Article above is from WTNH-TV New Haven web site.
Posted on 05/20/2002 10:08:07 AM PDT by LoneGOPinCT
DANBURY, Conn. (AP) - A Brazilian man living in Greenwich gave police information leading to the body of a 13-year-old Danbury girl missing since Friday afternoon, police said Monday.
Authorities said the two had apparently met over the Internet.
The man, identified by the Danbury mayor's office as Saul Dos Reis, 25, was taken into custody by the FBI Sunday morning.
The body of Christina Long was discovered in Greenwich early Monday using information provided by Dos Reis, officials said. She was last seen Friday at the Danbury Fair Mall.
After a search of the mall and the surrounding area, investigators began to focus on her Internet contacts, the mayor's office said in a news release.
The News-Times of Danbury, citing a city official with knowledge of the case, reported Monday that the Greenwich man allegedly struck up a conversation with Long in an Internet chat room.
Danbury police and the FBI planned a midday news conference Monday. No other information was immediately available.
(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
If any one would like to be removed from my CT Bump list, please let me know and it will be done ASAP. Conversely, if you would like to be added the same holds true.
(Danbury-AP May 20, 2002 Updated 12:17 PM) _ A 25-year-old Brazilian man who lives in Greenwich is facing charges in the death of a 13-year-old Danbury girl.
Watch the police news conference from Noon Danbury officials say Saul Dos Reis was taken into custody by the FBI early Sunday as part of the investigation into the disappearance of Christina Long.
Authorities say Dos Reis admitted killing the girl during a court appearance Monday.
Officials say information Dos Reis gave police led to the discovery of the girl's body in Greenwich. The body was found adjacent to a roadway off King St. and was recovered just after midnight Monday
The girl, who went to Saint Peter's School, was last seen at the Danbury Fair Mall on Friday evening. After a search of the mall and the surrounding area, investigators began to focus on her contacts on the Internet.
Police would not say how long the girl had been communicating with the suspect via the Internet.
Article above is from WTNH-TV New Haven web site.
Another oddity is that the FBI became involved so quickly in what could just as well have been a runaway situation.
GAVE? As if he volunteered the information! If only the police had nabbed Condit's computers...if only...
Bad writing on behalf of AP, nothing new. Besides, if the writer thought more about it, s/he would have added: "...and [President] Bush did nothing to stop it."
Info Leads Police To Missing Girl's Body
Teen Last Seen At Mall
DANBURY, Conn. -- A Brazilian man living in Greenwich gave police information leading to the body of a 13-year-old Danbury girl he met over the Internet, police said Monday.
U.S. Attorney John Danaher said the man, identified as 25-year-old Saul Dos Reis, was arrested on a federal charge of using an interstate device -- the Internet -- to entice a child into sexual activity.
Murder charges were not immediately filed. But Danaher said Dos Reis -- who was arraigned on the Internet charge in federal court in Bridgeport Monday morning -- had confessed to the slaying.
Danaher initially said the admission came in open court. The Justice Department later clarified that Dos Reis had confessed to investigators and that fact was noted in court by the assistant U.S. attorney handling the case, but Dos Reis' confession did not come during the hearing.
"There are further steps to be taken in this investigation. But we're confident that the arrest was very appropriate in this case," Danaher said.
The body of Christina Long was discovered in a remote area of Greenwich early Monday using information provided by Dos Reis, officials said. She was last seen Friday at the Danbury Fair Mall.
After a search of the mall and the surrounding area, investigators began to focus on her Internet contacts, Police Chief Robert Paquette said.
Paquette said Dos Reis is an undocumented immigrant who came to the United States around age 10 and "basically has lived his life here since then."
Dos Reis is married, Paquette said. He said he did not know whether Dos Reis had children.
Paquette would not comment on any evidence in the case, including a cause of death, but said police were not aware of any previous charges against Dos Reis.
Investigators said Long and Dos Reis had communicated previously over the Internet. Asked whether they had previously met in person, Paquette said, "We're aware of other contact, yes."
Long was living with her aunt and attending a Roman Catholic school in Danbury.
"The message ... is that parents have got to be careful and have got to monitor what their children are doing on the Internet," Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton said.
"Unfortunately, we're seeing an increase in these kinds of cases nationwide and here in the state of Connecticut," FBI Special Agent Michael Wolf added.
Sure blame the internet. Why not blame allowing a 13 year old girl to be at Mall unsupervised ? Common sense folks.
"...lived with her aunt..."
So she was either orphaned or she was warehoused out of a broken home. The Greenwich address means the family is probably wealthy and possibly "important" in some way. That might explain why the FBI got on this matter with such dispatch.
Connecticut Megan's law up before US Supreme Court
(Washington-AP May 20, 2002 Updated 11:24 AM) _ The Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider a constitutional challenge to some registries of known sex offenders, the second case the court will hear involving lists meant to keep tabs on potentially dangerous sex criminals.
The court said it will hear an appeal from Connecticut, where a federal judge struck down the state's sex offender registry last year. The judge found that the law violated the constitutional rights of past offenders, because their names were placed on the list without a chance to prove they are no longer dangerous to society.
The New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, and the registry is no longer publicly available.
The case could affect more than 20 states with similar laws requiring community notification based on the offender's record rather than an individual evaluation of his or her current likelihood to repeat the crime.
A high court ruling against Connecticut could force states to hold separate hearings for sex criminals to assess whether their names, addresses or other identifying information will be made public.
All states have laws requiring some kind of list of sex criminals, but some provide the public with names of only those offenders deemed dangerous. Still other states have hybrid laws, making the names public in the cases of serious sex crimes, but taking a case-by-case approach when the crime is considered less egregious.
The registry laws are usually called Megan's law, after Megan Kanka, a New Jersey girl raped and killed in 1994 by a neighbor who was a convicted sex offender. Her parents didn't know his history when he moved in across the street.
The registries take conviction records already publicly available through police or court records, and compile them in one place. Information on Connecticut sex offenders is still publicly available on the old piecemeal basis.
The Bush administration backed Connecticut in asking the Supreme Court to step in.
"Megan's laws serve vital government interests by assisting law enforcement and enabling American communities to better protect themselves, and in particular their children," the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer wrote in court papers.
Solicitor General Theodore Olson noted that federal law requires states to have a registry, or face a reduction in federal funding.
Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia also filed a friend-of-the-court brief backing Connecticut.
The Supreme Court will hear the case in the term that begins next fall.
The court will also hear a separate constitutional challenge to laws in about a dozen states that publish names, addresses or other personal information about convicted sex offenders on the Internet. The question in that case is whether such publicly available lists, which include names of people who long ago served their sentences, amount to unconstitutional double punishment for the same crime.
Connecticut's registry was also available over the Internet, but that factor was not the key to the case the high court agreed to hear Monday.
The registry was created in 1998 and operated by state police. Users could search by town for lists of resident sex offenders. It listed the names, addresses and, in most cases, pictures of nearly 2,100 offenders. The Web site received 150,000 hits per month, state police said.
Two anonymous sex offenders sued the state, claiming they are no longer a danger to society and should not be stigmatized. The men claimed the registry violated their constitutional right to fair treatment in the courts by denying them a chance to keep their names off the list.
According to the Justice Department, laws similar to Connecticut's are in force in: Alabama; Delaware; the District of Columbia; Florida; Georgia; Illinois; Indiana; Louisiana; Maryland; Michigan; Mississippi; Missouri; New Mexico; North Carolina; Oklahoma; South Carolina; Tennessee; Texas; Utah; Virginia; West Virginia and Wisconsin.
The case is Connecticut Department of Public Safety v. John Doe, 01-1231.
The INS is right on the ball again. Only a few decades or so behind in its followups. Oh, well.
Leni
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