The Child Protection eNewsletter

Porn Find Sparks Urgent Victim Search… 

Police are on a desperate search to find kids depicted in child pornography images discovered on the computer of a man arrested on forgery and identity theft charges, and also are seeking four women pictured on the computer.  Read More

Puyallup, Washington police believe the computer's owner, Andrew F. Kowalczyk, 33, may have been abusing the children shown in hundreds of images.

There were also images of four women and a hotel room on the computer of Kowalczyk, who was arrested at a hotel in Puyallup on December 27, police said.

"They went through the computer and found several hundred pictures of child pornography, leading them to believe there are several children who are endangered, and we need to locate those children," Puyallup police spokeswoman Lorri Ericson told ABC News affiliate KOMO-TV in Seattle.

Officials have asked the public for help identifying the hotel room and locating the four women, who they believe may know the whereabouts of the endangered children.

"We don't know where motel room is, but we believe it might be associated with some of the abuse," Ericson said.  "So if we can identify the motel or the city that might also help us find where the children might be."

The children in the pictures are apparently very young -- believed to be between 2 and 8 years old, police said.

Authorities on Sunday released a photo of a fifth woman they believe could be the key in helping find at least three children who could be at risk for sexual abuse.  Read More

The news came as police in Puyallup said tips from people in Portland and Seattle helped them identify two of four women whose pictures were earlier released to the public in the effort to find the children.

The Puyallup Police Department said it received multiple tips over the weekend that helped find two girls who were thought to be in "grave danger," but police said they believe other children are at risk.  Read More

Kowalczyk is being held in the Pierce County Jail.  Kowalczyk has been charged with four counts of possession of depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct and is being held on $1 million bail.

“It’s very posibel (sic) that he did in fact manufacture the images, correct.  It's an ongoing investigation so facts are unfolding,” Pierce County deputy prosecutor Mary Robnett said.

Teens slay foster mother… 

A local prosecutor said he would try to prosecute two teenagers as adults with first-degree murder in the fatal shootings of their foster mother and her mother-in-law.  Read More

Foster mother Mary Clark, 39, and Gail Clark, her 66-year-old mother-in-law visiting from Orange, Massachusetts, were found shot to death in separate rooms of Mary Clark's home in rural White Bluff, about 25 miles west of Nashville.

Meanwhile, the charges have fueled renewed criticism of how the state Department of Children's Services places juveniles in foster care.  Read More  James Earl Garrett, 17, and Jeffery Byrd Johnson Jr., 15, are charged with first-degree murder in the New Year's Day slayings.  Police have not disclosed a possible motive.

Judge Andrew Jackson ordered the boys held in custody until he can decide whether they will be tried as adults.

Children's Services has been repeatedly criticized by police and court authorities for putting violent juveniles in non-secure facilities while they continue to commit crimes.  In 2006, a judge threatened contempt of court charges against top department officials after a teenage armed robbery suspect escaped custody.

Jackson told reporters after the hearing that, if the facts of the case are true, then blame for the slayings of the two women rests squarely at the front door of the agency.  "This is exactly the kind of situation we have warned about," he said.

William Clark, husband and son of the victims, has blamed the state for a policy that gives the agency 15 days to respond to requests to relocate children from foster families.  One of the boys had asked to be moved from the home in White Bluff, and the slayings occurred while the family was waiting for a meeting to take place, William Clark said.

Clark said the younger teen was a student at Dickson's alternative high school, and didn't start to misbehave until Garrett arrived a few weeks ago.  He said Johnson did have an assault charge for hitting a boy at school, a small charge that wouldn't cause DCS to move a child.

The process is expedited if there is a safety issue, DCS spokesman Rob Johnson said, but in general the agency is cautious about relocating foster children because of the disruption.  So far, the agency's internal review has found no sign that anyone was in danger, he said.

"As tragic and saddening as this case is, we still believe this is an appropriate placement," Rob Johnson said in response to the judge's comments.  "Based on everything we've reviewed so far, there's nothing we've seen that shows these boys should have been placed somewhere else."

Davidson County Juvenile Court Judge Betty Adams Green, the same judge who threatened DCS officials with contempt charges, said she has seen signs of improvement with DCS' placement of children.

"We have had some very heated discussions with the DCS," Green said.  "At least, from my perspective, there have been some improvements, especially better classifications of children."

Green said while she agrees with Jackson that there needs to be more reform, she thought it was inappropriate and unethical for a judge to comment on a pending case.

"That's rather unusual," she said.  "Certainly it has happened.  But we are not supposed to comment while a case is in hand."

In other news…  

A Pennsylvania high school gym teacher was charged with sending nude pictures of herself and sexually suggestive cell phone text messages to a 14-year-old freshman at the school.  Read More  Beth Ann Chester, a 26-year-old health and physical education teacher at Moon Area High School in suburban Pittsburgh, was arrested and charged with child sexual abuse, statutory sexual assault and related counts, authorities said.  Police said the married Chester had sent the boy three pictures of herself, two of them naked, by cell phone, and the boy replied with a naked picture of himself.  Moon police said Beth Ann Chester also told them she and the student had sex in her car while it was parked in the school's parking lot.  Read More

Pope Benedict XVI has instructed Roman Catholics to pray “in perpetuity” to cleanse the Church of pedophile clergy.  All dioceses, parishes, monasteries, convents and seminaries will be expected to organize continuous daily prayers to express penitence and to purify the clergy.  Read More  Vatican officials said that every parish or institution should designate a person or group each day to conduct continuous prayers for the Church to rid itself of the scandal of sexual abuse by clergy.  Alternatively, churches in the same diocese could share the duty.  Prayer would take place in one parish for 24 hours, then move to another.

Lawyers for a Louisiana man who received a death sentence for raping a child will get the chance to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court why they believe he should be spared the death penalty.  Read More  Patrick Kennedy was accused of raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter in 1998, badly injuring her during the crime.  She testified against him five years later at the trial.  When Kennedy was sentenced, he received the death penalty -- a punishment typically reserved for those who commit murder.  Kennedy's legal team wants the court to declare Louisiana's law allowing the death penalty for child rape unconstitutional.  Only two people in the United States are on death row for nonhomicide offenses, and both are in that state.

Prosecutors are reviewing whether a 12-year-old boy should be charged as an adult after police accused him of fatally beating his toddler cousin with a baseball bat for interrupting a cartoon show.  Read More  The boy, whose name was not released, was being held in juvenile custody in the death of 17-month-old Shaloh Joseph, who police said enraged the suspect by crying while he watched television.  The case has powerful similarities to that of Lionel Tate, another 12-year-old, whose killing of a playmate convulsed the legal system in the same county and set off a debate over Florida's tough juvenile laws.  Tate was accused in the 1999 murder of a 6-year-old girl.  He was convicted as an adult and was believed to have been the youngest person ever sentenced to life in prison in the U.S.

Two girls found dead in a smoke-filled house were the victims of a ritual slaying, Sioux City, Iowa police said.  Read More  Their stepfather, Lawrence Douglas Harris Sr., 25, has been arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Kendra Suing, 10, and Alysha Suing, 8.  Police Lieutenant Marti Reilly said Harris had been performing "some strange ritual."  Harris told investigators he was casting a spell that "had gone bad" and the spell "could have had severe consequences," according to Sioux City Police Chief Joe Frisbie.

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