"He was contacting them on their cell phones. He was contacting them on the Internet, disguising himself as another child," West Milford Detective John Presenti said.
But Wares was no friend. The 40-year-old Wares was convicted 3 times:
First in 2004, he was convicted for using false profiles sending bestiality videos to adolescents.
In 2010, Wares was convicted for using making Internet threats to rape and murder women.
In 2011, the Warwick man plead guilty to using the handle dogsex845 and sending videos of himself engaged in bestiality to a 14 year old girl in Ulster County. There was a warrant out for his arrest on this charge when he disappeared.
"He's a very dangerous individual," Presenti said.
West Milford police working with the Passaic County Sheriff's Office and the New Jersey Internet Task Force tracked the fugitive down after the father of a middle schooler came to them with explicit photos and messages. They were allegedly sent to his daughter and several other girls from Wares on Facebook.
"He would call them and provoke them into doing certain things," Presenti said.
The predator was hiding out in the woods in Smith Clove State Park in Monroe, but detective say he was still actively contacting the teens to meet up with him.
"He was living in a tent. They found a backpack with handcuffs, duct tape and rope, and a list of student names from our school system," Presenti said. "We tend to be too busy in our daily routines to check our kids' computers, but we have to."
Wares plead not guilty to the charges of sexual assault, luring, endangering the welfare of a child, promoting obscene material, using a juvenile to commit a crime, stalking and terroristic threats.
Bail was set at $750,000.