COLLINSVILLE – Recently filed court documents reveal disturbing new details of a child pornography case out of Collinsville.
Layne A. Willhite was charged on March 19, 2025 with six counts of child pornography, each Class X felonies. From July 1 to August 31, 2024, he allegedly asked underage children to send him sexually explicit videos, which he received via social media platforms. Victims ranged from 14 to 16 years of age.
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A petition to deny Willhite’s pretrial release adds further context into the investigation that lead to his arrest, which began after the Collinsville Police Department was forwarded a National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) CyberTip from the Madison County Sheriff’s Office.
“Subsequently, search warrants were issued to ‘X’ (formerly known as Twitter), Spectrum, AT&T, and Google,” the petition states. Those warrants yielded information linking Willhite with the emails and IP addresses mentioned in the CyberTip.
“Several devices were seized” after a search warrant was executed at Willhite’s residence on March 18, 2025. Willhite was arrested and made several disturbing admissions during a subsequent interview.
“The Defendant is arrested, mirandized, and interviewed and makes the following admissions: that the target accounts belonged to him, knowing that the children he talks to are underage, requesting nude images and videos of underage individuals, talking to children as young as 12 years old, knowing that it is wrong to be having these conversations, pretending to be a woman online so that he gets more conversations and videos,” the petition continues.
A forensic analysis of the devices seized from Willhite’s residence revealed evidence of the conversations he had with various children as described above.
Willhite has waived his right to a detention hearing, submitting to pretrial detention. His case was presented by the Collinsville Police Department, and he currently remains in custody at the Madison County Jail.
All individuals charged are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
