The Child Protection eNewsletter

John Ramsey calls for felon DNA database…

The father of murder victim JonBenet Ramsey hopes that something worthwhile can result from his family's tragedy:  More emphasis on collecting DNA from every felon in the United States.  CNN story here

Last Wednesday, authorities announced that recently developed "touch DNA" technology had cleared all members of JonBenet Ramsey's family of her slaying.  The family had lived under a cloud of suspicion for nearly 12 years.  Full KUSA story here

Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy formally apologized in a letter to John Ramsey.  Click here for DA letter

In an interview with CNN affiliate KUSA, John Ramsey said what is needed is "a law that requires police agencies to DNA print individuals arrested for felony and put it in the national database."  "We have a great national database that's been set up; it's been in place for a number of years with very little population in it.  There's a huge backlog of DNA samples from crimes scenes and some states submit samples, some states don't."

John Ramsey had a message for lawmakers.  "For those that will have the authority and the power to pass this DNA legislation I think is so important....It just hasn't gotten on the radar in a lot of state legislatures, and it needs to be there.

"If we could achieve that then at least I would feel like we've contributed something to better society," Ramsey said.

As it stands now, it could still take years for authorities to arrest the real killer in the JonBenet case because of a backlog in the FBI's DNA database, the Ramsey family attorney said.

Atlanta attorney Lin Wood said there is a backlog of over "tens of thousands" of DNA evidence-related crime cases that have yet to be put into the DNA database.

U.K. Study:  Teen Girls Harmed by Pressure to Be Sexual, Act Grown Up…  

The pressure to act grown up and be sexual is damaging teen and 'tween girls psychologically, a United Kingdom study has found.  Fox News story here

Girls as young as 10 are being harmed by sexually charged advertisements and magazine images, the study concluded.

The pressure has led to self-harming and has made young girls feel as though they must wear clothes that made them look older.  Girls also say they must increasingly deal with sexual advances from boys, according to the study by Girlguiding U.K., which is similar to the Girl Scouts.  Girlguiding study here

Sexual pressure on teens is also a problem in the U.S.  A study from a division of the National Institutes of Health released last week found that the number of teens having sex is relatively unchanged but teen pregnancy is up for the first time in 15 years.  Fox News story here

The U.K. study, called "A Generation Under Stress?," was based on focus groups involving 54 girl guides between the ages of 10 and 14, as well as an online survey of 350 girls aged 10 to 15.

Girls surveyed said that magazines and Web sites directly targeting young girls with messages that they should lose weight, wear make-up and even consider plastic surgery are particularly damaging to their mental health.

Two-fifths of those surveyed knew someone who had self-harmed, and almost the same number knew someone who experienced panic attacks due to the pressure to emulate what they see in magazines.  A third of those questioned said they had a friend with an eating disorder

In other news…

Reversing what it said last week, the Vermont Department of Corrections now says it recommended the release from probation of a convicted sex offender accused of kidnapping 12-year-old Brooke Bennett.  Fox News story here  Michael Jacques, 42, was released from probation in 2006, after serving more than four years in prison and being supervised for eight years for kidnapping and sexually assaulting an 18-year-old woman in 1992.  Governor Jim Douglas said that the Corrections Department's recommendation was a mistake.  "That's why I've asked the corrections commissioner to look at the procedure for making these determinations, making sure there's adequate oversight, and that it's not just one or two people in the department making the recommendation on such an important manner," he said.  Corrections Commissioner Rob Hofmann said that a probation officer had recommended in 2004 that Jacques be discharged from probation, after not supporting a release request the year before.  We agree with many other child advocates that Vermont, which has not yet passed Jessica’s Law, is the most pro-pedophile state in the country.  See more about Brooke Bennett’s death at vol6_iss47.

A Detroit woman is thanking technology for her children's safe return after they were kidnapped during a carjacking over the weekend.  Channel 4 story here  Artemis Patterson was loading her four children into her Chevy Tahoe Saturday after daycare when a stranger jumped inside and drove off with her children inside.  "I tried to grab the back of the truck and started screaming.  I have never been through anything like this," Patterson said.  "They were gone and I couldn't help them.”  She called police and said officers were able to track her Tahoe down through the Global Positioning System on her On Star she had purchased two days before

The FBI has captured a pedophile in Mexico who was on the Ten Most Wanted List.  Fox News story here  Jon Schillaci, highly educated and articulate, was 28 years old and had already served a 10-year sentence for sexually molesting two young boys when he was accused of assaulting a 5-year-old boy in 1999.  With a $100,000 bounty on his head and the FBI hot on his heels, he fled to Mexico.  He traveled the country using various false names, including Jon Willis, Dylan Pierce, Christopher Keegan and Cody Keegan.  He ran a pro-pedophile Web site, and he hosted an Internet radio show associated with the site.  Schillaci was held without bail after his June 5 arrest and was arraigned the next day.  He faces charges of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, aggravated felonious sexual assault, felonious sexual assault and 23 counts of possession of child pornography.  He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.  Schillaci could face a life sentence if convicted.

An ex-diplomat convicted of having sex with teenage girls in the Congo and Brazil and taping the encounters is asking a judge for leniency, claiming that cultural differences in those countries make sex with girls more acceptable.  AP story here  Gons G. Nachman, 42, pleaded guilty in April to possessing child pornography after admitting that he had sex with 14- to 17-year-old girls while serving as a consular officer in Brazil and Congo and documenting the encounters in pictures and videos.  "In the Congo, women develop quickly, both physically and emotionally, due to the substantial responsibility society places on them from early childhood," Nachman wrote.  "In Kinshasa, the vast majority of teenagers are sexually active with men that are substantially older....Their main concern is marrying young girls to men with financial stability, a concern dating thousands of years and cutting across cultural lines."  Prosecutors rejected the notion that Nachman's victims somehow deserve less protection because they were not born or raised in America.  "Children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Brazil have the same inherent value as children in the United States," prosecutor Ron Walutes wrote in court papers.  Prosecutors are asking for a 20-year prison term, the maximum he could receive under the law and much higher than the term of nine to 11 years called for under federal sentencing guidelines.

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