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Archives > Volume 8 Issue 17 - March 5, 2010 Outrage growing as repeat sex offender arrested for murder of Chelsea King...The father of a 17-year-old girl whose body was believed found in a shallow lakeside grave is keeping quiet on shortcomings about how authorities track sex offenders, at least for now. AP story here 
"In due time, I'm going to have a lot to say about that," Brent King, whose daughter's disappearance February 25 sparked a massive search that ended in grief five days later, told The Associated Press. "Now is not the right time. We need to heal first."
Others are already speaking up. John Albert Gardner III, who pleaded not guilty Wednesday to the murder of Chelsea King and attempted rape of another woman, has eluded suspicion because he has been registered to live far from where crimes occurred. When Chelsea King disappeared, last seen wearing running clothes in a San Diego park, authorities checked photographs of sex offenders registered in the area and Gardner was not among them. On January 7 of this year, he registered as a sex offender about 55 miles north in Lake Elsinore, in Riverside County. (See vol8_iss16 for more on this story.) California has required sex offenders to register with local police for 50 years, and began making the information available to the public in the mid-1990s. It now posts information about more than 63,000 offenders online through what's known as the Megan's Law database, named after a 7-year-old New Jersey girl killed by a child molester who had moved in nearby. "Megan's Law is nothing more than a tool so that you can find out who the individuals are in your community who might be likely to commit these crimes," said Marc Klaas, who founded Klaaskids Foundation after his 12-year-old daughter Polly was abducted from a slumber party in 1993 and later found slain. "For law enforcement it provides an investigative tool, and this guy seems to have avoided that." Authorities are investigating if Gardner is linked to a 16-year-old girl who reported that she ran away after a man asked her for directions then tried to force her into a car at gunpoint on October 28 in Lake Elsinore, the Riverside County Sheriff's Department said. The suspect was described as a man 30 to 35 years old with a squarish jaw, brown eyes and a blond crew cut. A sketch appears similar to Gardner. Again, investigators checked out local sex offenders, but not Gardner; he was registered as living in San Diego County. Escondido police say Gardner was registered to live in the north San Diego suburb from January 2008 to January 2010, with some gaps. "He had not come onto our radar until January," when he notified authorities that he was living in an unincorporated village near Lake Elsinore, said Sergeant Patrick Chavez. Escondido police are also investigating if Gardner is tied to the disappearance of Amber Dubois, a 14-year-old who vanished a year ago while walking to school and carrying a $200 check to buy a pet lamb. Meanwhile, John Walsh, host of "America's Most Wanted," said he met with President Obama Wednesday to discuss child protection laws and funding for the Adam Walsh Act, signed three years ago by President Bush. ABC story here The law promised to create a national registry of sex offenders and keep closer track of the most violent of them, but it did not come with the funds needed to carry it out. "President Obama said yesterday, 'As the father of two girls, John, I will get the Adam Walsh law funded,'" Walsh told "Good Morning America". "I think everyone asks the same question," Walsh said. "Why was this animal out on the streets?" Dr. Matthew Carroll, a court psychiatrist, who evaluated Gardner before his release from prison on the 2000 conviction, had pushed for the maximum sentence, as many as 30 years, and said Gardner "would be a continued danger to underage girls in the community." Dr. Alex Kalish, a colleague, said Carroll was angry that his recommendations were ignored a decade ago. "Dr. Carroll told the court that [Gardner] showed no insight and expressed no responsibility and that he is a danger. You can't make a stronger statement than that," said Kalish. "The guy is violent and a predator who shows no remorse. "There was no effort to consider his report. Apparently the DA did what was expedient to get a conviction. It is frustrating that no one considered the psychiatric input. Why ask for it, if you don't consider it," Kalish said. Philadelphia social workers convicted of fraud in starvation death case... Four social workers were convicted Wednesday of fraud for submitting phony paperwork for visits they never made to a disabled teenage girl who weighed only 42 pounds and was covered in maggot-infested sores when she was found dead in her home. Fox News story here 
A federal jury in Philadelphia convicted the employees of now-defunct MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc. of defrauding the city of millions of dollars by not visiting the family of Danieal Kelly, 14, and other needy households, then creating paperwork that claimed they did.
Kelly, who had cerebral palsy, weighed less than half her expected weight when she was found dead in 2006, an expert witness for the prosecution testified. Company co-founders Mickal Kamuvaka, 60, and Solomon Manamela, 52, and former caseworkers Julius Juma Murray, 52, and Miriam Coulebaly, 41, were all convicted of conspiracy, lying to federal agents and multiple counts of health care fraud and wire fraud. "Danieal Kelly paid the ultimate price for these defendants' fraud, and we hope that this is some measure of justice for her and the other children who were the victims, really, of this fraud," Assistant U.S. Attorney Bea Witzleben said. Kamuvaka still faces trial on a state charge of involuntary manslaughter in Kelly's death. Murray, the caseworker assigned to the family, also faces an involuntary manslaughter trial and is being held pending trial this month on federal immigration charges. See vol6_iss51 and vol8_iss10 for more on this story. In other news... 
There's been a sharp drop in the percentage of America's children being bullied or beaten up by their peers, according to a new national survey by experts who believe anti-bullying programs are having an impact. AP story here The study, funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, found that the percentage of children who reported being physically bullied over the past year had declined from nearly 22 percent in 2003 to under 15 percent in 2008. The percentage reporting they'd been assaulted by other youths, including their siblings, dropped from 45 percent to 38.4 percent. The lead author of the study, Professor David Finkelhor, said he was "very encouraged." "Bullying is the foundation on which a lot of subsequent aggressive behavior gets built," said Finkelhor, director of the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center. "If it's going down, we will reap benefits in the future in the form of lower rates of violent crime and spousal assault." Finkelhor noted that anti-bullying programs had proliferated and received funding boosts following the 1999 Columbine High School shootings in Colorado. "There is evidence these programs are effective," he said. "I wouldn't be surprised if we're seeing the fruits of that." The findings by Finkelhor and his co-authors were based on two national surveys of children ages 2 to 17 conducted five years apart - the first in 2003, involving 2,030 children, and the second in 2008, asking the same questions of 4,046 children. The findings were published this week in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. See eGuide/bullying for more information on bullying.
A newly released file on the highly-publicized disappearance of British girl Madeleine McCann is "gold dust" and could lead to a breakthrough in the case, her parents' spokesman told Sky News. FoxNews story here McCann spokesman Clarence Mitchell said the family is disturbed that information on possible sightings of Madeleine is only now emerging, after sitting in a box since 2008 when the case was closed by Portuguese police. "The McCanns have been tearing their hair out for a long time, they're very frustrated this information has been sitting in a file since July 2008," Mitchell told Sky News. The files reportedly contain hundreds of pages of information, including CCTV images of a young girl with an appearance similar to Madeleine being led into a New Zealand supermarket in 2007, according to Sky News. Madeleine was three years old when she disappeared from her family's rented lodging in Portuguese resort town, Praia da Luz, on May 3, 2007. Her parents were eating dinner with friends nearby. The new evidence became public after several newspapers applied to the state prosecutor in the Algarve, Sky News crime correspondent Martin Brunt said. One report allegedly mentions a British man named "George" who spotted a young, seemingly distressed blonde girl being dragged along a road to Faro airport in Portugal on the night Madeleine went missing, Sky News reported. Another report allegedly details how a young girl who looked like Madeleine was seen being held at gunpoint on a French motorway by a half-naked man in August 2008, according to Sky News. For more on this story, see vol5_iss34, vol5_iss41, vol6_iss49, and vol7_iss64.
Authorities in central Georgia have arrested a couple they say traded sex with their 14-year-old daughter for payments on their minivan. WSBTV News story here Dodge County Sheriff's Captain Tony Winborn said the parents were arrested Monday and are in jail awaiting a bond hearing. They face child molestation and pandering charges. "We are sickened to hear about this case against this girl," Winborn said. Channel 2 Action News does not identify victims of sexual abuse and is not identifying the parents to protect the teen. Winborn said 66-year-old Robert Wayne Bearden, who managed a used car dealership, was arrested on charges of child molestation and possession of a firearm by a felon. The couple bought a minivan from a used car dealership in Eastman, about 140 miles southeast of Atlanta, in March 2008 but has not made a single payment on it, Winborn said. They made their daughter perform sex acts on the dealership's manager in lieu of making the $281 monthly payments on their minivan, he said. "The investigation is ongoing. We expect more arrests to be made," Winborn said. It appears the parents may have offered sex with their daughter to as many as six other adults in exchange for money and drugs, he said.
The home video shows a portrait of a healing family - a mother and her two daughters baking cookies, riding horses and laughing together. ABC story here It's the first glimpse at the freedom kidnap survivor Jaycee Dugard has enjoyed since her rescue last summer from the backyard lair where she was held captive for nearly two decades. "Hi I'm Jaycee. I want to thank you for your support and I'm doing well," Dugard said in her first public statement since the arrest of her alleged captors. She is seated, dressed in a black shirt and jeans and a pink baseball cap, and feeding two spaniels. "It's been a long haul," she said, "but I'm getting there." Dugard, her mother Terry Probyn and the two daughters Dugard gave birth to in captivity - believed to have been fathered by suspect Phillip Garrido - have been living in a secret location in California since late summer. The home video first shows Dugard, her 19-year-old half-sister Shayna and Probyn decorating Christmas cookies. Dugard's long, light brown locks have been cut shoulder length. She and Shayna listen as their mother talks about the recipe they used. At one point, they all laugh as Dugard makes a mistake decorating her cookie. "I've never gotten to decorate a cookie before," she said. Dugard and her family have been fiercely private since their reunion and say they are releasing their home video exclusively to "20/20" to ask for their privacy. They say they have been constantly stalked by the media and hope that showing the world that Dugard is happy and well will be enough for now. See more on this story at vol7_iss64 and vol8_iss12.
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