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March 23, 2005
Uncle of Murdered Florida Girl Speaks Out
Lonoke, AR - The tragedy of a murdered girl in Florida hits close to home as an Arkansas relative speaks out about the crime.
The man police say killed Jessica Lunsford appeared in a Florida courtroom Tuesday. Forty-six-year-old John Couey is charged with Capital Murder, Battery, Kidnapping and Sexual Assault.
Authorities say Couey confessed to taking the 9-year-girl from her home and murdering her. Couey was a registered sex offender who failed to register his address, which was just 150 yards away from Jessica's home.
Jessica's great uncle says as the family mourns the loss of young Jessica, they hope they can prevent this from happening to someone else's family.
(Alan Romine, Jessica’s uncle) "She was tragically taken from us, by a sex offender."
Jessica's great uncle Alan Romine wears a ribbon on his sweater... purple to show Jessica's favorite color and black, to symbolize the family's mourning.
(Romine) "My wife and I have sat around the television for more three weeks and I've done nothing but cry and sob and hurt. I don't tolerate any kind of child abuse. It hurts. Children were not put on the earth to be hurt. And I feel anger because he was allowed to do this."
Romine says convicted sex offenders should be better monitored. In Arkansas, there are more than 5,000 registered sex offenders that are required to verify their addresses.
Right now, more than 2,000 are in compliance, nearly 900 are delinquent in address verification, but the most disturbing number is the 314 that are missing from the system.
(Paula Stitz, Arkansas Sex Offender Registry) "We are constantly looking for ways to improve it. We do the sex offender assessment committee, go out and do training all the time. They give us ideas of what works and and what doesn't. We try to incorporate them into doing this better."
Although it's too late for the Lunsford family, Romine hopes Jessica's story can bring awareness to others.
(Stitz) "We don't stop and think that it can hit our home until it does, and then it's too late. And we need not to be a paranoid society, but a cautious society, because you don't know who your neighbor is or who that person is walking around your child in the stores, and they can be gone in a flash."
Posted by Nealus at March 23, 2005 08:20 PM
