The Child Protection eNewsletter

Baby Grace, Riley Ann Sawyers, was tortured by mother, stepfather… 

The mother and stepfather of Riley Ann Sawyers, who Texas authorities believe is "Baby Grace," tortured and beat the child on the day she died, according to an affidavit filed with Galveston County authorities in connection with the case.  Read More

Kimberly Ann Trenor, 19, and her 24-year-old husband, Royce Clyde Zeigler, both of Spring, Texas, are being held in connection with the 2-year-old girl's death on charges of injuring a child and tampering with evidence.  The two remain in custody in Galveston County jail, each on $350,000 bond.

This is yet another recent child death at the hands of a stepfather or mother’s significant other.  Volume 5 Issue 76

In the affidavit, Trenor describes how she and Zeigler beat the toddler with two leather belts and held her head under water in a bathtub on the morning of July 24.  Trenor also said in the affidavit that Zeigler picked the child up by her hair and threw her across the room causing her head to slam against a tile floor.

After Sawyers died, Trenor said in the affidavit to the Sheriff's Office, Zeigler covered the child in a purple towel and the pair then went to a Wal-Mart to purchase items to hide and dispose of the body, including a blue plastic container, bleach, a shovel and latex gloves.

According to the affidavit, Trenor said Zeigler hid the container with the remains in a storage shed for two months before the pair tossed the container into the water off Galveston Causeway.

Bones of baby found in Detroit home; 2 charged with abusing second child…

Police investigating the apparent abuse of a 1-year-old boy say they found the skeletal remains of his baby brother concealed in the ceiling of a home.  Read More

The boys' parents, 24-year-old Nickella Reid and 27-year-old Joseph Miller, were arrested after Reid took her year-old son to the hospital with burns.  She said he was scalded the day before Thanksgiving by Miller, her boyfriend.

The couple was arraigned Saturday on first- and second-degree child abuse charges.  They were jailed on bonds of $700,000 for Miller and $400,000 for Reid, authorities said.  The name of the injured boy was not released.

Reid told police that Miller killed another son, Deante Miller, in March 2006, while Miller said he died of natural causes.  Miller also denied scalding the younger boy, authorities said.

Authorities say the couple then burned the body in a barbecue grill -- to save on funeral costs, they claimed -- and hid what was left of the remains in the ceiling of a home once occupied by Miller's sister.

But police said Reid has been collecting welfare and food stamps in the name of Deuntay (sic) and four other children.   Read More

Michigan Department of Human Services spokeswoman Maureen Sorbet confirmed that Nickella Reid received $822 a month in welfare.

In other news…

The mayor of Poteet, TX pleaded guilty to indecent conduct toward two girls and is barred from going to City Hall because it is near a youth center.  Read More

But he still doesn't plan to resign.  Mayor Lino Donato entered the pleas October 31 to three counts of indecency, cutting short a trial on accusations that he exposed himself to two girls between 1996 and 2000 and improperly touched one of them.  As a registered sex offender, Donato is required to stay more than 1,000 feet from places where children congregate, and the Atascosa Boxing Club and Youth Center is less than that distance from City Hall, City Attorney Frank Garza said.  Probation officers checked the distance with a tape measure, officials said.

Dardenne Prairie, Missouri city officials unanimously passed a measure making online harassment a crime, days after learning that a 13-year-old girl killed herself last year after receiving cruel messages on the Internet.  Read More

The six-member Board of Aldermen made Internet harassment a misdemeanor punishable by up to a $500 fine and 90 days in jail.  Mayor Pam Fogarty said the city had proposed the measure after learning about Megan Meier's death.  Volume 5 Issue 76

Milwaukee police have arrested a man suspected of eight sexual assaults since February.  Read More  The 22-year-old was arrested Friday -- the date of his most recent assault.  The female victims ranged in age from age 14 to 25, but most were in their teens.  One of the victims from August, a 19-year-old female, spotted the suspect in a vehicle Friday, noted the license plate number and called police.  As police were interviewing the 19-year-old, the suspect had driven to an area where he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl as she got off a bus.  The girl called police.

In a new twist on the sex tourism phenomenon, older European women are travelling to Kenya to have sex with young Kenyan men.  Read More

Hard figures are difficult to come by, but local people on the coast estimate that as many as one in five single women visiting from rich countries are in search of sex.  These same beaches have long been notorious for attracting another type of sex tourists -- those who abuse children.  As many as 15,000 girls in four coastal districts -- about a third of all 12-18 year-olds girls there -- are involved in casual sex for cash, a joint study by Kenya's government and U.N. children's charity UNICEF reported late last year.  Up to 3,000 more girls and boys are in full-time sex work, it said, some paid for the "most horrific and abnormal acts."

Jonesboro, Arkansas police arrested an Army recruiter they say tried to solicit sex from a 16-year-old girl he met during a high school visit.  Read More  Greggory John DeBoer, 28, is charged with felony possession of child pornography, though police said he could soon face other charges.  The girl said she met DeBoer during a recruiting trip to her school in October and that the two began communicating by phone and the Internet the following day, Jonesboro police detective Ernest Ward wrote in an affidavit.  She said DeBoer asked her for photographs of herself, first clothed and then nude, and later asked her several times to meet for sex, but she refused, Ward wrote.

Portuguese detectives spent "several days" investigating whether Kate and Gerry McCann sold their daughter to pedophiles.  Read More

Detectives thought the couple may have sold Madeleine to a criminal network to ease money worries, the Daily Mail reported.  Detectives have been unable to seize the couple’s bank statements, but their theory fell apart when they realized the couple, both doctors, were wealthy because they lived in a million-dollar home in Rothley, Leicestershire.  Fox News now reports that Portuguese police are reportedly considering clearing the girl's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann of wrongdoing in the mystery, which has garnered worldwide attention.  Read More

A subdivision in northwest Amarillo has implemented deed restrictions barring convicted sex offenders from owning or living in any new homes.  Read More  G.R. Chapman Limited Partnership said the restriction will apply to future development within The Woodlands.  The 550 existing homes are not affected.  "We want to try to have a community that is safe all the way around," developer Justin Chapman said.  The deeds for new homes will stipulate that a homeowner cannot sell the home if the buyer or a future inhabitant is a sex offender.  Violators will be required to sell the home and move.

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