Edwardsville Man Charged With Child Porn, More After ‘Explicit’ Snapchat Conversations

EDWARDSVILLE – A series of “explicit” conversations with multiple minors on Snapchat have led to criminal charges against a man from Edwardsville.

Hunter H. Wells, 23, of Edwardsville, was charged on June 27, 2025 with one count of child pornography, a Class X felony, and two counts of sexual exploitation of a child, both Class A misdemeanors.

On Dec. 11, 2023, Wells allegedly used Snapchat to have explicit conversations – and in some cases, send explicit photos – to minors under the age of 18. Specifically, he is accused of soliciting a child “whom he believed to be 15 years of age” to appear nude in a Snapchat video, and exposing himself via Snapchat to minors he believed to be 15 and 14 years of age at the time.

The State’s Attorney’s petition to deny Wells’s pretrial release from custody details the investigation that led to his arrest.

“On March 11, 2024, the Moline, Illinois Police Department received a cybertip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) concerning an individual in their venue exploiting children via Snapchat,” the petition states. “Investigators with the Moline Police Department obtained a search warrant for Snapchat records which indicated that an individual was chatting with numerous children under the age of 17.”

Moline Police detectives determined the Internet Protocol [IP] address associated with these conversations was linked to Madison County. The Madison County Sheriff’s Department was notified of the investigation in April of 2025, when Madison County detectives reviewed records from the Moline Police and “discovered that the defendant was having numerous explicit conversations with juveniles females.”

Madison County detectives interviewed Wells on June 24, 2025, when he admitted to talking with females as young as 12 years old via Snapchat. Among other disturbing details, Wells reportedly told the victims to “keep it a secret.” A warranted search of Wells’s cell phone revealed evidence of him communicating with a 17-year-old juvenile as recently as June 5, 2025.

The Madison County Sheriff’s Department presented the case against, Wells, who was ordered remanded to jail until his initial appearance in court.

All individuals charged are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

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