The Child Protection eNewsletter

Police files indicate Madeline McCann may have been abducted to order… 

British police were told that Madeleine McCann was snatched by an international pedophile ring which photographed her three days before she vanished, police files have disclosed.  Daily Telegraph article here

According to an email sent by the Metropolitan Police a child abduction ring based in Belgium placed an order for a "young girl".

Three-year-old Madeleine was spotted while on holiday in Portugal by someone connected to the gang who took a picture of her.

The photograph was sent back to Belgium where the pedophile ring agreed that she should be abducted, the email states.

Three days later on May 3rd last year Madeleine was taken from her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in the Algarve while her parents ate at a nearby restaurant.

The astonishing revelation supports Kate and Gerry McCann's long-held theory that their eldest child may have been taken by a child smuggling ring.

The email, sent by an intelligence officer on the Met's vice squad on March 4 this year to counterparts in the Portuguese and Leicestershire police, marks a significant development in the case of the missing girl.

Just last month Portuguese police closed their investigation and cleared the McCanns of any involvement in their daughter's disappearance.

Hunt for Caylee continues… 

Sources told Local 6 News that detectives investigating the disappearance of a missing 3-year-old Orlando girl are focusing on three key dates in mid-June and are trying to track the girl's mother's whereabouts during that time.  Local 6 News story here

Investigators with the Orange County Sheriff's Office are trying to track Casey Anthony's whereabouts on June 16, 17 and 18 in connection to the disappearance of her daughter, Caylee Anthony.  Casey Anthony reported her daughter missing in mid-July, 31 days after she said she last saw the girl.

Sources told Local 6 News that if something happened to Caylee, it may have occurred on June 16, a day after Father's Day.  June 17 is the day detectives said Casey Anthony borrowed a shovel from a neighbor of her grandparents. The same neighbor said she saw Casey Anthony strangely back her car up into the family's garage on June 18.

Sources said that detectives are trying to track Casey Anthony's whereabouts on the three key dates by using cell phone records.  Local 6 News reported that investigators will perform a more thorough search for Caylee using cadaver dogs and search teams when they know more about Casey Anthony's whereabouts during the three days.

More details are available at  Fox News here  and  watch CNN video here.

In other news… 

As a federal jury hears prosecutors explain why he should be put to death for killing four members of a family and kidnapping a fifth, a convicted pedophile may offer no substantial counter-argument for why he should live.  AP story here  Joseph Edward Duncan III is representing himself at his death penalty hearing, scheduled to begin Wednesday morning before U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge.  Duncan's standby legal counsel, Judy Clarke, has said Duncan doesn't plan on offering any mitigation, such as evidence of his own traumatic childhood.  Duncan isn't new to the legal system.  Originally from Tacoma, Washington, his past is littered with arrests and prison time for crimes ranging from stolen cars to rape and molestation.  He is suspected in the 1996 slayings of two half-sisters from Seattle, and is charged with the 1997 killing of a young boy in Riverside County, Calif.  In 2005, he came to Idaho.  He stalked a family and then entered their Coeur d'Alene home, murdering 13-year-old Slade Groene, his mother, Brenda Groene, and her fiance, Mark McKenzie.  Then he kidnapped the two youngest, 9-year-old Dylan Groene and then-8-year-old Shasta Groene, and fled.  He pleaded guilty to those murders in state court in 2006, and in January 2007.  See more on this story at vol3_iss42.

Clark Rockefeller's lawyer acknowledged for the first time yesterday that his client used the alias Christopher Chichester while living in San Marino, California in the mid-1980s and that he remembers the disappearance of his landlords, who are presumed slain in a case in which Rockefeller has been declared a "person of interest."  Boston Herald article here  Los Angeles County authorities say that Rockefeller left San Marino in 1985 before they could question him about the Sohuses' disappearance.  Nine years later, in 1994, workers digging a backyard pool for the new owners of the house discovered human remains believed to be those of John Sohus.  Neither Linda Sohus nor her remains have been found.  Hrones said his client denies any involvement with the presumed slaying.  He said Rockefeller, however, was using the Chichester alias in San Marino, a prosperous Los Angeles suburb.  He also said Rockefeller used the alias Christopher Crowe during a brief career as a corporate bond salesman on Wall Street in the late 1980s.  He said his client does not recall growing up in Germany with the birth name Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, which Los Angeles authorities say is Rockefeller's true identity.  Hrones said his client, who is charged with kidnapping his 7-year-old daughter in Boston July 27, maintains that "Rockefeller is his real name."

1 in 6 boys are sexually abused before the age of 18.  That's according to the Centers for Disease Control.  But Greg LeMond, the three time Tour de France winner, says the numbers may be even higher because it's not something most male victims ever talk about or report.  KCUR story here  The bicyclist was in Kansas City, where he spoke publicly for the first time about having been sexually abused as a child by a family friend.  He says after nearly 3 decades of feeling ashamed about it, he's finally been able to accept that the abuse wasn't his fault.  LeMond says he's now working with doctors from Harvard to develop an online support program for male survivors of child sexual abuse.  The bicyclist came to Kansas City for an event organized by Sunflower House, a local child abuse prevention center.

Texas child welfare authorities asked a judge to place eight children from a polygamist sect's ranch back into foster care, saying their mothers refuse to limit their contact with men accused of being involved in underage marriages.  CBS News story here  Child Protective Services filed petitions detailing alleged involvement in underage marriages by the children's fathers or stepfathers, submitting sect marriage documents, notes from suspected underage brides, photos and journal entries from jailed sect leader Warren Jeffs.  Texas District Judge Barbara Walther will hold hearings on the six girls and two boys on September 25 in San Angelo.  In the meantime, the children will be allowed to remain with their mothers, said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.  The children range in age from 5 to 17.  None currently live at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado.  See vol6_iss39 for more on this ongoing story.

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