EVERETT — A Glacier Peak High School graduate sent a bomb threat and a stream of sexual messages to teachers at his former campus, exposed himself to at least three girls younger than age 16 in Snohomish County, and in between internet searches for child pornography, applied for dozens of gigs to babysit kids around Puget Sound, according to a 32-page police report filed in court Wednesday.
Sira Swope, 22, had enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in March 2017 to become a military police officer. Months later, in September 2017, he was discharged for reasons that aren’t made clear in the police reports.
Early in 2018, someone logged into sira.swope@gmail.com and uploaded two images of child pornography onto Instagram, and then a couple of weeks later, shared two similar files on Facebook, according to the report by the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office.
Neither case led to an arrest or charges, at the time.
On Snapchat, Swope was using the alias “sytheasianguy” in March 2018, when he told an Iowa girl, 13, that he was “a cop,” according to police reports.
“No your not,” she replied.
“Yes I am. Military Police,” wrote sytheasianguy.
He shared nude pictures with that girl, showing another middle school girl in Iowa whom he’d also met on Snapchat, according to chat logs. In at least one conversation on the social app, he reportedly claimed to be age 13, too, and then revealed, “I am actually 20 years old and I rape kids on purpose.”
He wrote that he’d sexually abused a 7-year-old child, according to the report.
Among files later seized from his Snapchat exchanges were 13 photos of young girls in sexual poses.
In September 2019, a girl in Marysville reported she’d been walking by a home on 82nd Street NE, when she saw a nude man fondling himself in a front window.
“Come here!” he shouted.
Officers spoke with Swope, who denied the allegation but acknowledged no other men lived at the address. The girl struggled to identify the suspect in a photo lineup, and the case remained open, with no arrest.
On Oct. 9, a teacher at Glacier Peak received an email that accused the teacher of being attracted to “us girls” in class.
A month later, another email arrived that began with three bomb emjois: “(bombs) @ Bus pull in and throughout the building/roofing in the early morning … before class and during B lunch. You’ve been warned. 100% real. -Miya 9th grade.”
Students were sent home, but bomb-sniffing dogs found no evidence of explosives. Earlier that morning, other staffers received a rapid-fire series of explicit emails from a different email address. Both emails contained sexual references within the addresses themselves. Search warrants later revealed the emails were linked to Swope. One account used sira.swope.gmail.com as a recovery address. The other was tied to a phone number Swope gave to Marysville police.
Snohomish County sheriff’s detectives dug through old police reports and found another Glacier Peak High School student accused Swope of harassment and inappropriate touching in 2015. The girl reported he sent an unwanted sexual picture — and later told a counselor she felt uncomfortable when she was placed in the same class with him — but she didn’t wish to pursue charges.
By November 2019, Swope had moved to 51st Street SE southeast of Everett. A girl, 14, told her mother that she’d seen a man exposing himself to her as she walked to the bus stop in the neighborhood. The mother went by the home with the girl, and they both saw the naked man touching himself.
Sheriff’s deputies contacted Swope, who again denied the allegation but reported no other men lived at the address. This time, he was briefly booked into jail.
Detectives obtained warrants to search data from two more Google accounts connected to Swope — uncovering a massive trove of child pornography; numerous map searches for parks and local elementary, middle and high schools; and page after page listing queries for sexually deviant content.
Police documented many searches that were explicit, while many others appeared to be highly concerning in context: “Texas legal age of consent,” “is it illegal to strip naked in public,” “how long does it take for a girl to get drunk,” and “average weight for a 5’3 female 14.”
Major Crimes detectives also documented at least 26 email chains over six months about potential babysitting gigs on Care.com, in Bellevue, Bothell, Everett, Lake Stevens, Marysville, Renton, Snohomish and Woodinville.
“Wonderful. They are 2 & 3 years old,” one user replied.
“It would be just our son, he’s 7,” another wrote.
“Sira, do you have any experience with newborns?”
Even after his indecent exposure arrest, he continued to receive replies from parents in need of a sitter or nanny, according to the police reports.
In applications for at least three jobs not related to child care, he cut off the conversation by sending child pornography or nude pictures of himself, according to the report.
“Hey, its Sira, I found a better job,” he reportedly replied to a recruiter in September, with a photo of his genitals.
Swope was taken into custody Tuesday during a traffic stop in the 6200 block of Broadway. Deputies served a search warrant at his home between Everett and Mill Creek.
Everett District Court Judge Tam Bui found probable cause Wednesday to hold Swope in jail for investigation of making a bomb threat, cyberstalking and multiple counts of possessing child pornography. Bui set bail at $1 million.
In a police interview that lasted almost three hours, Swope reportedly admitted to inappropriate chats with the two Iowa girls; exposing himself at the Marysville home; sending the bomb threat and lewd emails to Glacier Peak staff; exposing himself to the girl at the home south of Everett; exposing himself to the same girl south of Everett in January; sending a Monroe girl, 15, a sexual picture; and using the internet to seek out and collect child porn. He also reported to detectives that they had only found a fraction of the evidence.
Detectives are trying to determine how many children Swope chatted with online.
Tips can be directed to the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office at 425-388-3845. Or dial 911.
Caleb Hutton: 425-339-3454; chutton@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @snocaleb.
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