The Maine attorney general's office said Friday that state police are arranging for the return of 20-year-old Thayne Ormsby to Aroostook County early next week.
A public defender represented Ormsby during his appearance Friday in Rochester District Court. Ormsby has been held in the Strafford County jail since his arrest on July 2 in Dover.
Also Friday, an Aroostook County grand jury indicted Ormsby on three counts of murder in the deaths of Jeffrey Ryan, his 10-year-old son, Jesse, and Jason Dehahn, a friend and neighbor, in Amity, Maine. He also was indicted on one count of arson for setting fire to Jeff Ryan's truck.
Ormsby will be taken to the Aroostook County jail in Houlton, Maine, about a five hour drive north from Dover. A county grand jury handed up three murder indictments against Ormsby yesterday, Stokes said, as well as one for arson.
Maine does not have different charging levels for murder. Sentencing is based on the seriousness of the crime, but the minimum is 25 years, Stoke said.
Ormsby is accused of stabbing to death Jeffrey Ryan, 55, his 10-year-old son Jesse and their friend Jason DeHahn, 30, at the Ryan’s home at 163 Route 1 in Amity, Maine near that state’s eastern border with Canada late last month. Their three bodies were discovered June 23.
He went to Dover following the killings and was arrested there last Friday after turning himself into police.
The strongest evidence in the case is Ormsby’s DNA and fingerprints, which were found on a cigarette butt and a Budweiser beer bottle, respectively, inside Ryan’s home and near two beer bottle that Ryan and DeHahn had apparently drank from.
“The DNA made the case for the most part,” Assistant Strafford County Attorney Kyle Griffin said at his arraignment Monday, adding, “These murders all seem to be in cold blood.”
Maine detectives interviewed Ormsby in Dover last Friday and he told them he killed Jeffrey Ryan because he was a drug dealer, according to a Maine state police affidavit. Police arrested him that same day.
For several weeks prior to the killings, Ormsby had been staying with Robert and Joy Strout and their family in Orient, Maine, the affidavit says. Robert Strout told detectives on Friday that Ormsby came home June 23 with his clothes soaked in blood and told him he had murdered Jeffrey Ryan and “killed them all” and that he would slay Strout and his family unless he helped over up the crime, the affidavit says.
Strout told police he helped Ormsby burn Ryan’s truck and drove him down Route 1 south to toss a knife into a bog.
Along the way, Strout said Ormsby provided chilling details about the killings.
“Thayne told Robert that Jason ran outside and Thayne chased after him and ‘knifed him,’” the affidavit says. “Thayne told Robert he punched Jason and ‘knifed him again then drug [dragged] his body to the brook.’ Thayne told Robert that he went back inside and Jesse was running around. Thayne told Robert that he ‘knifed Jesse in the back bedroom.’”
Stokes said Ormsby has no notable criminal history. He also said Ormsby has no history of mental illness that they know of.
“That may be a possible area to explore when he gets back here,” Stokes said.
Ormsby will be arraigned, likely via video, on the murder and arson charges once he returns to Maine. No date has been set for the arraignment yet.
"This Cock Sucker should be fucken hung...period"
The arrests of Lonnie Franklin Jr. for crimes including burglary, car theft and assault were never considered serious enough to send him to state prison or to warrant his entry in the state's DNA database, according to a report in Saturday's Los Angeles Times.
Franklin was dubbed the Grim Sleeper after a string of murders of young black women had south Los Angeles on edge in the mid-1980s. Then the killings suddenly stopped, only to resume again 14 years later. Investigators now say they have possibly uncovered the reason for the long respite: He may have been spooked by a near miss by police in 1988.
Franklin was arrested Wednesday on 10 counts of murder and other charges at his lime-green house, just three doors down from a home that was searched extensively by police 22 years ago after the killer's only known survivor led cops there. His public defender, Regina Laughney, said she was still reviewing materials in the case and it was too early for her to comment.
One of the murder victims was killed in July 2003, when records show Franklin should have been in county jail for receiving stolen property but was released early because of overcrowding.
Investigators are trying to tie Franklin to dozens more murders, looking at more than 30 cold case files dating to 1984, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said Friday.
"Now that we know who he is, where he lives, the cars he drove, have people to interview, we will go over all those old cases and look for connections," Beck said.
Investigators will upload Franklin's DNA profile into a national database to see if it matches other samples where the DNA had degraded and scientists only were able to get a partial sample, Beck said.
Franklin faced up to three years in prison in 2003 after pleading no contest to receiving stolen property. He was sentenced to 270 days in jail and released in May 2003, more than four months early, the records showed. Two months later, the body of one of Franklin's alleged victims was found.
Law enforcement said despite more than two decades of old-fashioned police work, they were finally able to crack the case using a new and disputed technique of "familial DNA."
In early June, the state Department of Justice ran newly submitted DNA through a database of 1.5 million samples.
The database found no identical matches, but did find a "familial" match to a convicted felon whose DNA indicated he was either a brother or the son of the killer. An earlier search in 2008 had found no familial matches, but Franklin's son was added to the database in recent months for a felony weapons conviction.
State investigators alerted the LAPD of Franklin's identity on June 30 after verifying the match through birth certificates and other records.
But police still needed a sample of Franklin's DNA to definitively match it to what was found on the victims.
An undercover officer pretending to be a waiter in Los Angeles collected tableware, napkins, glasses and pizza crust at a restaurant where the suspect ate, allowing detectives to obtain a DNA match.
Franklin made a first court appearance Thursday on the murder counts as well as one count of attempted murder and special-circumstance allegations of multiple murder that could lead to the death penalty or life in prison without possibility of parole.
His arraignment was postponed until Aug. 9 at the request of his attorney.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100710/ap_on_re_us/us_grim_sleeper_killings;_ylt=AiEMSSTem0vvQunC6m03geys0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNzNjBsN2dmBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwNzEwL3VzX2dyaW1fc2xlZXBlcl9raWxsaW5ncwRjY29kZQNtb3N0cG9wdWxhcgRjcG9zAzUEcG9zAzIEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl9oZWFkbGluZV9saXN0BHNsawNsYWdyaW1zbGVlcGU-
]]>Nicknamed for taking long breaks in between attacks, the killer is believed to be responsible for at least 11 deaths since 1985 in south Los Angeles. The killer targeted black women, some working as prostitutes, using the same small caliber weapon.
Margaret Prescod, who founded the Black Coalition Fighting Black Serial Murders and worked heavily with the families of the victims in the case told CNN she spoke with the Grim Sleeper Task Force who informed her of the arrest Wednesday.
Prescod said Det. Dennis Kilcoyne, head of the task force, told her that unlike a previous arrest in the case that turned out to be wrong, he was sure they had gotten their man this time.
"He told me that what they have is very solid," Prescod said.
The Los Angeles Times and KTLA are naming the suspect as Lonnie David Franklin Jr, 51. Prescod said she was also told Franklin Jr. was the suspect.
Aerial footage on Wednesday showed police searching cars in the garage of the suspect's home in south Los Angeles -- not far from the corridor where the victims' bodies were dumped.
Officials struggled to find new leads partially because the changing makeup of the neighborhood where the crimes were committed makes it unlikely that any witnesses are still around. The killer left behind DNA and fingerprints that police were unable to match to a name.
A 911 call made in 1987 reporting one of the murders led police to a van they believe was involved. But the trail went cold.
In May, new composite sketches of a suspect went up on billboards across Los Angeles as police intensified their hunt for the serial killer.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/07/07/grim.sleeper.arrest/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1
]]>Consult Note - 10/14/2009
Provider: Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplantation Center
*** Interval History
This is a 57-year-old gentlemen with advanced cardiomyopathy since 1995 with CHF class III-IV, whose ejection fraction has been documented to be 10%-15%. He underwent cardiac catheterizaton in January 2009, which showed diffuse coronary disease of his arteries not amenable to stenting. His last echo was in June 2008, which showed fairly decreased left ventrical soft systolic function, dilated left atrium along with moderate-to-severe mitral regurge, and ejection fraction of 15%. He has had two to three hospital admissions - moreso for pulmonary edema. He is not on Coumadin due to bleeding.
His New York Heart Association Class does remain III. He is now a non-smoker and non-alcohol drinker. He has documented three-vessel disease. He has been compliant with medications and shows good awareness of his disease. His cath reveals the following: Left main coronary artery has a proximal large ulceration and a distal 70% stenosis. His left anterior decending artery has diffuse mild disease at proximal segment with a total occlusion of the right after the first diagonal. The first diagonal is a moderate caliber vessel with diffuse mild disease and no significant obstruction. The left circumflex is a codominant vessel, large in caliber. The first obtruse marginal has a proximal total stenosis. There is diffuse mild disease involving the distal segment, the second obtuse marginal has a long proximal 70% stenosis. There are collaterals from left to left and from left to right. The right coronary had a proximal total occlusion. The left ventriclar angiogram is not performed. There was not a right heart catherization done at this time.
*** Past Medical History
Significant for CHF class III, diabetes (type 2) insulin treatment, three-vessel coronary disease, cardiomyopathy, ICD [implantable cardioverter defibrillator], persistent atrial fibrillation, sleep apnea, COPD, GERD, and intolerance of Coumadin therapy.
*** Procedures
Electrocardiogram: shows atrial fibrillation with controlled rate.
*** Assessment and Plan
This is a 57-year-old gentlemen with advanced cardiomyopathy class III, stage D, who has an appropriate defibrillator, is currently being maxed on medications by his cardiologist. He would need a right heart catheterization, as well as maximal exercise test to determine if he is nearing need for transplantation. His barriers to transplant would of course be his past alcohol use with possible damage to his liver, as well as chronic smoking with damage to his lungs.
He will see me again in six months.
*** Medication List
coreg 25mg 2x, lisinopril 5mg 1x, furosemide 80mg 1x, digoxin 0.375mg 1x, crestor 20mg 1x, aspirin 325mg 1x, protonix, insulin etc
]]>It was a very sad story that broke out and got National attention when little 7 year old Somer Renee Thompson ran off from her siblings as they were walking home from school apparently after an arguments with them. Her brother and sister just assumed Somer ran ahead of them to go home. That unfortunately was the last time anyone had seen Somer alive.
On October 19,2009, two days after a wide search for her, the body of little Somer was found in a landfill across the state line in Georgia. Once the body was positively identified as that of Somer Thonpson, Clay County Sheriff Rick Beseler made the statement, “Now we are looking for a suspect. Somebody did it, now we’ve got to find out who.”
Jarred Harrell was arrested in Meridian, Mississippi last month. He was charged with child pornography and he was extradited to Clay County. Friday at 6 a.m. he was charged with premeditated murder and sexual battery. Harrell was already facing 55 charges involving molestation and child pornography that wasn’t even related to the Somer Thompson case.
Sheriff Rick Beseler said there was a lot of evidence processed but it was actually an admission to the facts on Thompson’s case that brought the charges against him of murder.
Beseler was being very careful about giving out many details of the investigation, but he did say that the little 7 year old child had been assaulted and she died of asphyxiation. He said that DNA from Harrell and some other evidence they have that obviously place Harrell where Somer was killed also allowed them to file the murder charge.
“Based on our evidence from this investigation, we feel confident that Harrell committed this crime,” said Beseler.
Harrell only lived a few doors down from where Somer was last seen alive. She walked by his house everyday after school on her way home. Beseler doesn’t think she was inside Harrell’s home for very long because their investigators searched all the homes in the area promptly after she was reported missing and there were no signs of her.
State Attorney Angela Corey received applause from a group of bikers that were close to the family, when she announced at the news conference that this is the type of crime that prosecutors will likely seek the death penalty for.
Rod Buchanan, the man that turned the computer into authorities that contained the pornography images said he doesn’t want to see Harrell get death. “Give him life without parole; put him in general population; let the guys in jail take care of him the way they do,” said Buchanan. “He will no longer be the monster, he will actually be the victim and I think that is a much better sentence for him.”
Harrell is presently being held in isolation and without bail in the Clay County Jail.
I like Buchanan’s thoughts on the sentencing but I just have one problem with it. A lot of time when someone is sentenced to life in prison without parole they sometimes find a way to get released. What is the purpose of adding in the sentence “without benefit of parole” if they do something like release some on good behavior just because the jails are too crowded. My children’s great grandfather’s murderer was released and originally sentenced to death but before they could actually put him in the chair the state of Louisiana threw out the death penalty which automatically converted his sentence to life in prison without parole.
There was a parole hearing and I attended it to try to get them not release this man. His attorney claimed the man just wanted out so he could spend some time with his grand-kids and his daughter. This came from a man that in the 50’s had ambushed the sheriff and his deputy in a small town in Louisiana and killed them and to top that off he got in the sheriff’s car and when he drove off he ran over the body of the sheriff. This man sat on the front porch of my children’s great-grandfather’s and drank coffee as his friend yet he gunned him down without them having a chance to defend theirselves.
I stood in front of the parole board and begged them not to release the man. He wanted to spend time with his grand kids but what about my kids? They were deprived of time with their great-grandfather too but it was this man’s fault. I lost my battle when they released him and within a week the man appeared on TV, I believe it was on The Today Show, Katie Couric interviewed him asking him how it felt being an American Hero! She said he was one because he beat the system. Needless to say it wasn’t long before I was on the phone calling wanting to talk to her but they refused to connect me to her. I wanted to give her a piece of my mind.
OK I know I went on a rant but this is what happens when I hear someone say give someone life in prison without parole and they will never be free on the streets again. Well that is not always the case. If they get the death penalty and it is actually done then we know for sure they can never be free to do this again. To me this is the only way we can make sure and this is why I feel like I do about the death penalty. It is harsh I know, but I have to ask… does a child molester deserve to be free? Does a child molester that kills the child after they molest him or her deserve freedom ever again? NO they don’t. (I will leave it just at that)
Maybe little Somer Renee Thompson with get some justice. Let’s hope so. She didn’t ask for this and she certainly didn’t deserve it. So maybe now she can rest in peace. God bless you Somer. I know you are happy now where you are but I also know you are sadly missed here on earth. Hopefully Haleigh Cummings and Caylee Anthony and all the others lost or murdered will get the justice that they deserve too, let’s hope so anyway. God bless them all.
Jan Barrett
http://www.bloggernews.net/124142
Pope Benedict XVI's unprecedented letter to Ireland apologizing for chronic child abuse within the Catholic Church failed Saturday to calm the anger of many victims, who accused the Vatican of ducking its own responsibility in promoting a worldwide culture of cover-up.
Benedict's message – the product of weeks of consultation with Irish bishops, who read it aloud at Masses across this predominantly Catholic nation – rebuked Ireland's church leaders for "grave errors of judgment" in failing to observe the church's secretive canon laws.
The pope, who himself stands accused of approving the transfer of an accused priest for treatment rather than informing German police during his 1977-82 term as Munich archbishop, suggested that child-abusing priests could have been expelled quickly had Irish bishops applied the church's own laws correctly. He pledged a church inspection of unspecified dioceses and orders in Ireland to ensure their child-protection policies were effective.
He also appealed to priests still harboring sins of child molestation to confess.
"Openly acknowledge your guilt, submit yourselves to the demands of justice, but do not despair of God's mercy," he wrote.
But Benedict offered no endorsement of three official Irish investigations that found the church leadership to blame for the scale and longevity of abuse heaped on Irish children throughout the 20th century.
The Vatican refused to cooperate with those 2001-09 probes into the Dublin Archdiocese, the rural Ferns diocese and Ireland's defunct network of workhouse-style dormitory schools for the Irish poor.
The investigations, directed by senior Irish judges and lawyers, ruled that Catholic leaders protected the church's reputation from scandal at the expense of children – and began passing their first abuse reports to police in 1996 only after victims began to sue the church.
Nor did Benedict's letter mention recent revelations of abuse cover-ups in a growing list of European nations, particularly his German homeland, where more than 300 claimants this year have alleged abuse in Catholic schools and a choir long run by the pope's brother.
In the latest development, the leader of the German Bishops Conference apologized Saturday for failing to protect children adequately from a pedophile priest in the early 1990s in his diocese of Freiburg. Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, who was in charge of human resources and staffing at the time, said he should have done more to investigate the priest, who was forced into retirement in 1991 and committed suicide four years later when fresh complaints arose.
Rights campaigners in Ireland and abroad forecast that more victims in more nations will keep coming forward and opening new fronts of criticism, because the pope's promotion of secretive canon laws remains at the heart of an unsolved problem.
"We know this policy of secrecy was worldwide. The more that victims speak out, the more the scandals will spread," said Marie Collins, who was repeatedly raped by a Dublin priest while aged 13 and hospitalized in 1960. Her attacker wasn't removed from the priesthood and imprisoned until 1997.
While a cardinal at the Vatican, Joseph Ratzinger, now the pope, wrote a 2001 letter instructing bishops worldwide to report all cases of abuse to his office and keep church investigations secret under threat of excommunication. The Vatican insists the secrecy rules serve only to protect the integrity of the church's investigations, and should not be taken to mean the church should not tell police of their members' crimes.
But victims' advocates in Ireland and the United States said the pope again failed to make it clear whether the church considers the secular law a higher priority than canon law when seeking to stop a pedophile priest.
"The letter's underlying goal seems to have been to appease the outrage while keeping the church in control of its incriminating information," said Terry McKiernan, president of a Web-based pressure group, BishopAccountability.org, that chronicles Catholic abuse scandals worldwide.
"He should have demanded that the bishops release all pertinent files and other information about all credibly accused priests. He should have demanded that every complicit official be named publicly and forced to resign," McKiernan said.
Irish victims' leaders are seeking the resignations of any bishops who transferred pedophile priests to new parishes rather than report them to police – a demand that, if applied, would likely claim the majority of Ireland's 27 bishops, given their failure to tell police of any crimes until 1996. But the pope has yet to accept even the three-month-old resignations offered by three Irish bishops linked to Dublin Archdiocese cover-ups.
The Vatican's chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the pope's letter contained no punitive provisions because it was pastoral, not administrative or disciplinary in nature. He said any decisions concerning resignations would be taken by the competent Vatican offices.
Benedict faulted the Irish bishops for failing "sometimes grievously" to apply the church's own laws requiring child-abusing priests to be removed from the priesthood. But he didn't rebuke them for failing to report abuse to police, saying instead they must prevent future abuse and "continue to cooperate with civil authorities."
He also repeated an excuse for the bishops' inaction that has been rejected by the Irish investigations – that they didn't understand the scale or criminality of child abuse until recent years.
"I recognize how difficult it was to grasp the extent and complexity of the problem, to obtain reliable information and to make the right decisions in the light of conflicting expert advice," Benedict wrote in remarks addressed to the Irish bishops.
However, the Irish investigators forced the church to hand over its copious files on abuse cases dating back to the 1950s. They unearthed a paper trail confirming the Irish bishops' successful acquisition of group liability insurance in the 1980s, a decade before the deluge of lawsuits. And they found cases where Catholic officials in the 1960s reported school employees to police for abusing children, showing they understood even then it was a crime.
Andrew Madden, a former Dublin altar boy who in 1995 became Ireland's first pedophile-priest victim to go public with a lawsuit against the church, said the pope had missed the whole point of a meaningful apology.
"I don't need the pope to apologize for the child abusers. I, and untold thousands of victims like me, needed the pope to apologize for the church hierarchy's role in choosing to protect the abusers at the expense of children. That's the real scandal, and the pope has been involved in that. He's not an innocent bystander," Madden said.
Massgoers arriving Saturday at central Dublin churches and in Armagh, the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland, were greeted with piles of the pope's letter. Some lauded its readability and frank tone.
"I thought it was lovely. I thought it was very moving, and I hope it brings some help to all the victims," said one Armagh worshipper, Annette O'Hara. "They're the ones we should be praying for."
But outside a Dublin church, truck driver Tomas O'Reilly said he doubted the pope's sincerity and was unhappy with putting money in the collection plate. "I don't want to be paying the church's legal bills. They've only themselves to blame," he said.
At the Vatican, Lombardi was peppered with questions about why Benedict didn't directly address the German scandal or take the opportunity in the letter to make a more sweeping commentary on the global dimensions of the scandal.
Lombardi said the Irish scandal was unique in its scope, but said the pope's letter could be read to apply to other countries and cases.
"You can't talk about the entire world every time," he said. "It risks becoming banal."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/20/pope-slams-irish-church-o_n_506942.html
]]>The Boy Scouts of America has long kept an extensive archive of secret documents that chronicle the sexual abuse of young boys by Scout leaders over the years.
The "perversion files," a nickname the Boy Scouts are said to have used for the documents, have rarely been seen by the public, but that could all change in the coming weeks in an Oregon courtroom.
The lawyer for a man who was molested in the 1980s by a Scout leader has obtained about 1,000 Boy Scouts sex files and is expected to release some of them at a trial that began Wednesday. The lawyer says the files show how the Boy Scouts have covered up abuse for decades.
On Friday, testimony from a bishop for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints responsible for a Scout troop of church members suggested the Scouts never provided training about spotting abuse or preventing it.
The trial is significant because the files could offer a rare window into how the Boy Scouts have responded to sex abuse by Scout leaders. The only other time the documents are believed to have been presented at a trial was in the 1980s in Virginia.
At the start of the Oregon trial, attorney Kelly Clark recited the Boy Scout oath and the promise to obey Scout law to be "trustworthy." Then he presented six boxes of documents that he said will show "how the Boy Scouts of America broke that oath."
He held up file folder after file folder he said contained reports of abuse from around the country, telling the jury the efforts to keep them secret may have actually set back efforts to prevent child abuse nationally.
"The Boy Scouts of America ignored clear warning signs that Boy Scouts were being abused," Clark said.
Charles Smith, attorney for the national Boy Scouts, said in his own opening statement the files were kept under wraps because they "were replete with confidential information."
Smith told the jury the files helped national scouting leaders weed out sex offenders, especially repeat offenders who may have changed names or moved in order to join another local scouting organization.
"They were trying to do the right thing by trying to track these folks," Smith said.
Clark is seeking $14 million in damages on behalf of a 37-year-old man who was sexually molested in the early 1980s in Portland by an assistant Scoutmaster, Timur Dykes.
Clark said the victim suffered mental health problems, bad grades in school, drug use, anxiety, difficulty maintaining relationships and lost several jobs over the years because of the abuse.
Dykes was convicted three times between 1983 and 1994 of sexually abusing boys, most of them Scouts.
Although there have been dozens of lawsuits against the organization over sex abuse allegations, judges for the most part have either denied requests for the files or the lawsuits have been settled before they went to trial.
The Boy Scouts had fought to keep the files being used in the Portland trial confidential. But they lost a pretrial legal battle when the Oregon Supreme Court rejected their argument that opening the files could damage the lives and reputations of people not a party to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also named the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because the Mormons acted as a charter organization, or sponsor, for the local Boy Scouts troop that included the victim. But the church has settled its portion of the case.
The Portland trial comes as the Boy Scouts are marking their 100th anniversary.
"They spent a century building the Boy Scout brand," said Patrick Boyle, author of a book about sex abuse in the Boy Scouts. "It's one of the most respected organizations in the world."
The trial "can only erode what they have been doing for 100 years," he said.
The Portland case centers on whether the Boy Scouts of America did enough to protect boys from Dykes.
The Mormon bishop who also served as head of the Scout troop, Gordon McEwen, confronted Dykes after receiving a report of abuse by the mother of one boy in the troop in January 1983.
In a video deposition played Friday for the jury, the bishop said Dykes admitted abusing 17 boys and provided a written list of names.
But a retired police officer who investigated the abuse report testified Friday that McEwen never told police about the list.
Charles Shipley, who was a Multnomah County sheriff's detective at the time, said he interviewed a pair of victims before calling Dykes in for questioning.
Shipley said Dykes admitted molesting the two boys and was arrested. Shipley was concerned there were additional victims and asked McEwen to talk to other parents of the 30 Scouts in the troop.
Two other potential victims were identified but Shipley said their parents did not want their sons involved with the investigation.
In his deposition, McEwen admitted he never turned over the written list and had only vague recollections of his conversations with police.
McEwen said he personally contacted the parents of all 17 boys on the list before calling a state meeting of the church to "disallow" Dykes, or limit his church involvement, and counsel him to "repent of his errors."
Dykes pleaded guilty to attempted sexual abuse, received probation and was ordered to stay away from children.
Clark told the jury Dykes continued with his scouting activities until he was arrested again in July 1984 during a routine traffic stop while he was driving a van full of Scouts on a camping trip.
A spokesman for the Boy Scouts of America at its headquarters in Irving, Texas, said in a statement the organization cannot comment on details of the case, but has worked hard on awareness and prevention efforts, including background checks.
"Unfortunately, child abuse is a societal problem and there is no fail-safe method for screening out abusers," Deron Smith said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100319/ap_on_re_us/us_boy_scouts_sex_abuse;_ylt=Apy0BvfcskD7HgEDl4BoJ0es0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNyODVhOTE5BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwMzE5L3VzX2JveV9zY291dHNfc2V4X2FidXNlBGNjb2RlA21vc3Rwb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDNgRwb3MDMwRwdANob21lX2Nva2UEc2VjA3luX2hlYWRsaW5lX2xpc3QEc2xrA29yZWxhd3N1aXRjbA--
]]>The church is only beginning to come to terms with decades of child abuse in its parishes and schools. The scandals first emerged in Canada and Australia in the 1980s, followed by Ireland in the 1990s, the United States this decade and, in recent months, Benedict's German homeland.
Victims' rights activists say that to begin mending the church's battered image, Benedict's message — his first pastoral letter on child abuse in the church — must break his silence on the role of the Catholic hierarchy in shielding pedophile clergy from prosecution.
That includes abuses committed decades ago under the pope's watch, when he was Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger of Munich, as well as the pontiff's role in hushing up the scandals.
As leader of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger was responsible for a 2001 Vatican edict that instructed bishops to report all cases of child abuse to Vatican authorities under strict secrecy; it made no mention of reporting crimes to police.
"Is it not time for Pope Benedict XVI himself to acknowledge his share of responsibility?" said the Rev. Hans Kung, a Swiss priest and dissident Catholic theologian.
"Honesty demands that Joseph Ratzinger himself, the man who for decades has been principally responsible for the worldwide cover-up, at last pronounce his own mea culpa," Kung said.
Benedict, who served as archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982, has yet to speak about the hundreds of abuse cases emerging since January in Germany.
These include the Rev. Peter Hullermann, who was already suspected of abusing boys in the western German city of Essen when Ratzinger approved his transfer to Munich for treatment in 1980.
There, Hullermann was allowed contact with children almost immediately after his therapy began. He was again accused of molesting boys and was convicted in 1986 of sexual abuse. He was suspended this week for ignoring a 2008 church order not to work with youths.
Dirk Taenzler, director of the Federation for German Catholic Youth, said his members were appalled by the revelations of abuse in church-run schools and choirs — and wondered why the pope had yet to address his fellow Germans.
"Everyone is suffering from the church's bad image," Taenzler said. "It is an issue in every congregation and everyone is trying to cope."
Benedict's successor in Munich, Archbishop Reinhard Marx, said the pope's letter to Ireland "will of course affect us. The pope always speaks for everyone. It is not ... for specific groups or countries. That word will also be important for us."
Marx said the pope should not be expected to take responsibility for abuses committed by individual priests. "We expect the pope to take a stand on everything every time, but we are responsible for what happens here," he said.
In the United States, where several dioceses have been driven to bankruptcy amid abuse lawsuits, activists called on the pope to be candid about his own failings — and for bishops to be held accountable.
"So far the church hierarchy has been very short on accountability. They've had to be pushed to come clean about their responsibility for anything," said Dan Bartley, president of Voice of the Faithful, a Catholic lay group that lobbies for reform within the church. "He needs to call for any bishops involved in the Irish crisis to resign. But unfortunately we're not expecting that."
Ray Flynn, former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, said the pope has been slow to speak publicly about the church's abuse crisis because he lacks media savvy, not because he wants to stonewall critics or doesn't care about victims. "He is a very quiet, unassuming, non-pretentious man," Flynn said.
"He's got to be transparent, forthcoming, right out front and point the finger where the blame is," he added. "I think the truth will set you free, and that's what people want."
No country has been harder hit by the child-abuse scandals than Ireland, a nation of 4 million that has paid out more than $1 billion to some 13,000 victims. Victims' advocates say they are tired of hearing church apologies that contain no acknowledgment of how bishops under Vatican direction let child molesters operate with impunity.
"What we probably will get — I hope I'm wrong — are a lot of expressions of regret and sorrow and apology about the horrors of child abuse in the past. I've heard that so often now," said Marie Collins, one of Ireland's most prominent campaigners for victims' rights.
"I want to hear apologies for the actions of the church hierarchy."
Collins, 63, was repeatedly raped by a Dublin priest, Paul McGennis, while in a children's hospital in 1960. Irish bishops knew at the time about McGennis' pedophilia — even confiscating his collection of nude photos of children — but didn't bar him from the priesthood until 1997, shortly before his conviction for abusing Collins and another girl.
Such cover-ups have undermined much of the Irish hierarchy including its leader, Cardinal Sean Brady.
On St. Patrick's Day, Brady apologized for his failure to tell police about evidence he gathered in 1975 from two altar boys molested by the Rev. Brendan Smyth. Smyth kept abusing children until he was finally convicted in 1994. The scandal triggered the collapse of the Irish government.
Three Irish government-ordered investigations from 2005 to 2009 documented the abuse of thousands of Irish children by priests in their parishes and by nuns and brothers in boarding schools and orphanages. Irish bishops did not report a single case to police until 1996 after victims began to sue the church.
Some church scholars say Benedict has sought to encourage a church crackdown on abusers and are hopeful that Saturday's message might offer a fresh start for the church worldwide.
"If we do take serious and proper steps, the house can be cleaned and the church will improve for it," said the Rev. John Wauck, a commentator on Vatican affairs.
"I think that's something to look forward to with hope. I imagine the letter will be quite hopeful and forward-looking," Wauck said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_church_abuse_pope;_ylt=Ag993YEzzJ0oGx_hmlvD916s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNsdHM1dmU5BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwMzE5L2V1X2NodXJjaF9hYnVzZV9wb3BlBGNjb2RlA21vc3Rwb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDMwRwb3MDMTAEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcnkEc2xrA3BvcGVzaXJpc2hsZQ--
]]>The pope "brought a certain closure to the priestly sex abuse scandal that has shaken the church for more than six years," the Catholic News Service, an arm of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, reported at the time.
In recent weeks, that scandal has been blown wide open again. This time, the Roman Catholic Church's crisis over sex abuse charges has gone global, with allegations spreading through half a dozen countries on two continents -- even as many U.S. Catholic dioceses continue to face litigation over alleged sexual abuse by priests.
Allegations of church-based sex abuse are mounting across Europe, including in Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland. New abuse allegations have surfaced in Brazil, home of the world's largest Catholic population, thanks to a recent TV report that included a video purportedly showing a priest having sex with a 19-year-old altar boy.
Ireland, meanwhile, continues to wrestle with the fallout from years of revelations about abusive priests. It wasn't until this week that Ireland's top Catholic Cardinal acknowledged the church's response to the abuse had been "hopelessly inadequate." A letter from the pope responding to the Irish abuse is expected Saturday.
When the American church abuse crisis emerged eight years ago in Boston, Massachusetts, "there was a tendency to see it as an American problem," says John Allen, CNN's Vatican analyst and senior correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter. "Now we have obvious confirmation that this is a global crisis. Anywhere there is a substantial Catholic population there is the potential for this type of scandal."
And while few Vatican watchers expect Benedict to step down over the growing crisis, charges of abuse in his native Germany are bringing the scandal closer to this pope than to any of his predecessors. "The scandals threaten his reputation in terms of how he governs the church," says Allen. "But there's also a threat to his personal reputation and moral authority."
For the broader Roman Catholic Church, the crisis threatens to erode membership in Europe's remaining Catholic strongholds and to change secular Europe's posture toward the church from shrugging toleration to outright hostility.
But church experts say the crisis is likely to have far less impact in parts of the world where Catholicism is growing fastest, like Africa and Southeast Asia.
For Benedict, the sexual abuse revelations in Germany, where lawyers say that more than 300 cases of alleged abuse have emerged -- mostly since January -- are the most ominous. The archdiocese of Munich recently revealed that it had allowed a priest suspected of abuse to continue pastoring there in the early 1980s, when the pope -- then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger -- was archbishop. That priest was later convicted of abuse.
The Munich archdiocese's number two official from the time has claimed full responsibility for the episode and no other cases that could implicate the pope have emerged. "If it's one case, it's embarrassing but survivable," says Allen. "If it becomes five or ten, a pattern emerges and it becomes something more serious."
Those who've watched Catholic abuse scandals unfold elsewhere say there's a high likelihood of more allegations in Germany and other countries where news of the scandal recently broke. "It starts with the victims, then the media pick it up and once the dam is broken, new revelations and victims pour out," said David Gibson, a Vatican expert who has written a biography of Benedict.
"Once victims are emboldened to come forward, it emboldens prosecutors and government officials to undertake investigations they may not have before out of fear of offending the church," he said.
That was the pattern in the United States after allegations surfaced in the Boston archdiocese in 2002. Since then, the U.S. Catholic church has paid $2.5 billion toward sexual abuse victims.
Besides setting off a chain reaction of American victims coming forward -- partially through the advent of victims' advocacy groups -- the U.S. church scandal represented a turning point in the news media rigorously investigating allegations of church abuse.
Those same elements combined to throw a light on major church abuse scandals in England and Australia in the years since. In Ireland, allegations of abuse culminated in last year's release of a government-commissioned report that found the Archdiocese of Dublin and other Catholic authorities covered up widespread child abuse by priests from 1975 to 2004.
In traditionally Catholic Ireland, the pews were already emptying before the sex abuse scandal broke. "But places like southern Germany and Austria and Poland are still very Catholic," says Gibson. The accumulating abuse allegations "will erode church participation there while accelerating the pace of secularization in places like France and England."
The growing scandals might also curb the church's enduring role in European politics and public life. "When the Catholic Church comes out against biotechnology there will be Europeans that say, 'Why should we listen to you -- you put up with pedophile priests,'" said Philip Jenkins, a religion professor at Pennsylvania State University.
In Brazil, where a handful of abuse allegations against priests have recently surfaced, the Catholic Church is already losing market share to Pentecostal and evangelical churches. Those churches may subtly seize on abuse allegations as part of their broader appeals to those disillusioned by the Catholic Church's top-down structure.
But in regions like Africa, which has seen its Catholic population grow from 2 million in 1900 to 150 million today, the new allegations are likely to generate relatively little distress. Nigeria is now home to the world's largest Catholic seminary, while Europe and the U.S. now depend on wider Africa to supply their priests.
"The joke in Africa is that the problem with the Vatican is that it's 2,000 miles too far north," says Jenkins. "So these latest allegations won't cause mass defections."
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/03/19/catholic.church.abuse/index.html?hpt=C2
THE GUARDIAN, LONDON AND BERLIN
Friday, Mar 19, 2010, Page 6
The crisis gripping the Catholic Church deepened on Wednesday, with calls for national inquiries to be held in Germany and Ireland to fully disclose the detail and extent of sexual abuse by priests.
With hundreds of allegations surfacing in Europe since the start of the year, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the scandal of abuse in the country’s churches and schools posed a “major challenge” that could be resolved only through a full and frank inquiry into all cases.
In Ireland, which has already seen far-reaching investigations into the abuse, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said a national inquiry into historic claims may be the only way to fully restore confidence in the church.
The most senior Catholic in Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, resisted intense pressure to resign over his part in helping cover up the scandal.
The scale of the abuse — with additional allegations of clerical scandals emerging in Switzerland, Austria and Brazil — has caused as much alarm in some quarters as has the Church’s response.
Merkel’s intervention revealed the level of concern in Germany.
Addressing the Bundestag in her first public statement on the subject, she called the sexual abuse of children a “despicable crime.”
She added: “The only way for our society to come to terms with it is to look for the truth and find out everything that has happened.”
However, she said: “the damage suffered by the victims can never fully be repaired.”
Her remarks, the most outspoken from a head of government on the issue, came on the eve of a pastoral letter from the pope.
It will be published today and addressed to the “Irish faithful” and he referred to it in his general audience at the Vatican.
Speaking in English, he said: “In recent months the church in Ireland has been severely shaken as a result of the child abuse crisis. As a sign of my deep concern I have written a pastoral letter dealing with this painful situation. I ask all of you to read it for yourselves, with an open heart and in a spirit of faith.”
The Catholic Church in Ireland has been the subject of devastating criticism in two reports detailing collusion, cruelty and endemic abuse throughout its institutions.
Last weekend, in a further blow to its reputation, Cardinal Brady admitted attending meetings where two 10-year-olds were forced to sign vows of silence over complaints against Father Brendan Smyth, who continued abusing children for a further 18 years. The cardinal used his St Patrick’s Day sermon to apologize for his role in the cover-up of child abuse by Father Smyth, one of the country’s most notorious pedophile priests.
Although the pope has taken an active interest in Irish church affairs — summoning its bishops to an emergency meeting — his letter may not be enough for victims and their families.
Repeated demands for openness and honesty appear to have trickled through to the Vatican. Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the Vatican official responsible for handling abuse allegations, told the New York Times yesterday: “We have to get our act together and start working for more transparency in investigations and more adequate responses for the problem.”
A new approach was necessary at “every level of the church,” he said.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2010/03/19/2003468348
]]>Darrel Mohler has been charged with two counts of rape, Lafayette County Sheriff Kerrick Alumbaugh said at a news conference. Missouri police did not have Mohler in custody earlier.
On the request of Missouri officials, Marion County authorities went to Mohler's home in Silver Springs, Florida, and caught him just before he pulled into the driveway, according to a news release from the Marion County Sheriff's Office. He was subsequently arrested.
Mohler told police he "was aware of what was going on in Missouri," and that he had not been there since the 1980s, according to the sheriff's office.
Five members of the Mohler family of Lafayette County, Missouri, were arrested earlier this week after six alleged victims, who are relatives of the five suspects, made accusations of sexual abuse. A sixth person, described as an "associate" of the family, was arrested Thursday but released Friday, police said.
The six alleged victims -- all now adults -- came to law enforcement authorities with stories of sexual performances, mock weddings, rape with various objects and a forced abortion during their childhoods, according to court documents obtained by CNN affiliate KSHB in Kansas City. CNN does not identify alleged sexual assault victims.
Police did not have enough to charge Darrel Mohler earlier, but after examining the victims' statements, obtained enough information to charge him, Alumbaugh said. He added that he does not think Darrel is on the run.
Darrel Mohler, 72, is the younger brother of Burrell Edward Mohler Sr., 77, according to KSHB. On Tuesday, authorities arrested Mohler Sr. and his sons Burrell Edward Mohler Jr., 53; David A. Mohler, 52; Jared Leroy Mohler, 48; and Roland Neil Mohler, 47.
More charges against the family members are expected next week, the sheriff said. Current charges for some of the arrested include rape, deviate sexual assault and use [of] child in sexual performance, according to Missouri State Courts online case management system.
Alumbaugh said that Larry Kidd, 55, of Kansas City, Missouri -- an "associate" of the Mohler family -- was picked up by police following a tip, cooperated with police and has been released.
The alleged abuse took place from the mid-1980s until 1995 and possibly beyond, the sheriff said earlier. The documents provide graphic details of the alleged abuse provided by one of the alleged victims. All of the charges stem from those documents, Alumbaugh said.
Mohler Sr., David Mohler and Jared Mohler are all lay ministers in the Community of Christ, the Independence, Missouri-based organization said in a statement.
Lay ministers are volunteers who do not receive compensation, said the organization, and none of the three served in leadership roles or worked with children.
Mohler Sr. went through the group's registered youth worker program, but "his youth worker registration has been terminated and we understand he had no contact with children or youth in church programs," the statement said.
Some lay ministers might help take care of the church, while others might speak at services, said the organization's spokeswoman, Linda Booth.
The Community of Christ is an offshoot of the modern-day Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It split off from the Mormon church in the 1800s, and in 2000 changed its name to Community of Christ from the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Investigators earlier this week searched several properties for evidence, but there were no plans to continue the searches, Alumbaugh said Friday. He declined to comment on any evidence found.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/14/missouri.child.sexual.abuse/index.html
]]>She described Brian David Mitchell, her alleged kidnapper, as "evil, wicked, manipulative, stinky, slimy, selfish, not spiritual, not religious, not close to God."
Smart testified in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City as part of a competency proceeding for the man charged in her 2002 kidnapping.
Mitchell has twice been found incompetent for trial in state court. Mitchell and his estranged wife were found with Smart nine months after she disappeared from her Salt Lake City home.
A judge ruled earlier this week that testimony from Smart, now 21, is relevant to the mental competency of Mitchell, who was removed from the courtroom before Smart arrived and taken to a holding cell where he could listen to the proceedings.
Smart was poised and composed while testifying for just under two hours.
She was 14 when she was abducted from her Salt Lake City home at knifepoint in the middle of the night. Shortly after her abduction, Smart said Mitchell took her to a mountain camp and performed a ceremony she said was intended to marry the two.
"After that, he proceeded to rape me," Smart said.
She said he held her captive with a cable attached to her leg that had a 10-foot reach. That line was attached to another cable strung between two trees.
Smart said Mitchell plied her with alcohol and drugs to lower her resistance.
"He said that he would kill anybody that would come into the camp, or kill me if I ever tried to escape or yell out," Smart testified.
Smart said Mitchell was motivated by sex and used religion to get what he wanted.
Mitchell's defense attorneys had sought to limit Smart's testimony to her experiences with Mitchell, without her opinions about his mental state.
The defense objected to the 39 so-called "lay witnesses" proposed by prosecutors, including Mitchell's family, friends or workers at Utah State Hospital, because they lacked the expertise to evaluate competency.
In a ruling Monday, U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball rejected the argument as it relates to Smart, saying her testimony may help the court settle differences in the findings of experts who have evaluated Mitchell.
Experts have split opinions over Mitchell's competency and have relied on statements from others -- including Smart -- and past evaluations to prepare reports for the court. Kimball's ruling said Mitchell has been uncooperative with evaluators and refused to participate in diagnostic tests.
In the state court system, Mitchell was twice found incompetent to stand trial.
Smart was rescued nine months after her abduction when a motorist spotted her walking through a suburb with Mitchell and his estranged wife, Wanda Eileen Barzee.
Last year, Mitchell was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor.
Once an itinerant street preacher, Mitchell is said to have wanted Smart as a polygamous wife and may have taken her to fulfill a religious prophecy he laid out in a 27-page manifesto drafted in April 2002.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/01/elizabeth-smart-testimony_n_305995.html
]]>John D Ahern was arrested on January 1, 2006 by Texas Rangers but is free again and is a Wanted Sexual Predator - WANTED - for failure to register as a Sex Offender.
He is believed now to be in the Corpus Christi, Texas area.
Convicted Pedophile Felony Child Molestation, Sexual Assault, Statutory Rape, Criminal sexual contact toward a minor - Child Rape - Sexual Intercourse - Unlawful Sexual Intercourse Without Consent - Rape Sexual Penetration Victim - [ 16 years or younger without consent ] - Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution - Failure to Register as a Sex Offender
Please see: http://www.aninchfrommurder.com/john_daniel_ahern/
]]>"God done this in his own time," said Ruthie Lunsford, Jessica's grandmother, who said Couey's death Wednesday morning from anal cancer came as a surprise. "I am not crying."
Her husband, Archie, said his emotions were torn between vengeance and his religious beliefs.
"Death is always sad to me," the 76-year-old grandfather said. "I'm just glad that it's over with. We never got to see him put to death. But we wouldn't have lived that long. No way."
Jessica's father, Mark Lunsford, took a long motorcycle ride to reflect on the day's events. He said he wanted Couey to die from lethal injection.
"My daughter's murderer died today," Lunsford said Wednesday evening. "And it wasn't by our hands. ... John Couey got off easy."
He said he had not been aware that Couey had cancer.
"Cancer is an awful disease," Lunsford said. "Today, it's a good disease."
The prosecutor in the case, Pete Magrino, said he was relieved to hear the news.
"It matters not to me how he died, just that he's dead and he won't be able to victimize anyone ever again."
The Lunsfords endured years of investigation and a lengthy trial ending with a conviction and death sentence for their neighbor, who abducted the child, raped her and killed her in 2005.
Now, it appears that grief seemingly perpetuated for four years by a methodical but at times frustrating legal system may be alleviated - at least as much as it can be for surviving relatives of a young girl who died with such brutality.
According to prosecutors, Jessica - her parents always called her Jessie - was abducted from her home in the middle of the night in February 2005.
Couey kept her in the closet of his nearby mobile home and sexually molested her before binding her wrists and ankles with speaker wire, stuffing her inside two black plastic garbage bags and burying her alive in a 4-foot-deep hole.
Couey, 51, was on death row at the Florida State Prison near Starke until Aug. 12, when medical personnel there sent him to Jacksonville Memorial Hospital, which has a contract with the Florida Department of Corrections to treat inmates when prison doctors can't. He died at 11:15 a.m. Wednesday, corrections spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said.
She said that during Couey's two years in the prison, he never had a single visitor.
A date for Couey's execution had never been set.
Citrus County Sheriff Jeff Dawsy became intimately involved with the case and often appeared with Lunsford lobbying for stricter sex offender laws.
"I know (Couey) didn't suffer the way Jessie did when he killed her," Dawsy said in a statement released Wednesday evening. "I'm sorry I won't get to look him in the eyes as he died, but I'm relieved to know he'll never hurt another child again."
Couey had been convicted of a sex offense years earlier, but no one in the neighborhood knew about it at the time. He even did some work at the elementary school Jessica attended.
In the years that followed Jessica's death, Mark Lundsford focused on the passage of "Jessie's Law," lobbying across the nation for more stringent restrictions on convicted sex offenders. Florida was the first state to pass the law, and within two years of her death, more than 20 other states followed.
The Jessica Marie Lunsford Act, passed by the Florida Legislature in May 2005, requires school districts to do background checks on contractors and vendors who may come in contact with children.
The law also requires sex offenders to register in person every six months.
Reporters Catherine Dolinski, Josh Poltilove, editor Howard Altman and News Channel 8 reporters Samara Sodos and Krista Klaus contributed to this report.
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/sep/30/010250/john-couey-dies-cancer-prison/news-breaking/
]]>This is what Angel, 11, and Starlit, 15, have faced since the arrest last week of Phillip Garrido, charged with the 1991 abduction of Jaycee Dugard, now 29.
"They thought Jaycee was their sister," Dugard's stepfather, Carl Probyn, tells PEOPLE. "People have to realize this will take years of therapy."
Still, there have been encouraging signs the healing has begun. Dugard's reunion with her mother, Terry Probyn, has been "the happiest time of her life, and they are bonding," says Carl, who split with his wife amid the stress of his stepdaughter's kidnapping (Carl was briefly treated as a suspect, then cleared).
Carl Probyn says what the girls and Jaycee need now is to avoid the media. To that end, they're not only turning down interviews and TV shows, he says, but they're not returning with Terry to Riverside, Calif., because the family doesn't want the girls to be seen by paparazzi.
The family members were in a Concord hotel for a few days, but checked out when paparazzi went looking for them, and they are now in an undisclosed house that's under guard by the FBI, Carl tells PEOPLE.
He says it's unclear what the family's costs will be over the next few years. Jaycee hasn't been to school since she was 11, and her daughters have never been to school. They also need lots of counseling. The cost of all this, he says, is anyone's guess.
"This has never happened in history – for someone to be recovered 18 years after an abduction," says Carl Probyn.
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20301831,00.html
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