TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

Authorities believe they have cracked a case involving the horrific sexual assault of an 11-month-old boy in a Bakersfield hotel room by piecing together a long string of evidence found on a videotape of the assault.

The case has many unusual aspects: The attack happened more than two years ago, the infant's parents didn't know he had been assaulted, the key piece of evidence surfaced 3,000 miles away and the suspect was arrested in Colorado.

But perhaps most remarkable was how a painstaking examination of the evidence on video images led authorities to the Bakersfield hotel.

The trail to the suspect was obtained by multiple law enforcement agencies, including the Bakersfield Police Department, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and the Colorado Springs Police Department.

No one else knew it at the time, but authorities now say the attack took place on March 28, 2009, in the California Best Inn on Wible Road.

The suspect is Shawn Joseph McCormack, of Colorado. He is in federal custody on suspicion of sexual exploitation of a child, according to a criminal complaint filed this week in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.

He will be brought to California to face these charges.

The parents of the infant knew McCormack, but the exact nature of the relationship is unclear. Apparently the couple, who have not been identified, occasionally let McCormack stay at their residence.

There had been an earlier incident, which only recently became known to authorities outside of Bakersfield.

On Nov. 6, 2009, almost five months before the abuse now coming to light, McCormack had been staying in Bakersfield with the couple.

Late at night, after returning home from work, the father checked the boy's room and saw he wasn't there. The couple called Bakersfield police.

BPD reports indicate that McCormack returned to the residence carrying the boy, who was dressed only in a diaper, the complaint says. He told Bakersfield police that the boy had woken up and McCormack decided to take him with him when he went out to get a drink.

McCormack was arrested on misdemeanor child endangerment charges. However, it was not immediately clear on Tuesday how that case was resolved.

No one knew it at the time but the first break in the investigation came more than a year later, on Nov. 10, 2010, when a man in Massachusetts was arrested on child pornography charges.

The federal complaint, filed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, says the man, Robert Diduca, had received a series of images and videos online. Among them: images of an infant being sexually abused.

Officials began a detailed scrutiny of the images.

THE TV PROGRAMS: In the background of one of the videos, an episode of the show "Family Matters" is heard and seen playing on the hotel television, the complaint says.

A Pepperidge Farms "chocolate" ad plays at the commercial break.

Officials decided to find out when that episode and that commercial had been on the air.

They subpoenaed Viacom, the cable television service, and Pepperidge Farms for the dates the episode and commercial aired, according to the complaint. They learned that the commercial had aired in conjunction with the episode on March 28, 2009.

THE FURNITURE: Detectives then noticed the furniture in the room. It was determined to have been manufactured by Gloria Trade International, a company whose pieces were seen in the video. The company was subpoenaed for a list of all customers to whom it sold that particular furniture, the complaint says. Last Sept. 9, a Friday, analysts discovered that the California Best Inn on Wible Road in Bakersfield had purchased several pieces of furniture that matched the furniture in the video.

THE BATHROOM: In addition, forensic comparison found that swirl patterns of the granite on the bathroom's vanity matched the patterns of the vanity seen in enhanced images of the video.

THE ROOM RECORDS: Then the inn's owners, in response to yet another subpoena, provided a list of all customers on the date the assault happened.

The complaint says a paper receipt and room roster showed McCormack had stayed in room 221 on March 28, 2009.

For the first time, authorities had a name to connect to the molestation.

But who was Shawn Joseph McCormack, and where was he?

A database check quickly turned up the earlier Bakersfield arrest -- and the name of the couple who had called police in November 2009.

Last week, the federal complaint says, Bakersfield detectives and an ICE agent contacted the mother and showed her images of the boy from the hotel video. She identified the child as her son.

McCormack had already been taken into custody on July 7, an arrest stemming from a separate investigation that began June 5, 2010, when a person later identified as McCormack sent a friend request on a file-sharing system to an undercover officer.

McCormack, using the screen name "toddlers," sent files containing child pornography to the undercover officer, the complaint says. He also had online chats with the officer, and McCormack told the officer that he sometimes takes his friend's child to a hotel late at night.

Agents issued a summons to telecommunications carrier Qwest Communications for the IP address of "toddlers," the complaint says. The address was McCormack's.

That information allowed agents to conduct a forensic review of McCormack's computer, which was seized at his Colorado home.

The examination found 4,000 images and 365 videos of suspected child pornography, the complaint says.

Agents also found several of the videos and images that only recently were linked to the Bakersfield hotel assault, the complaint says.

On Sept. 14, McCormack, whom Colorado authorities didn't know was suspected in the Bakersfield crime, had been released from state custody, according to the complaint.

A warrant was issued Sept. 16 for his arrest in connection with the Bakersfield offenses. He was again taken into custody.

McCormack will be brought to Fresno for future hearings, said Lauren Horwood, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office. The timing wasn't clear.