seeing evidence of the abuse perpetrated by Scully and his cohorts, authorities made tracking down the ringleader their number one priority.
Daisy’s Destruction, which was believed to have been filmed in 2012, depicted the sexual abuse and torture of three girls, the youngest of whom was an eighteen-month-old known only as Daisy. In all, seven individuals, including Scully and his girlfriends, were accused of participating in the assaults.
Two of the victims, Daisy and a twelve-year-old named Liza, somehow managed to survive their ordeal. The third girl, eleven-year-old Cindy, was not so fortunate. Her body would later be unearthed on a property that had been leased to Peter Scully.
With Alvarez’s help, investigators determined that Cindy had been strangled to death by Scully shortly after the completion of Daisy’s Destruction. She recalled that the murder was captured on video but couldn’t say what became of the footage. To date, it has not been recovered. To add to Cindy’s suffering, much like Alvarez’s young cousins, she had been handed a shovel and forced to dig her grave prior to resuming filming. Unfortunately, on this occasion, the victim was unable to escape her fate.
The Manhunt Comes to an End
As it turned out, Scully had remained in the Philippines while the manhunt was underway. In 2015, after several years on the lam, he was finally taken into custody and charged with the kidnapping and rape of Alvarez’s cousins. As the case against him gained traction, other offenses were added, including seventy-five counts of rape, torture and kidnapping involving the victims seen on the videotapes.
Eight months after his arrest, a mysterious fire ravaged the evidence room of the Hall of Justice. As a result, the computers, video cameras and memory cards that held proof of Scully’s complicity were destroyed. Some of those involved in his capture were vocal in their belief that the fire had been set deliberately, possibly by someone on the inside who was paid to make the case against Scully disappear.
Though hobbled by the unexpected setback, prosecutors were determined to forge ahead. Three long years later, Scully would finally have his day of reckoning. In 2018, he was convicted of human trafficking and rape and sentenced to life behind bars. Spectators who observed his behavior after the verdict was handed down claimed that he had smiled triumphantly as he was being led from the courtroom.
While the convictions were a promising start, the law was by no means finished with Scully, not by a long shot. It would take years, but prosecutors were committed to making certain that he would never harm another child.
In November of 2022, Peter Scully was found guilty on multiple counts of torture and rape, as well as the production and distribution of child pornography. By way of punishment, one hundred and twenty-nine years were added to his previous life sentence, effectively ensuring that when he does leave prison, it will be feet first. Remorseless to this day, he steadfastly refuses to take responsibility for his crimes or apologize to his victims and their families.
As for his accomplices, Alvarez, who had cooperated fully with investigators, received a life sentence. Liezyl Margallo, however, was an entirely different story.
Unlike her fellow victim turned perpetrator, Liezyl did everything in her power to avoid capture. After assuming a new identity, she vanished from police radar. For the next two years, she would reside in a luxury apartment that she later claimed was bought and paid for by her husband, a rich Frenchman who preferred to have his name kept out of the media spotlight. Apparently, while Alvarez sat staring at prison walls, Margallo was whiling away her time mingling with society’s upper class.
When Liezyl’s deception was uncovered, she traded her penthouse suite for a jail cell. Rather than being repentant, it has been alleged that she had continued to operate the red rooms during her time on the outside with Scully calling the shots, of course. If this was true, then it’s likely that instead of being supported by a rich spouse, her extravagant lifestyle was funded by deviants willing to pay to view children being victimized.
Although much of the evidence against her was lost in the fire, when the time came for Margallo to answer to the justice system, she was declared guilty as charged and ordered to spend life plus one hundred twenty-six years in custody. Like her mentor, she too will most likely die in prison.
Alexander Lao and Maria Durotiya Chia, who were bit players in this gut-churning game, were tried and convicted for their roles in the videotaped abuse. Both received nine-year sentences.
When all was said and done, fourteen of the victims whose images appeared on the videos and live streams produced by Scully have been identified. Though Daisy, who endured unimaginable treatment at the hands of her tormentors, made it out alive, the physical and emotional scars remain. These remnants act as permanent reminders of the horrors she was subjected to by the people who had promised her parents that she would be afforded the best life had to offer.
Daisy’s injuries were so severe that the repercussions will be felt for the remainder of her life. It has been reported that her internal organs were so badly damaged in the assaults that she will never be able to conceive or carry a child.
True to form, Scully has reportedly been a thorn in the side of prison staff from day one. A born complainer, he is said to constantly grouse about his treatment and lack of amenities. Accustomed to getting his own way, he has apparently been unable to assimilate to prison life. Needless to say, few tears have been shed on his behalf.
Though justice ultimately prevailed in this instance, that is not always the case. As disturbing as this story is, it pulls back the curtain on only a fraction of the malignancies that hide in the darkest recesses of the world we share — be it on the web or in our own backyards.
Resources:
·pna.gov.ph
·reddit.com
·Sydney Morning Herald
·dailymail.co.uk
·nypost.com
·nzherald.co.nz
·rappler.com
Images used under provisions of the Fair Use Act for purposes of reporting and education.