ORANGE PARK – They hear and see things nobody with any sense of compassion or decency should ever know. They know of humans who operate at the most inhumane level. 

They see depravity at its lowest common denominator. They can’t erase the anguish, pain or despair on a child’s face after years of sexual abuse and indifference at the hands of an adult monster. 

It’s difficult, if not impossible, to compartmentalize their work from private life, especially when your job is to deal with children who’ve been sold as disposable sex slaves or used as personal sexual toys by parents or trusted adults. 

“After all, we are human,” said Clay County Sheriff’s Office Det. Ryan Ellis. “But when you rescue just one child, it’s all worth it.” 

Ellis and Det. Eva Solis are part of the sheriff’s office’s Internet Crimes Against Children and Human Trafficking Units. They work on child sexual crimes that are either sent or downloaded by two-way communication devices, or when a child is bought and sold like property for the sex industry. 

It’s a daunting responsibility because the work is overwhelming. Child predators live among us. And most often, they are unassuming. Chances are you talked to or walked past one today without knowing. 

Ellis and Solis scour internet providers, devices and IP addresses for clues that might help them identify the pedophiles or victims after an image has been found online. It’s an arduous task that requires hours, if not weeks, of searching and legal wrangling. Every dead end restarts the process; every successful lead renews the hope of finding justice and rescuing a child.

“I can tell you that just in Clay County alone, we receive upwards of 500 to 600 tips from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children yearly,” Ellis said. “And that does not account for the proactive work that we do. That doesn't account for other investigative methods. It also doesn't account for what we call patrol transferred cases, where a mom or a dad might come across something, or a guardian might come across something on a child's computer. They call patrol, and they come out and send us the report.” 

Two years ago, the NCMEC said it captured more than 35 million reports of online child exploitation in the United States. That’s nearly 13 times greater than the number of people who were murdered, burglarized and assaulted in the nation ... combined. 

Ellis has been an investigator with Clay County since 2010. He was asked to move into the Special Victims Unit in 2011 to focus on Crimes Against Children, and he’s been there since. 

“I had a supervisor at the time talk me into it, and I'm glad he did,” he said. “It's really been the only thing that I've done ever since. I stumbled into it. Then I found Crimes Against Children is my home and my passion.” 

Solis, who doesn’t allow her image to be shared, had a more unsettled path to her role within the unit.  

She was a detective who moved into the SVU unit. Within a month, she had seen the levels of mankind’s callousness and savagery that often caused her to “spend a lot of time crying in parking lots and breaking out in hives, head to toes.” 

She transferred to the Explorers Unit, an assignment she called “a lane of sunshine, rainbows and unicorns” compared to what she witnessed in SVU. 

When she was asked to return to SVU, she was ready for the challenge. Moreover, “I was significantly more mentally prepared to be able to deal with ICAC stuff,” she said. “I knew it was kind of a monster. I knew there was a lot in it. I knew the reports were long, and there were a lot of cyber tips and just a lot of work, but I was ready for it.” 

Together, Solis and Ellis are a relentless tandem against the people who prey on children. They worked a case in May 2024 after a man rented a storage unit in Middleburg. He found materials left behind by the former tenant, including a thumb drive, which he later realized contained pornographic images of children having sex. 

Since he lived in nearby Baker County, he turned the drive over to that sheriff’s office. Baker County officials turned it over to Ellis and Solis, who immediately began putting the pieces together, which eventually led them to two suspects living in another county. 

After they were arrested, their work rescued one child, uncovered seven identified victims, three other victims whose identities were pending and more than two million images and videos of child exploitation and abuse. 

For their work, the Florida Sheriff’s Association recognized both as their Law Enforcement Officers of the Year for 2025. 

“We don't do any of this for the attention. We do this for the kids,” Solis said. “Awards are nice, but life continues. It goes on. We just got to try to save one more, move on and save one more. Try to keep it manageable. If we think of the tiny tip of the iceberg that we've uncovered, you'll start freaking out. You just got to chip away at it.” 

Ellis said if there are smartphones, computers and the internet, he and his partner will be working against the odds. For every case they crack, another 20 deviants will be downloading files without any compunction that they can destroy a child’s life. 

“The greatest risk facing children today is the internet, hands down,” he said. “You take childhood diabetes and obesity, gun crimes; it pales in comparison to the number of children that are exploited online. Just the sheer volume of child exploitation and child sex crimes that occur is probably the most significant threat, I think, facing children. 

“I try not to always be doom and gloom, right? It's reality. You can't stick your head in the sand and ignore it.” 

In Clay County, it’s not ignored. It’s become a priority with Sheriff Michelle Cook spearheading the creation of the Northeast Florida INTERCEPT Task Force, which is comprised of the Clay, St. Johns, Jacksonville, Nassau and Putnam county sheriff’s offices, Homeland Security Investigations-Jacksonville, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. 

“Every county has a different perspective or a different approach to how they investigate them,” Ellis said. “I can tell you that here, we investigate every tip that comes in, no matter what. I think we do a very, very thorough job in investigating these. We take a victim-centered approach to these. We also have the mindset, and we understand that these are not just pictures; these are real children.” 

And each picture creates another harrowing memory. And another chance to make a difference.