On or about May 6, 2025, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) executed a warrant for the seizure of a cellular phone belonging to Gavin Michael Heaslip [DOB REDACTED], hereafter Defendant. The DNR obtained the warrant pursuant to reports of alleged game violations. The warrant to seize Defendant’s phone was signed by the Honorable Judge Lukasavitz. Defendant’s phone was seized on May 6, 2025, at his mother’s residence in Carlton County, Minnesota. Defendant was over 18 years of age at the time his phone was seized.
On May 16, 2025, DNR Conservation Officer Wehr met with DNR Special Investigator (SI) Peterson in St. Paul, Minnesota, to execute a search warrant for Defendant’s phone that had been signed by the Honorable Judge Yang of Ramsey County. The phone to be searched was described as a blue iPhone 13 with the IMEI‐2 #354739183158216, two camera lenses and a black case. SI Peterson performed a data extraction of the above‐ described phone using Magnet Forensics’ Greykey, which is a mobile forensics tool used for accessing data contained on mobile devices.
While analyzing the extracted data that corresponded to the warrant range of August 14, 2024, to December 26, 2024, SI Peterson discovered images and videos which appeared to depict nude pre‐pubescent females in the range of 8 to 12 years old. The observed images depicted sex acts between prepubescent girls and adult men and women. Upon discovering the suspected child sexual abuse material (CSAM), SI Peterson notified the Carlton County Sheriff’s Office. On June 11, 2025, SI Peterson met with Carlton County Sheriff’s Office Investigator Cawcutt and Investigative Specialist Parenteau.
SI Peterson turned over custody of the extracted iPhone and a Verbatim brand flash drive containing data from the extracted iPhone. Further investigation was turned over to the Carlton County Sheriff's Office at that time. A search warrant for the data contained on the Verbatim flash drive was signed by the Honorable Judge Lukasavitz on June 13, 2025. The search warrant was executed by Investigative Specialist Parenteau on June 16, 2025. The data contained on the flash drive was processed using Cellebrite Inseyets Physical Analyzer.
The analysis identified the extraction to be from an iPhone 13 running an IOS (iPhone Operating System) of 18.4.1. There were two Apple IDs associated with this phone, gavinh100@icloud.com and gavinh300@icloud.com. The last cloud backup date was on 9/4/2022 at 10:42:52 PM (UTC‐5). The phone has a Mobile Station International Subscriber Directory Number (MSISDN) of 12183917666. This is commonly known as the subscriber’s phone number. Investigative Specialist Parenteau analyzed the data, focusing on images and videos.
Among the data were 406 images of suspected CSAM and 11 videos of suspected CSAM. The hash values of the 406 images and 11 videos were submitted to the Nation Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s (NCMEC) Law Enforcement Services Portal (LESP). A hash value is a very unique alpha numeric value assigned to a specific image. Of the 406 image and 11 video hash values submitted to NCMEC LESP, 90 were associated with images depicting children previously identified by enforcement and two were associated with a video that depicted at least one child that had been previously identified by law enforcement.