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Sign out side of school Alexis attends(Hi-Mount Elem. 49th Garfeild) Created by Jason Heisler & Kelly Turcotte of West Bend, Wisc..Welcome Visitor #.
Posted on 07/28/2002 1:31:05 PM PDT by Palladin
Without a body there no grounds for saying she's been killed. She may have been sold, for all you know.
There are people who are buying, out there.
Guess these families didn't have the clout this family has.
The only case I would consider a total stranger abduction was the Runnion case. (which was similar to the Klass case).
The other cases the media have been following either have salacious details and or many unanswered questions.
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Great! Isn't this the same PD that dismissed the vietnamese boy that DAHMER was in the process of killing?
Thanks for the website.
In a country of almost 300 million people, this is a small number. That means each year the number is far less than one in a million.
That one is way too many, but think about it. How many perverts would you expect to find in a group of 300 million people?
Hi Bella. You're right, this case is weird. In the Runnion case, sketch was on the wires within hours and the perp apprehended when someone who recognized him called in. It's almost (?) as if the Smart's don't want the perp caught. No doubt that they want their daughter back, but whatever are they thinking? Whatever are the SLC LEOs thinking? Anything?
And it's really tough toeniails about their vacation. What a strange "news" report. It almost sounds like a message to Elizabeth designed to make her feel guilty about lousing up family plans.
The Salt Lake Tribune -- Utah's Statewide Newspaper
Child Sex Predators Get Stung, Officers chalk up Internet arrests
Sunday, July 28, 2002
BY MICHAEL VIGH
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
"Mercenary75030" initiated a sexually explicit conversation early last year in an Internet chat room with "leslielea4" -- whom he believed was a 13-year-old Utah girl.
During dozens of conversations, Michael Joseph DeForest, 50, e-mailed her a picture of himself, along with two photos of his genitals, from his laptop computer. On July 15, DeForest allegedly traveled from his home in Rowlett, Texas, to Sandy's South Towne Center Mall to have sex with the girl.
But when DeForest arrived, he was arrested by the same undercover officers he had been unwittingly communicating with for more than 18 months.
Lt. Ken Hansen -- who directs the Utah Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force -- said its 10 officers arrest, on average, two pedophiles a week who attempt to set up meetings for sex with Internet chatters they believe are children. Two men were arrested Thursday night in Salt Lake City after traveling to Utah.
In the past two years alone, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Salt Lake City has prosecuted more than 70 Internet sex cases -- including possession or manufacture of child porn, child molestation and traveling with the intent of having sex.
"Chat rooms are the park and the playground of 10 years ago," said Utah's U.S. Attorney Paul Warner. "As the Internet has become more common in homes, we have seen more and more of these kinds of cases."
Hansen said there is no set profile of an online predator. They "come from all walks of life; I'm always surprised when we catch another one," he said. Three recent cases highlight the disparate offenders:
* Last year, a former LDS bishop from Hyrum -- who posed as a teenage member of the Mormon church on the Internet to lure a 17-year-old North Carolina girl to Utah for sex -- was sentenced to serve nearly 2 years in federal prison. A few months after an initial February 2000 conversation, Gordon Brent Bodily invited the girl to Utah, telling her parents she would be coming to look at colleges and visit Mormon landmarks. The two had sex at a Salt Lake City motel several times from June 13 to June 16, 2000.
* Two years ago, Thomas Jared Pearl, a former Kennedy family aide, was sentenced to more than 8 years in prison for attempting to have sex with "Kami," a fictitious 12-year-old girl. Pearl had sexual conversations, sent lewd pictures and agreed to meet the girl -- who was actually a Logan police officer -- in Utah. Pearl was arrested at the Salt Lake City International Airport in May 1999.
* In late 2000, a former Salt Lake City pediatrician was sentenced to more than 1 year in prison for using an Internet chat room to try to solicit sex with a 13-year-old boy. But Brent Blackburn did not know he was corresponding with a Salt Lake City police detective. Blackburn was arrested when he showed up at an arranged late-night meeting behind a Salt Lake area high school.
And while Hansen says women generally do not go online looking to meet children, he points to the case about five years ago of a Florida woman who repeatedly chatted online with a 14-year-old Salt Lake County boy.
She sent him sex toys so he could prepare for a future encounter.
She was arrested by police in Florida when she sent him a plane ticket.
Police say it is difficult to say if most pedophiles are caught by police before they victimize children, but Hansen said he hopes so. "I would love to work my way out of this job -- that would be a real success," Hansen said.
While early Utah prosecutions usually involved child victims, recent cases are generally the result of police stings, Warner said.
Warner and Hansen said undercover officers are extensively trained to avoid entrapping online chatters. It is the suspects who begin the sex talk, and ask to set up meetings, police say.
"We're not out on a fishing expedition," Warner said. "We're not going to initiate anything."
"We're really careful," Hansen added. "The predator is the one who has to lead the chat to cybersex or make arrangements to travel for sex -- the officer does not."
Pearl argued unsuccessfully that police tried to persuade him to come to Utah, with over 70 e-mails inviting him to the state to meet the girl.
Counters Warner: "Nobody put a gun to his head and forced him to get on that plane" from Washington, D.C.
Salt Lake City civil rights attorney Brian Barnard agreed that if police are not initiating the conversations, there is nothing wrong with using online decoys.
"If an officer is on the Internet and says 'I'm a 13-year-old girl and golly gee, this Internet thing is fun' and somebody hits on them, I don't see any problem with that [police technique]," Barnard said.
Warner warned would-be sex predators that police officers are on the Internet watching for them.
"This conduct hurts children in the worst way," Warner said. "We make no bones about it, we're out there and we're going to try to stop it."
Don't forget, Mary Katherine reportedly saw dark hair on the abductor's arms, too, even though he was wearing a jacket. Oops.
I've done that, myself. :)
"I thought you were saying that there was an attempted kidnapping near you,"
There was, this morning, but I live in a suburb of Detroit. I don't think this guy was in SLC. I'm sure that he lives in my own area; wouldn't doubt it.
The last time I had a chance to look, there were 88 sex offenders in my 24 sq. mile small town. But, since it became unconstitutional to show the Michigan sex offender registry online, (on June 3rd,) I can't check anymore. It was a good way of keeping track of these idiots, too.
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