The Child Protection eNewsletter

Interpol IDs Pedophile… 

First Interpol unmasked his face. Now it knows his name. The international police organization, working off tips from people who responded to a global appeal for help, said it has identified a suspected pedophile shown in Internet photos abusing young boys. Read More

The man, whose face initially was disguised behind a digitalized swirl, is now thought to be on the run in Thailand, Interpol said. He is said to be an English teacher at a school in South Korea. The man was allegedly shown sexually abusing 12 young Vietnamese and Cambodian boys, apparently ranging in age from 6 to early teens, in about 200 photographs posted on the Internet.

Using techniques that neither they nor Interpol would discuss, German police recreated an image of the man’s face and released four reconstructed photos of him last week.

In just over 12 hours after the images' release, Interpol says it received some 200 messages. Read More That number has increased to more than 350. Interpol also said police in Cambodia were able to identify some of the locations in the pictures.

Three days after releasing a digitally reconstructed photo of a suspected child sex abuser, Interpol says it has tracked the suspect, Christopher Paul Neil, 32, to Thailand. "Thailand is at the centre of an international manhunt, and authorities in the country, in cooperation with Interpol and police around the world, are hunting him down," said Interpol Secretary General Ronald K. Noble.

After releasing the man's image, Interpol says "five different sources from three continents" identified "Vico" -- a codename given to the suspect for the investigation -- as a Canadian teaching English in South Korea.

Authorities in South Korea and Thailand say Neil flew last Thursday from Seoul to Thailand, where security cameras caught him arriving at the Bangkok International Airport. The global police agency is now calling on the public again to help pinpoint "Vico's" exact location. "We must once again enlist the public's support," Secretary General Noble said.

Gov. Mike Beebe said that a flawed law that could let even toddlers marry doesn't yet require a special session of the Arkansas Legislature to fix. Read More The governor left open the possibility of calling a special session or asking Benton County officials to appeal a judge's ruling Wednesday that an independent commission overstepped its bounds when it tried to correct the law.

"If we see there is someone trying to take advantage of the law in a way that appears to be offensive, and creates a crisis, then we wouldn't hesitate to call a special session. We're not there yet," Beebe said.

The law, passed this year, was intended to set 18 as the minimum marriage age but also allow pregnant teenagers to marry with parental consent. However, an extra "not" in the language of the law inadvertently allows Arkansas minors of any age to marry, if their parents approve.

The Arkansas Code Revision Commission, which fixes typos and other minor errors, tried to remove the word. But Circuit Judge Tom Keith ruled the panel made a substantive change to the law, and therefore exceeded its authority.

Without a special session, the first chance legislators would have to fix the law would be when the 2009 legislative session convenes that January. www.childprotectionprogram.org/newsletter/vol5_iss56.html

Mom Charged With Buying Teen Weapons… 

A troubled teenager accused of plotting a school attack built up a stash of weapons with the help of his mother, authorities said. Read More Michele Cossey, 46, was arrested on charges of illegally buying her home-schooled son, Dillon, a .22-caliber handgun, a .22-caliber rifle and a 9 mm semiautomatic rifle with a laser scope.

The parents were indulging the boy's interests because he was unhappy, not knowingly aiding a school assault, Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor said. The parents didn't know of the teen's plans, but "by virtue of her indulgence, she enabled him to get in this position," Castor said.

Dillon Cossey told investigators he was planning an attack on the school, Castor said, but authorities do not believe he was close to pulling it off. Castor said he believes the teen Cossey asked to help him was the first person he approached for assistance.

On his MySpace page, Dillon Cossey made frequent references to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and describes their 1999 massacre at Columbine High School as one of his interests. The page, headlined "Mess with the best, Die like the rest," features tribute videos to the Columbine shooters and includes a still from surveillance video of the attack.

Police, who searched the boy's home with his parents' permission, also discovered seven explosive devices Castor has described as homemade grenades: plastic containers filled with BBs to which gunpowder could be added. Authorities said one was operable and the others had been in the process of being assembled.

In a related story, Cleveland school officials were trying to determine how a suspended student who shot four before killing himself was able to enter his school while carrying two guns all while 26 security cameras were keeping watch. Read More Schools CEO Eugene Sanders was to present a plan to address whether additional security measures are needed after 14-year-old Asa Coon went on a shooting spree at the SuccessTech Academy alternative school. The plan is also expected to address how potential problems among students are identified.

Meanwhile, authorities in Cincinnati say no charges will be filed against an 8-year-old boy who was taken into custody after brandishing a handgun on a suburban school bus. Read More A Hamilton County sheriff's spokesman says the matter has been referred to the department of Job and Family Services for appropriate followup. Deputies answered a report by a Mount Healthy school bus driver and found that a third-grader at Duvall Elementary School had taken a loaded .38-caliber Beretta from his backpack.

A fugitive accused of raping a 3-year-old girl on videotape was arrested quietly during a traffic stop, telling the officer, "I'm tired of running," police said. Read More Chester "Chet" Arthur Stiles, 37, was pulled over late Monday in Henderson for not having a license plate. He admitted his identity after police said his license looked suspicious. "He said, 'I'm Chester Stiles, the guy you're looking for,'" Henderson police Officer Mike Dye said. "He said, 'I'm tired of running.'" Las Vegas police Captain Vincent Cannito said Stiles has been wanted since October 5 on warrants issued for 21 felony charges in connection with the acts seen on the videotape. The charges include lewdness with a minor, sexual assault and attempted sexual assault.

A Houston couple was charged Friday with the starvation and abuse of a 13-year-old boy they kept locked in their attic, MyFoxHouston reported. Read More Geneva Foster, the boy's mother, and Michael Ryan, his stepfather, were arrested and charged with felony injury to a child for keeping the boy locked in a closet or attic without food. The boy also showed signs of brutal physical abuse -- broken bones, bite scars and damage to his liver, pancreas and kidneys, according to the Harris County Sheriff's Office.

Michael Devlin was a cunning manipulator of the children upon whom he preyed. But in the months before he kidnapped a 13-year-old in January, Devlin faced a rebellion from the boy he had held captive for more than four years. Read More When Devlin told Shawn Hornbeck he was going to kidnap a new boy, Shawn fought the man who had tortured, isolated and manipulated him since 2002. Shawn, then 15, told his 41-year-old captor that another child should not have to endure the horrors he had been put through, according to a prosecutor and Shawn's attorney. To tighten his psychological hold over Shawn, Devlin took him along on the kidnapping of the second child. He told Shawn that running to the police would get both of them arrested. "I think that Shawn Hornbeck is really a hero," said Ethan Corlija, Devlin's lawyer. "He really threw himself on the sword many times so Ben would not have to go through any undue torture."

As the Justice Department steps up an aggressive crackdown on Internet child pornography, a little-noticed provision of a sex offender law is making it harder for defense attorneys to review some of the most important evidence against its suspected purveyors and consumers. Read More In response to a section of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, judges and prosecutors are requiring defense attorneys and computer forensic experts to examine digital pornography images on computers at government facilities, rather than receiving their own copies. Often, FBI agents stationed in the rooms monitor their activities.

The family of an 11-year-old Alabama girl has filed a lawsuit against Delta Air Lines after the child said a man sexually molested her on a flight from San Diego to Atlanta. Read More Savannah lawyer Mark Tate is representing the family. He says the girl -- whose name is NOT included in the lawsuit -- was traumatized. Tate says the girl reported the assault to her mother when she got off the plane January 6th, but authorities have filed no criminal charges and have not identified a suspect. The mother took the report to police in Huntsville and Atlanta and the FBI.

French police have arrested 310 people suspected of having downloaded images of child pornography on the Internet, police said. Read More Police said 144 of those detained across France had admitted they had downloaded pornographic videos of young girls. Some also confessed that they had raped or sexually assaulted children. Around 20 people had been cleared.

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