Brentwood man charged with unlawful photography after discovery of secretive, explicit photos of his sister-in-law

Content warning: This article contains descriptions of graphic sexual content that may disturb some readers.

A Brentwood man is facing criminal charges after his wife discovered upskirt photos of her twin sister, but the sisters are now questioning if the justice system is failing them and other potential victims.

Liz and Will Cotten first met at Lipscomb University and began dating in 2007. The couple were married in 2010 before separating in May 2020.

Liz told The News that she wasn’t receiving documents such as financial and communication records from her husband that she requested through the court as part of the divorce proceedings, adding that something just didn’t seem right.

That summer she booted up Will’s old work computer, which had been left in their Brentwood home after he left, where she found “concerning” internet search history for pornography and fetishes such as “teen,” something she said that she wasn’t aware that her husband viewed.

Liz and her twin sister Kate McClinton both said they were a little naive about the world of pornography, and while the searches raised flags for them, it was an audio recording and a missing folder they found particularly concerning.

That recording, they said, was of Liz and their child driving in the family’s vehicle, unaware that they were being recorded. They said that more recordings were discovered.

The sisters said that the computer also had a folder titled “upskirt” listed in the recent activity, but that they couldn’t access the folder, suspecting that it may have been deleted or contained on a hard drive that they said Cotten took with him.

In summer 2021, they took the computer to a private technology company, which analyzed and copied the contents of the laptop onto a thumb drive.

What they found revealed a new side of the husband and brother-in-law they thought they knew. Among the recovered data were explicit images they said they didn’t know existed.

Some of the recovered images had been secretly shot under Kate’s skirts revealing underwear, others showing Liz nude -- all taken without consent -- mixed in with photos of the Cotten’s child bathing, an audio recording from his nephew's bedroom, as well as photos of Kate in childbirth.

“He stole my son's childbirth pictures and videos of my son fully exposed -- of me fully exposed,” Kate told The News. “He was secretly storing these on devices and he has admitted in court to using these for sexual gratification.”  

“I can't even begin to tell you how devastating that has been for me that he would take something so precious and special and innocent, the birth of my first child, and twist it into something so perverted.”

When the sisters found out the extent of the contents recovered in August 2021, they took the information to the Brentwood Police Department, who then performed their own digital forensic investigation.

But while 345 previously hidden and deleted images were recovered and analyzed by police, only two photos had complete metadata information, including GPS coordinates and timestamps, while other explicit content had less recoverable information.

This lack of data meant that although the sisters could see the images of instances where their privacy had seemingly been invaded, Cotten was only charged with two counts of unlawful photography, Class A misdemeanors, in August 2022.

The state of Tennessee defines unlawful photography in violation of privacy as “an offense for a person to knowingly photograph, or cause to be photographed an individual, when the individual is in a place where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy, without the prior effective consent of the individual, or in the case of a minor, without the prior effective consent of the minor's parent or guardian,” noting that applicable images would “offend or embarrass an ordinary person,” or were “taken for the purpose of sexual arousal or gratification.”

If those images are disseminated to another person, that violation then becomes a Class E felony.

Those two upskirt photos were printed out and submitted as evidence in a Jan. 25 Williamson County General Sessions Court hearing where Kate testified through tears that she was the person in the photos that were taken without her knowledge in the Cotten’s Brentwood home in September 2019.

BPD Detective Mike Brady also testified during the court hearing and said they found “numerous” upskirt photos on the laptop that they confirmed belonged to and was used by Cotten.

Brady also said that the statute of limitations had passed on many of those recovered images, while important and specific metadata needed to further an investigation couldn’t be recovered on others.

When it came to photographs of Liz, the sisters said that law enforcement did not pursue charges — since they were a married couple living in the same home, the law did not afford Liz the same expectation of privacy. 

While police said that they were limited in what they could charge, the sisters said that police did suggest that they could get a protective order, which they did. 

The sisters were also concerned about other images found on the recovered data, including an image of what they thought may be child pornography, but the police investigation revealed that it was a digitally altered image and not an actual photograph taken of real-world sexual abuse.

“The image that was brought to my attention by the family appeared to be a minor child with a picture of an erect penis to the side of the face of that child,” Brady said.

Cotten’s lawyer Dana McLendon argued that the two images for which Cotten is charged are “clearly outside of the statute of limitations,” and questioned why the sisters had “exclusive control” of the computer and found “enough to put a person on notice that they might have been a victim of a crime” in the summer of 2020, but didn’t contact police until August 2021.

Kate testified that they contacted police the same day they received the recovered data back and saw the images for the first time.

Liz told The News that she hadn’t considered trying to have a computer expert try and recover deleted data until months later.

McLendon also argued that prosecutors had no evidence to prove that Cotten deleted any data in an attempt to conceal a crime, or that Cotten had actually deleted any of the recovered data at all.

The District Attorney's office did not comment on the case for this story, citing its ongoing nature, and Cotten's attorney also declined to comment.

The case will now head to a Williamson County Grand Jury, which will decide whether or not to indict Cotten.

If indicted, the case will then be taken up by a Williamson County Circuit Criminal Court judge.

FLORIDA

This is not the sister’s first court appearance related to secretive and intrusive images. Several of the recovered videos were taken while their family was on vacation in 2019 in Florida, which resulted in Cotten’s arrest just days after the images came to light.

In August 2022, Cotten pleaded guilty in a Bay County, Fla., court to video voyeurism, a felony, and was sentenced to five years of probation which included the conditions banning from possessing a personal camera phone, an order to stay away from victims and pay restitution, as well as submitting to a mental evaluation.

In a video of the hearing reviewed by The News, Cotten admitted to his actions related to the Florida case.

“We were in a rental property on vacation together and I took three different short videos of her [Kate], I believe two were up her shorts and one up her skirt on the same day, I believe it was within a couple of hours of each other,” Cotten testified, telling the judge, “There’s no good reason on why I would do that.”

Cotten also apologized to his sister-in-law and wife, saying that he needs and is seeking treatment, including for sex addiction.

"I can't make up [for] what I did, I'm sorry for what I did, and I agree, I do need help," Cotten said in part during that Florida hearing, adding that he is “horrified about it.”

“The video voyeurism that happened in Bay County didn’t just happen on a whim,” Kate said during her victim-impact statement in the Florida hearing. “But it’s part of a much more complex and sexually violative scheme against me and my family.”

The sisters said that difference in their treatment by and the transparency of prosecutors in Florida compared to their home county is stark, leaving them confused.

“I felt like I was heard, and that was important to me that I was able to communicate my wishes since I was the victim of the crime,” Kate said. “Here, I haven't gotten anything like that. I just have very limited information.”

Kate said that she wasn't even notified that Cotten had been arrested and arraigned in a Tennessee court. 

The sisters said that they want to see Cotten held accountable to the furthest extent of the law, claiming that he is a danger to others.

“I feel like it's important for other people to know that he is capable of doing these things and so they don't go through the same experience that we have,” Kate said.

TRAUMA

For now, the sisters are working through the legal system while also working through the trauma that is still unfolding for them, leaving them wondering what else may have happened that they don’t know about, and where private and intrusive images of themselves and their children may have ended up.

“Nothing's ever been quite so invasive, and this experience has impacted my everyday life,” Liz said. “I’ve lost my sense of peace and security -- even at home. I was violated in my home, in my sister's home, on vacation, in the car -- those are the places that I know about, so I just don’t feel comfortable anymore.”

“I walk around every day feeling heavy and scared, where I used to not feel that way at all,” Liz added.

“It's changed everything -- getting dressed in the morning, taking a shower, going to the bathroom, using the restroom in public, being able to communicate with my family. I don't know when and where I can have a private conversation. I'm constantly on alert wondering if I'm still being surveilled or secretly recorded.” 

For the twin sisters who sometimes finish each other's thoughts and sentences, the experience has been a shared struggle.

“I can't even begin to tell you the anguish that I've had watching my sister go through what she's been through as well and knowing that he violated her,” Kate said. “I almost feel like it's been harder for me to watch her go through this.”

Days after Cotten was charged in Williamson County, Liz, frustrated at the lack of charges related to her victimization, penned an open letter to 21st Judicial District Attorney Kim Helper where she voiced her frustrations. 

Liz said that she is now planning on presenting her concerns to a grand jury in hopes of pursuing justice for herself, adding that a jury recently awarded her financial damages for invasions of privacy as part of her divorce, which is expected to be finalized soon.

The sisters said that they are also exploring how they can elevate and engage in a larger conversation around privacy and consent, and advocating for stronger laws regarding unlawful photography in Tennessee. 

“My intention would be to speak with the different representatives that we have, and anybody that will listen to our story, because I do not feel that the law, as it's written, was intended to allow family members to record their children or their spouses,” Kate said. “I do think that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their home from being recorded without their consent.”