Running head: ETAN, JACOB, MEGAN, AMBER, AND ADAM 1 Etan, Jacob, Megan, Amber, and Adam Remembering the Children of the Sex Offender Registration Laws Lt. Barbara K. Shrum Bella Vista Police Department ETAN, JACOB, MEGAN, AMBER, AND ADAM 2 Abstract This paper serves as a reminder of the ongoing fight to keep children safe. In order to ensure the public awareness offered under the child protection laws, the children who lost their lives must be remembered. A community which is well informed is better able to protect its most vulnerable and precious members. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) studied factors involved in stranger abductions and delivered a report filled with shocking facts. Entities such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and Human Rights Watch (HRW) are striving daily to place the rights of the sex offender in the forefront, rather than the face of the child who lost his or her life and brought these laws into being. This paper will present the stories of the children of the sex offender registry laws, the statistics of stranger abductions and the efforts being put forth by the ACLU and HRW to hinder public knowledge of sex offender whereabouts. ETAN, JACOB, MEGAN, AMBER, AND ADAM 3 Etan, Jacob, Megan, Amber, and Adam Remembering the Children of the Sex Offender Registration Laws Years ago, I had the opportunity to attend a speech given by Colleen Nick at a Law Enforcement Summit in Little Rock, Arkansas. Her daughter, Morgan, was abducted from a ballpark in Alma, Arkansas on June 8th, 1995, while catching lightning bugs. At the time Morgan was taken, I was pregnant with my daughter, Conor, and due in August. I was shaken and troubled by this abduction which I felt took place too close to my home in Bella Vista, Arkansas, a distance of about 75 miles. I was allowed to follow my calling to help kids like Morgan, and attend training in child abductions over the next couple years. In 2004 I was promoted to the position of Detective, and being the only female in that position, I was assigned most of the sex and child crimes in my department. This is how I came to attend the speaking engagement with Colleen Nick. Her highly emotional story led the audience step by step through the hell her life became that summer night. I have never forgotten Colleen’s closing statements when she called on all the police officer’s present to remember one thing. “Morgan Nick is a child, my child, and not an age progression on a missing child report.” This struck a chord in me to keep children as my focus and number one concern. According to Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis, “Any law enforcement officer assigned to the investigation of child exploitation should be a volunteer…who has been trained in this highly specialized work.” All too often police officers forget the human element in our nation’s sex offender laws. The four most prominent of these are each named for a child who fell victim to a sexual predator. Stranger abductions account for only a small fraction of all missing children reports made each year, but the outcome is by far the most traumatic and heart-wrenching. These abductions have so outraged the people that ETAN, JACOB, MEGAN, AMBER, AND ADAM 4 governing acts have been instituted to help ensure the safety of society’s most vulnerable members. Statistically, children abducted by strangers rarely return home. An alarming percent have been killed before they have been reported to law enforcement as missing and endangered. Organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and Human Rights Watch (HRW), have attempted to reduce these laws to no more than knee-jerk reactions that trounce upon the civil rights of the sex offender who has paid his debt to society. The Children Etan Patz On May 25, 1979, Etan Patz, a six year old New York City boy, was given permission to walk the two short blocks to his school bus stop all by himself. He enjoyed that new freedom for the first and only time that day. He never came home, and his school neglected to notify his parents of his absence. After his parents contacted police, the news media swarmed the family home. A tabloid photographer asked Etan’s mother Julie if she would “mind working up a few tears for me now, so I don’t have to come back and bother you again when they find the body?” He didn’t have to come back, the body has never been found. The prime suspect in the case, Jose A. Ramos, a convicted child molester, dated a woman who had been hired to walk Etan home from school during a school bus strike. He has been in prison on other charges for almost thirty years and is up for release in 2012. Twice a year; on Etan’s birthday and the day he disappeared, his father, Stan, has mailed the same missing child poster of his son to Ramos, with the message: “What did you do to my little boy?” ETAN, JACOB, MEGAN, AMBER, AND ADAM 5 At the time, there was no coordinated effort between federal, state, and local law enforcement for missing children’s cases. There was also no national response system in place; and no central resource to help searching families. In 1983 President Ronald Regan proclaimed May 25 National Missing Children’s Day, in honor of Etan Patz. The disappearance of Etan, Adam Walsh, and 29 missing and murdered children of Atlanta, led to photographs of missing children on milk cartons. Etan was the child featured on the first milk carton issued. The Patz family continues to live in the same home with the same phone number, which he had memorized. Jacob Wetterling In 1989, on a cool clear October night in rural St. Joseph, Minnesota, three young boys ride bikes and a scooter to the Tom Thumb store a mile from home to rent a movie. It was about nine o’clock when they were returning. They were less than a mile from home when a masked man carrying a gun jumped out of the woods and told them to lay face down in the ditch. He was wearing all black with panty hose over his head, according to police reports. One at a time, each boy was turned over and asked his age. Ten year old Trevor Wetterling was told to run into the woods and not look back. Eleven year old Aaron Larson was next. The man yelled “Run to the woods as fast as you can, or I’ll shoot!” As Aaron ran away, he saw the man grab 11 year old Jacob Wetterling by the jacket. When the boys got to the woods and looked back, the man and Jacob were gone. The boys had not seen a car in the area. Aaron and Trevor ran home and 911 was contacted immediately. Police were at the home within seven minutes of that 911 call. A massive search and intense investigation lasting years has not produced a trace of Jacob. Over 20,000 leads were received the first year, but no solid suspect has been found. ETAN, JACOB, MEGAN, AMBER, AND ADAM 6 When given the odds of recovering her son, Patty Wetterling said “We have one boy who is missing, and he’s not a statistic.” The Wetterling’s live in the same house, and have the same phone number they had when Jacob was stolen from them. They want him to be able to return to his home. Megan Kanka On July 29th, 1994, seven year old Megan Kanka is riding bikes with her friends in her quiet Trenton, New Jersey neighborhood. When she doesn’t return home, her mom goes house to house looking for Megan. Mrs. Kanka stops at the home of three single men who live just thirty yards from her front step, to ask if anyone had seen her daughter. One of the men, Jesse Timmendequas, said he had indeed seen Megan earlier. He offered to print posters to aide in the search, if Mrs. Kanka would provide a photograph of Megan. Within 24 hours, Timmendequas leads police officers to Megan’s body. She had been raped, beaten, and strangled with a belt, before her tiny body was stuffed into a toy box and dumped in a park. Timmendequas talked to Megan in his driveway and said he had lured Megan into his house with the promise of seeing his new puppy. Richard Kanka, Megan's father, walked out on his porch and looked across the street. "Someone," he yelled, "ought to burn that house to the ground" This was not the first encounter with law enforcement for Timmendequas; he had been arrested twice for sexual assault on children. The first in 1981, involved the attack of a five year old child and the second was an attempted assault of a seven year old. The other two men living in the home were Joseph Cifelli and Brian Jenin. Cifelli had been arrested for repeatedly sexually assaulting a relative over a period of years starting when the victim was nine. Jenin had two prior arrests for sexual assaults on children also. Cifelli and ETAN, JACOB, MEGAN, AMBER, AND ADAM 7 Timmendequas were under investigation for two child murders in California at the time Megan was murdered. These three men met in a treatment center in California. Richard and Maureen Kanka said "If we had been aware of his record, my daughter would be alive today." In just 89 days New Jersey had signed Megan’s Law, which mandated community notifications. On September 20, 1995, Megan’s Place was dedicated. The house where Megan was murdered had been demolished and a park was put in its place. Amber Hagerman On January 13, 1996, Amber Hagerman and her family are visiting her grandparents in Arlington, Texas. Amber is nine and her brother Ricky is five. They are riding their bikes, and were supposed to just go around the block. Amber decided to go a little further than they were supposed to because neighborhood kids had set up a bike ramp in the vacant Winn Dixie parking lot. Ricky and Amber stopped to play on the ramp for a couple of minutes. Ricky headed home first because Amber said she wanted to go down the ramp one more time, and would be right behind him. When Ricky returned alone, grandpa, Jimmie Whitson, went to look for Amber. As he pulled into the parking lot he saw a police officer. The officer told him they had received a 911 call about a little girl screaming. A witness had seen a dark pickup pull up, a man jump out, grab a little girl and force her into the truck. Police were contacted just eight minutes after Amber left her grandparent’s home. Four days later, a man walking his dog a few miles away saw a child’s body at the bottom of a creek bed. An autopsy determined Amber had been held alive for approximately two days, during which time she was sexually assaulted. Her killer has never been located. For the past thirteen years, Donna Norris has spent the night of January 13th, in the ETAN, JACOB, MEGAN, AMBER, AND ADAM 8 parking lot where her daughter was last seen being abducted. “It’s bittersweet because Amber has saved so many children’s lives.” The Amber Alert system has been credited with safely locating nearly 500 children since it began in 1996. Adam Walsh On July 27, 1981, six year old Adam Walsh and his mother Revé went to a department store about a mile away from their home in Hollywood, Florida, to shop for lamps. When they entered the store Adam saw several children playing video games on a television monitor and asked if he could stay to play. His mother let him stay and went to the lamp department, which was about 75 feet away. Because the lamp she wanted was not in stock she returned less than ten minutes later, but couldn’t find Adam. After going to her car twice to see if Adam had gone there and looking for him on her own for two hours, the police were contacted. In an interview of a security guard from the store it was revealed Adam may have been told to leave the store. There had been four boys playing with the video games in the toy department and they started causing a ruckus. The boys were separated; two boys went out the north entrance and two out the west entrance. If Adam had been put out the west entrance, he would have been disoriented because he only knew the north entrance where his mother always parked Sixteen days after Adam disappeared from the store, his head was found in a canal 120 miles away. Adam was identified using dental records. The rest of his body was never recovered. In December of 2008, police closed the investigation of Adam Walsh’s murder. Ottis Toole, a serial killer who died in jail in 1996 gave a deathbed confession. At the press conference Adam’s father, John Walsh said, “Who could take a six year old and murder and decapitate him, …today we know.” ETAN, JACOB, MEGAN, AMBER, AND ADAM 9 Laws Enacted Jacob Wetterling Act In 1991, Minnesota's Sex Offender Registration Act becomes the first legislative initiative of the Jacob Wetterling Foundation. When Jacob was abducted in October 1989, law enforcement did not have a comprehensive list of sex offenders from which to begin their investigation. The leads received by investigators became the basis of an extensive computerized database. The Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act is passed as part of the Federal Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. This act requires any person convicted of a criminal offense against a minor or who is convicted of a sexually violent felony to register his or her current residence with local law enforcement following release from prison, placement on parole or supervised release, or probation. States are required to implement a sex offender and crimes against children registry. Megan’s Law On May 17, 1996, President Clinton signed Megan's Law as an amendment to the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children's Act. Megan's Law requires each state to establish a community notification system. Because of this the public would now be notified when dangerous sexual offenders move into their area. The law was not intended to punish the offender and specifically prohibits using the information to harass or commit any crime against an offender. At the time of Megan’s murder, authorities were not allowed to disclose the location of registered sex offenders. Megan’s Law allows law enforcement to disclose registration information to the community ETAN, JACOB, MEGAN, AMBER, AND ADAM 10 for enhanced public safety. The federal law required all states to release information to the public about known convicted sex offenders when it was necessary to protect their safety but did not mandate active notification. The federal mandate to release information to the public is often mistakenly referred to as community notification but, the federal mandate required just the release of information to the public. There is a significant difference between simply releasing information by making it available for the public to access, and active community notification, where law enforcement officers. go door to door or send out mailings to inform neighbors and schools. The federal Megan’s Law did not require states to enact active notification laws, whereas New Jersey’s Megan’s Law of 1994 had specific requirements for active community notification. Amber Alerts A nationwide communication network began in 2003 through the PROTECT Act. • AMBER - America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response. The acronym was created as a legacy to Amber Hagerman. Began in 1996 when Dallas-Fort Worth broadcasters teamed up with local police to develop an early warning system to help find abducted children. • The AMBER Alert™ Program is a voluntary partnership between law-enforcement agencies, broadcasters, transportation agencies, and the wireless industry, to activate an urgent bulletin in the most serious child-abduction cases. The goal of an AMBER Alert is to instantly galvanize the entire community to assist in the search for and the safe recovery of the child.