Images of kids brings arrest

Former worker for studio charged

DURHAM -- Police charged a 63-year-old man on Tuesday with 200 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor after confiscating computer equipment and hard drives from the man's home.

Bruce Eckard of Wildwood Drive was arrested and booked into the Durham County jail with bail set at $1 million. He is accused of possessing 200 images of children from 4 to 14 in sexually exploitative poses, according to the arrest warrant.

Eckard is a former employee of Strawbridge Studios, an 85-year-old Durham-based company that takes school photos in many systems across the Southeast.

"Investigators have no reason to believe that any of this has to do with his employment with Strawbridge," said Kammie Michael, police spokeswoman.

Ken Strawbridge, head of the company, said Eckard worked in the processing plant in the yearbook division and never went to schools to take photographs or to work with the photographers.

"I can say that with 100 percent confidence that was never in the formula," Strawbridge said Tuesday after the arrest.

Eckard began working with Strawbridge in 1999 after moving here from Ohio, Strawbridge said. His employment ended nearly a month ago, he said, after police began an investigation into the allegations. Investigators executed a search warrant at Eckard's Durham home Sept. 23, seizing the computers, hard drives and related equipment.

"Strawbridge Studios has cooperated 100 percent," Strawbridge said. "Investigators came in and went through all of our servers and everything and found absolutely nothing. I've got to take it a bit personal. We're a fourth-generation family-run business, and of all the memories that we've preserved a guy can come along and ruin it."

Strawbridge, whose company has had contracts with Durham, Wake and Orange schools over the years, said his company runs background checks on photographers and other workers who go into the schools.

"We understand we're going to be working with people's children," he said, "and that's not to be taken lightly."

It was unclear whether Eckard had a lawyer.