An alleged serial child molester is behind bars after the Rockwall Police Department arrested a man they say may have been molesting children dating back to the 1980s.
Police arrested 64-year-old William Bynum at a storage shed in the 100 block of Gumbo Drive in Rockwall, where he was living and where they believe he regularly sexually assaulted numerous children.
According to police records, Bynum was initially arrested on March 3 and again on March 10, when additional charges were added.
“As we were talking to this victim, we realized that the suspect had access to other potential victims and started working through that,” said Lieutenant Aaron McGrew of the Rockwall Police Department, speaking to The Dallas Express.
“One thing led to another and as we dug deeper into the investigation, we had reason to believe that he had offenses dating back as early as the 1980s, and so we’ve kind of worked through all the victims that we’ve identified through our own investigation and so now we are working to identify anybody that has not yet been identified you know that may have been a victim of his,” said McGrew.
According to police, there may be more victims in the other cities that Bynum has lived in — Quinlan and Channelview, Texas; Birmingham, Alabama; and Lawton, Oklahoma.
McGrew told The Dallas Express that Bynum’s alleged victims included toddlers.
“All the victims that we’ve identified, even the historical victims were all children when the offense occurred and there’s not a specific age range that he targeted,” said McGrew.
“It was anywhere from very, very young, like fresh out of diapers, toddler age, all the way up to mid-teenager age, and so we are definitely confident in saying that he’s a habitual offender.”
Concerned member of the Rockwall community Dawn Rachel Floran, a counselor and therapist, told The Dallas Express that she found the revelation of alleged abuse unsettling.
“This is indeed disturbing and why it is so necessary that we pay attention to who our children are around and pay attention to our children’s behaviors and what they are saying,” Floran said.
“There are too many times where children are being molested simply because we’re just trusting the wrong people.”
Floran owns Lake Ray Hubbard Counseling in Rockwall and is a licensed professional counselor, a mental health counselor, and a psychotherapist.
Bynum is currently being held in the Rockwall County Jail on two counts of display of harmful material to a minor, three counts of indecency with a child, and six counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child.
His bond has been set at $1,125,000.
Anyone with information related to Bynum’s alleged actions is encouraged to contact the Rockwall Police Department at 972-771-7721.
Just west of Rockwall, in the city of Dallas, sex crimes are a continuing problem. The City’s crime analytics dashboard has recorded 191 sex crimes so far this year.
While the dashboard does not list sex crimes against children as its own category, the Victim Demographic page shows that 113 of those 191 reported sex crimes — nearly 60% — were perpetrated against children between the ages of 3 to 17.
