On April 10, police uncovered a nightmare inside a Pooler home computer.
Ten days later, it got worse.
A man under investigation for being a child predator killed himself before police could discover how many young girls he victimized.
“I’m angry he killed himself in jail,” said Sgt. John Schmitt, the Pooler police detective leading the investigation. “I really wanted him to stand before his victims and a judge.”
But Matthew J. Coniglio’s death hasn’t ended the ongoing investigation by local, state and federal agencies.
It began as a collaborative effort between Pooler police, the Internet Crimes Against Children task force, the FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, said Pooler Police Chief Mark Revenew.
Officers had targeted Coniglio a few weeks before his April 10 arrest.
“We came across him monitoring Internet traffic for uploading and downloading child pornography,” Schmitt said.
In looking through several computers and jump drives seized from Coniglio’s home after the execution of a search warrant on April 10, investigators found evidence of even more crimes.
“We have discovered evidence that led us to believe he was sexually assaulting young females,” Schmitt said.
The detective said Thursday he believes Coniglio assaulted more than 10 young women, but investigators haven’t finished processing evidence.
“He was photographing and recording it,” Revenew said.
At this time, none of the victims are believed to have been from Chatham County, police said.
Coniglio, 46, who initially was arrested on charges of computer child exploitation, killed himself overnight April 20 in the Chatham County jail, police said.
His body was found in his cell about 10:48 p.m., and his death is being investigated by the GBI, said Gena Bilbo, spokeswoman for the Chatham County Sheriff’s Office. Initial jail internal reports indicated suicide, she said.
Schmitt said Coniglio had lived in Pooler about seven months. He lived in Savannah several years ago but had moved from city to city across the South working in food sales.
Coniglio had lived in Raleigh, N.C., Kingwood, Texas, and a few locations in South Carolina, including Charleston, North Charleston and Hilton Head Island, Schmitt said.
Prior to his April 10 arrest, Coniglio had only faced minor traffic offenses, police said.
Based on the evidence, Coniglio could have been assaulting girls for some time, police said.
“I’d say he’s been doing this since the early 2000s,” Schmitt said.
Now, investigators are trying to identify victims of the assaults.
“We feel like there may be a couple victims in Charleston and Hilton Head based on some evidence we found. However, we have not identified them yet,” Schmitt said. “We’re still working on that.”
Pooler police say they are working with the FBI and the local U.S. Attorney’s Office to set up a hotline and website so victims or people with information on the case can easily contact investigators.
The police chief said Coniglio’s death in no way closes the investigation.
“I think these people need to be identified so we can refer them to the proper agencies that will provide them with help,” Revenew said. “Obviously we don’t know the age of these young women and children. There could be a child out there trying to cope with this trauma.”
So far, he said, nothing indicates crimes connected to Coniglio — other than exchanging child pornography via his computer — took place in Chatham County.
“That’s the importance of us maintaining a presence on the Internet,” Revenew said. “Who knows what his intentions were in Pooler? Hopefully we stopped him before he found more victims.”
Schmitt said people interviewed in Pooler did not know Coniglio. The man’s family, he said, seemed to be unaware of the crimes in which he was allegedly involved.
Investigators, from local to federal, are still sorting through evidence and say they probably will be for a few more weeks.
“These cases are hard for people to work, but somebody’s got to work them,” Schmitt said.
As police discover more, they plan to share their findings with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
“We’ll pursue every lead in this thing until we can provide a voice for these victims,” Revenew said.
HELP OUT
Anyone with information on the case is asked to call their local police department or Pooler police at 912-748-7333.