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The Child Protection eNewsletter

Six life sentences for Duncan in Groene kidnap and killings...

Confessed child-killer Joseph Edward Duncan III received his final sentences Monday for the torture and slayings of an Idaho family with a judge telling him that his cruel rampage "exceeds the bounds of human understanding." CNN News story here

Six life prison terms in federal and state court were added to the death sentences a federal jury handed Duncan in August. He already is serving three life sentences handed to him by a state judge in 2006 on kidnapping counts.

In May 2005, Duncan kidnapped 9-year-old Dylan Groene, and his sister Shasta, then 8, from their Coeur d'Alene home and held them for weeks in western Montana. He tortured and sexually abused both children, eventually killing Dylan but Shasta was rescued after seven weeks.

Duncan had targeted the children, watching their home and killing their 13-year-old brother, Slade Groene, their mother, Brenda Groene, and her fiance, Mark McKenzie, in order to take the young siblings.

In state court Monday, Duncan was sentenced to three life terms for those murders, a penalty agreed upon mainly to spare Shasta the trauma of testifying. Shortly after that hearing, U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge sentenced Duncan to three federal life terms, one for kidnapping Shasta, and one each for sexually abusing Shasta and her brother.

"By any stretch of the imagination, your rampage ... exceeded the bounds of human understanding," Lodge told Duncan. "These crimes ... were unfathomable, cruel and sadistic."

Prosecutors say the Federal Bureau of Prisons will determine where Duncan, 45, should be held, a decision that may be influenced by whether California authorities pursue criminal charges against him for the 1997 abduction and murder of a 10-year-old boy.

Duncan, a convicted pedophile originally from Tacoma, Wash., has said his violence was motivated by a need to seek revenge on society. See also vol3_iss42, vol6_iss53 and vol6_iss54.

Review Board finds retired bishop guilty of abuse...

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Davenport announced that four priests, including retired Bishop Lawrence Soens, have been found guilty of sexual abuse by a diocesan review board. Altoona Herald story here

A five-member review board found Soens, who served as bishop of the Sioux City Diocese from 1983 to 1998, guilty of sexually abusing students at Iowa City Regina High School in the 1950s and 1960s, when he was principal. Soens was also found guilty of sexually abusing a male minor when Soens was rector of the St. Ambrose Seminary in Davenport.

The report on Soens will be sent to the Vatican, where Pope Benedict XVI will decide whether he will be defrocked, Deacon David Montgomery said.

The announcement may mark the first time a Catholic bishop has been found guilty of sexual assault by the church, victim advocates said.

"That is monumental for the diocese to admit that one of their bishops is a credibly accused abuser," said Mike Uhde, an abuse victim who lives in Davenport.

Joseph Hines, Eugene Smith and Gerald Stouvenel will also be added to a list of clergy credibly accused of sexually abusing children, the diocese said.

The review board found that Stouvenel sexually abused three boys in the 1970s. The pope has ordered Stouvenel to "lead a life of prayer and penance," but did not defrock him. Stouvenel will continue to live at the diocese headquarters in Davenport, where he will be monitored, the diocese announced.

Hines is dead. Smith was defrocked in 1981, Montgomery said.

In October 2006, the Davenport Diocese became the fourth diocese in the United States to go to bankruptcy court to protect its church assets from sex abuse lawsuits. This followed more than $10 million the diocese paid to settle claims from 2004 to 2006 and a $1.5 million jury award to one victim.

A federal bankruptcy judge in May approved a plan for the Davenport Diocese to give $37 million to victims of sexual abuse by priests and other diocese employees. See also vol5_iss79.

In other news...

Another teenager was dropped off at a metro hospital under Nebraska's safe haven law late Sunday night. http://www.ketv.com/cnn-news/17871134/detail.html Cheri Lytle with Children's Hospital told KETV Newswatch 7 that a 16-year-old was dropped off at the hospital around 11:15 p.m. The teenager is the first person to be left at Children's Hospital under the safe haven law since it went into effect in July. The 16-year-old is the 26th child and 18th case reported under the safe haven law. It was the second case reported on Sunday. Earlier in the day, a mother flew from Arizona to surrender her 16-year old daughter at Midlands Hospital in Papillion. The girl used to live in Omaha, but was sent to Arizona to live with her mother last spring. Governor Heineman plans to call the unicameral Nebraska legislature into Special Session after the election to "fix" the state's safe haven law. vol6_iss69

Jury selection will begin today in the murder trial of a little girl once known as 'Baby Grace'. KTRK News story here It was around this time last year when a fisherman found the body of the 3-year-old in Galveston Bay. She had been stuffed in a plastic storage bin. Prosecutors say she died at the hands of her step-father, Royce Ziegler. They claim the child's mother, Kimberly Trenor, not only watched it happen, but helped to cover it up. Investigators later revealed findings which indicated Ziegler had abused the child and killed her in a fit of rage. Shortly after Riley's body was found, a nationwide search to identify her was launched, leading investigators to Trenor and Ziegler. Both Trenor and Ziegler are charged with capital murder. However, the district attorney in Galveston is not seeking the death penalty in the case. See more at vol5_iss72, vol5_iss77, and vol5_iss78.

About 90 percent of U.S. kids ages 8 to 16 play video games, and they spend about 13 hours a week doing so (more if you're a boy). Now a new study suggests virtual violence in these games may make kids more aggressive in real life. CNN News story here Kids in both the U.S. and Japan who reported playing lots of violent video games had more aggressive behavior months later than their peers who did not, according to the study, which appears in the November issue of the journal Pediatrics. The researchers specifically tried to get to the root of the chicken-or-egg problem–do children become more aggressive after playing video games or are aggressive kids more attracted to violent videos? In the new study, Dr. Craig A. Anderson, Ph.D., of Iowa State University in Ames, and his colleagues looked at how children and teen's video game habits at one time point related to their behavior three to six months later. In every group, children who were exposed to more video game violence did become more aggressive over time than their peers who had less exposure. This was true even after the researchers took into account how aggressive the children were at the beginning of the study–a strong predictor of future bad behavior. The findings are "pretty good evidence" that violent video games do indeed cause aggressive behavior, says Dr. L. Rowell Huesmann, director of the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research in Ann Arbor.

In another study of media influence on the young, groundbreaking research suggests that pregnancy rates are much higher among teens who watch a lot of TV with sexual dialogue and behavior than among those who have tamer viewing tastes. CBS News story here The new study is the first to link those viewing habits with teen pregnancy, said lead author Anita Chandra, a Rand Corp. behavioral scientist. Teens who watched the raciest shows were twice as likely to become pregnant over the next three years as those who watched few such programs. The study was released in the November issue of Pediatrics.

The massive custody case that swept 439 children from a polygamist sect's West Texas ranch into foster care has largely evaporated, with Texas authorities dropping all but a few dozen cases against parents. Fox News story here All but 37 children from the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado have been released from court oversight after Child Protective Services found they had not been abused or that their parents could protect them from the risk of future abuse. Only one girl has been returned to foster care. For more on this story, vol6_iss27, vol6_iss40, vol6_iss52, and vol6_iss64.

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