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March 27, 2005
Many talk about 10-year-old's friendly qualities, troubled life
Cedar Rapids, Ia. - Ten-year-old Jetseta Gage's goal each day was to give 20 compliments: to her teacher, a cabdriver who took her to school, her grandmother, anyone she met.
"She was very friendly. She'd say hi to anyone," said her mother, Trena Gage. "She'd come up to you and say, 'You look nice today.' She'd tell everyone that, even strangers."
Late Saturday, officials confirmed that a body found Friday was Jetseta's and said an autopsy determined the girl had been asphyxiated. Authorities had found the body at a run-down mobile home in rural Johnson County, about 45 miles south of Jetseta's Cedar Rapids home.
The man accused of taking Jetseta from her home, Roger Paul Bentley, 37, of Brandon, was taken into custody at the mobile home and charged late Friday on one count of child stealing. Johnson County officials said more charges are expected to be filed against Bentley on Monday.
Trena Gage met Roger Bentley through his brother, James Howard Bentley, whom she had dated several years ago, according to The Associated Press.
The adults who knew Jetseta described her as a bubbly, inquisitive girl who wore colorful, mismatched outfits, loved the outdoors, her mother and her grandmother.
The first time Jetseta clambered into Larry Weston's taxicab a few days before Christmas, she told him a joke, he said.
"She said, 'How do you know when Santa Claus has a garden? Because he ho, ho, hos,' " Weston said Saturday, laughing. "I always remembered that."
Weston, who took Jetseta to school three or four times a week, said the girl talked to him all the way to school. "I think that was her downfall," he said. "She didn't act like anybody was a stranger. She was too trusting."
Jetseta's family and friends also shared details of trouble in the girl's life.
"She was molested and had a lot of problems," Trena Gage said.
Linn County court documents suggest that Jetseta was sexually abused over a two-year period by James Bentley.
James Bentley, 33, was arrested in November and charged with sexually assaulting Jetseta in two counties: Benton, where he lived in Vinton, and Linn, where she lived.
James Bentley is in the Linn County Jail awaiting his May 31 trial on second-degree sexual abuse charges. Roger Bentley was booked at the same jail Friday.
Linn County Attorney Harold Dentin said the witnesses listed in James Bentley's trial information are the girl, her mother and law enforcement officers. Court records show Trena Gage and a girl listed as a "minor child" were subpoenaed earlier this month.
Jetseta attended regular classes at Hoover Elementary School in Cedar Rapids until this school year. Teachers said she had trouble paying attention and had behavioral issues. She reportedly befriended adults because she had few close friends her age at school.
Jetseta was transferred earlier this year from Hoover to a special school at St. Luke's Hospital in downtown Cedar Rapids for children with emotional and behavioral problems. Her teachers and acquaintances said the girl covered any problems she had with a bright smile and cheerful demeanor.
Deb Barnard, her first-grade teacher at Hoover, said Jetseta was the kind of girl who would come back to visit, even after going on to the next grade level.
"She was very outgoing, very vivacious, a very sweet little girl," Barnard said.
Rich Enns, a Hoover counselor, said Jetseta liked to "do her own thing," often coming in from recess late because she "was always involved in doing what she wanted to do, like picking dandelions," he said.
But Marian Zupke, acting director of the eastern Iowa region of Camp Fire USA, said Jetseta, who had been active in Camp Fire, was taught not to go anywhere without her mother's or grandmother's permission.
"That's why I can't understand how she got in his truck," she said. "She must have known him well enough."
Jetseta lived with her mother and grandmother in the two-story Cedar Rapids home that her mother had proudly purchased last year, Zupke said.
"They were a poor family," she said. "The mother was going to college. She was trying to make a better life for all of them. The grandmother took good care of them."
Trena Gage, a Des Moines native who moved to Cedar Rapids at age 18, worked full time while taking classes at Hamilton College. A single mother, Gage said she recently earned her associate's degree in accounting and was going on to earn a bachelor's degree.
Her mother, Teresa, 54, often cared for Jetseta and her 7-year-old brother and her 2-year-old sister. Trena Gage was engaged to the father of the youngest child last year, Zupke said.
"She was all excited the kids were going to finally have a father," she said.
Jetseta was one of seven children in St. Luke's Children's Integrated Therapy Education program, or CITE, which serves elementary-age children with intense emotional or behavioral problems, according to Laura Rainey, a hospital spokeswoman.
Rainey said the school, which was on spring break Friday, would offer counseling to students and teachers when they return on Monday.
"With such a small group, you get so attached," she said. "It's going to be tough for the teachers and students."
Posted by Nealus at March 27, 2005 01:52 PM
