The Child Protection eNewsletter

Portuguese police stumped by missing Madeleine case…

The head of the Portuguese CID admitted that he had no idea what had happened to Madeleine McCann since she disappeared 106 days ago. Read More Alípio Ribeiro, the director of the Polícia Judiciária, said he was still optimistic that his officers would discover the missing girl’s fate, although he said that she was most likely to be dead.

Mr. Ribeiro admitted that officers had not warned Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, before saying that they now believed that Madeleine was probably dead. “They are being informed of what happens, but it is a very dynamic investigation,” he said. “We work with many hypotheses. We cannot explain to them everything we are investigating.”

The Times revealed that Portuguese detectives had been told that traces of blood found in the bedroom from where Madeleine was abducted were not from her. A senior Portuguese police source confirmed: “We have been informed that the blood was from a man.”

The news appeared to give fresh hope to Mr. and Mrs. McCann, who thanked the thousands of people who supported them during accusations that blood proved that their daughter had been killed in her bedroom. “Over last weekend alone they received 7,000 e-mails of support and countless letters of support,” a spokeswoman said.

However, Mr. Ribeiro said that his officers were not close to discovering what happened to Madeleine after her disappearance from a holiday apartment at the Ocean Club complex in Praia da Luz. “We have no idea where Madeleine could be,” he told El Mundo newspaper in Spain. “There is a long road ahead and it would be very frivolous for me to say that we are close to the end.”

Study: Teen Drug Use at Schools Worsens…

Teenagers say drug problems at school are getting worse, and parents express doubts about ever making such schools drug free, a new study says. http://www.foxnews.com/wires/ The percentage of teens who say they attend high schools with drug problems has increased from 44 percent to 61 percent since 2002, and the percentage in middle schools has increased from 19 percent to 31 percent, according to the survey released Thursday by Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.

Four in five teens in high school told researchers they have witnessed the use, sale or possession of illegal drugs on high school grounds, or seen someone who was drunk or high on campus. Some 13 percent of teens said they had tried marijuana, and 4 percent said they had used it in the past month. Such survey results are often understated because respondents are hesitant to admit such drug use.

The survey also found:

*About six in 10 parents of teens at schools with a drug problem say they believe the goal of making that school drug free is unrealistic.

*Most parents, 86 percent, say drinking is a big part of the college experience, but only 29 percent think their own teens will do a lot of drinking in college.

*Students who consider themselves popular were more likely to use drugs, drink or smoke than students who do not view themselves as popular.

In other news… 

Jack McClellan has made himself a marked man - a self-described pedophile whose behavior has creeped out parents and child advocates nationwide. Read More But while he's talked openly about his attraction to little girls, or "LGs" as he calls them, and taken pictures of them in public places, neither is a crime. As a result, his case has stirred debate, particularly since his arrest on Monday, over whether attempting to restrict unseemly behavior that isn't criminal violates a person's constitutional rights.

A handful of states require juvenile sex offenders to post their personal information online. http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/ But the Adam Walsh Act, which states must implement by 2009, requires teens as young as 14 who are convicted of serious sex crimes to register as sex offenders for life.

A member of a famed department store family who plans to plead guilty to a child pornography charge deleted computer files as the FBI headed to his house, according to a plea agreement. http://ap.lancasteronline.com/ Steven L. Strawbridge Sr., former vice president and treasurer of the defunct Strawbridge & Clothier department store chain, faces up to six years in prison on the federal charge.

ABC News’ Primetime asks, once again, if Jeffrey Dahmer could be responsible for Adam Walsh’s death. http://abcnews.go.com/ John Walsh remains convinced the killer of his son was drifter Ottis Toole, now deceased. Walsh's longtime friend and colleague Joe Matthews has been investigating the case for a year and says he has evidence of Toole's guilt -- although the crime remains officially unsolved. (See also http://www.childprotectionprogram.org/newsletter/vol5_iss9.html and http://www.childprotectionprogram.org/newsletter/vol5_iss10.html)

A 31-year-old former teacher charged with the sexually motivated kidnapping of a 10-year-old Tacoma boy resigned from two previous teaching jobs in other south Puget Sound area school districts, officials said. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/ Jennifer Leigh Rice was charged here Monday with kidnapping the boy to have sex with him. The boy was a student of Rice's at Tacoma's McKinley Elementary School, according to court records. Officials said Tuesday that Rice spent one year each working as a teacher in the Bethel School District and with Yelm Community Schools. Her resignations came after she was confronted about her professional judgment.

Los Angeles County's child welfare agency wasted more than $1 million on unnecessary or overpriced equipment and failed to adequately keep track of hundreds of thousands of dollars more in supplies, a county audit has found. http://www.latimes.com/news/ The audit was sharply critical of the way the Department of Children and Family Services has overseen its procurement operations and recommended a wide array of reforms. The report said the deficiencies could have resulted in misappropriation of county property and said procurement staff misled auditors to conceal storage locations that housed unneeded or obsolete supplies.

Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan today wrote chief executive officers of national banks and interested groups to share best practices for the prevention and detection of commercial child pornography. http://www.docuticker.com/?p=15450 In his letter, the Comptroller announced that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is collaborating with The Financial Coalition Against Child Pornography to distribute “Internet Merchant Acquisition and Monitoring Best Practices for the Prevention and Detection of Commercial Child Pornography” to national banks and other interested parties as a service to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC).

A Baltimore County judge has sentenced a pastor to eight years in prison for child sexual abuse, a sentence he will service concurrently with a 15-year term he received recently in Howard County. http://www.mddailyrecord.com/ Gerald F. Griffith, 41, pleaded guilty Wednesday to child sexual abuse. The abuse of youths Griffith was supposed to be counseling for emotional problems occurred between November 2002 and October 2005 in Griffith's office at Redemption Christian Fellowship Church in Woodlawn, according to court documents. Griffith molested them and ordered them to perform sex acts, according to charging documents.

*for access to member only sites like the New York Times, use the ID "JohnDoeID" and the password "whatever". On sites asking for an email address, feel free to use "info@childprotectionprogram.org"