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4-year-old left at rest stop following mother's murder...

Authorities in Ohio say they've arrested a man in the shooting death of a woman whose 4-year-old son was left unharmed at a highway rest area. WFIE News story here

Police have arrested 22-year-old Charlie Myers of Columbus. They say Myers has confessed to involvement in the case.

On Friday night, a couple found a 4-year-old boy abandoned at a central Ohio rest stop.

The boy was able to give information that led authorities to discover his 29-year-old mother's slain body in their Dayton, Ohio home.

"He (the suspect) obviously knew where he was going, but we don't know what the motive was. There are several possibilities on motives," said Phil Plummer, Montgomery County Sheriff.

"The best thing he (the boy) did for us was give us a good description of the suspect. He knew where he lived. He knew his address. He knew his phone number. He was very helpful. Luckily, he was a sharp, young man. We ask all parents, educate your children on these important issues here because if he didn't know where he lived or his phone number we'd still be fighting that battle trying to figure out where he came from," said Plummer.

Eddie Nelson told ABCNews.com today that his son was able to give police his address and his parents' cell phone numbers after a Maryland couple found him. ABC News story here

"We've been drilling him with that since he could talk," Nelson said, so that "if he was scared or something, he could do it without thinking."

Video story here: WFIE News video link here

Search for boy not reported missing 10 years ago...

A young boy who was not reported missing for nearly 10 years after he disappeared was abused by his adopted mother before he vanished, several relatives alleged on Tuesday. ABC News story here

Police in Kansas are searching for Adam Herrman, who was 11 or 12 when he was last seen in a mobile home park in Towanda in 1999. Authorities received a tip about a month ago that Adam Herrman had not been seen in more than nine years.

Butler County Sheriff Craig Murphy said Monday that his office was investigating the case as if it were a death investigation, but said it is possible Adam Herrman is alive. He asked the public for help locating him.

Murphy said his adopted parents, Doug and Valerie Herrman, were considered "people of interest" in the case, though they have not been arrested or charged with a crime.

Through their lawyer, the Herrmans have denied harming the boy. But several immediate family members claim Valerie Herrman mentally and physically abused the boy, at times hitting or slapping him, refusing to feed him and making him sleep in the bathtub without a pillow or blankets.

On at least two occasions, in 1996 and 1998, police investigated allegations that Adam was abused. Relatives said suspected abuse was reported to child protection officials at least three times, though Adam Herrman continued to live with his adopted family.

According to local police, the police and Social Rehabilitation Services investigated a report of suspected abuse in 1996. The matter was referred for counseling through Social and Rehabilitative Services, according to the Derby police.

In 1998, police investigated a second suspected abuse call reported by Adam Herrman's school. The investigation showed that his injuries were from playing sports with his siblings, the police said.

The Herrmans, who adopted the boy when he was about 2 years old, could not be immediately reached for comment. Their attorney, Warner Eisenbise, did not return calls seeking comment. He has told other news organizations that the Herrmans did not harm Adam Herrman and are innocent of any wrongdoing other than failing to report him missing. See video story at MSNBC News video story here.

Eisenbise told The Associated Press that Adam Herrman frequently ran away from home and the that Herrmans assumed he'd returned to his biological family when he did not return.

Study shows some teens will change risky MySpace behavior...

Many teens and college students have no problem chronicling their sexual and drug exploits on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook–until, of course, it costs them a job opportunity. ABC News story here

But what if their first personal warning didn't come from a potential employer, but from a helpful doctor? That was the question pediatrician Dr. Megan Moreno sought to answer when she e-mailed 95 inner-city 18- to 20-year-olds to warn them about the potential problems their MySpace profiles might cause.

"A lot of them, I don't think they realized that anyone beyond their friends would even be interested in this information," said Moreno, who at the time of this research was a fellow at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Researchers studied both the frequency of sexual and drug references in young people's MySpace profiles and what happened when Moreno warned them that they should not post such sensitive information online.

What they found, according to Moreno, was that reaching out to teens individually may help them change their behavior online and, she hopes, ultimately help improve their behavior and care for their health in real life.

Researchers added that they hoped their study would suggest to parents that they should be more aware of what kids disclose online.

"We have far too many parents who are not aware at all of what their children's experience online is," said Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician at Seattle Children's Hospital and one of the study's authors. "It's really important that parents get out ahead of their child's Internet use," he said.

The researchers provide tips for parents and healthcare providers: Seattle Childrens.org/teensandmyspace

For more on safety and social networking sites, see eGuide/vol1_iss25.

In other news...

The Internet stings police consider key to protecting minors from sexual predators may lose some of their power after two recent Indiana Court of Appeals rulings. Indianapolis Star story here The use of undercover investigators as bait in Internet chats had become routine in Central Indiana. But the attraction for law enforcement–the lack of an actual victim– also became the basis for the reversal of two convictions against a Shelbyville man by the Indiana Court of Appeals. That leaves in place a third related conviction. The reversal could mean new cases lead to lighter sentences. The decision and a similar ruling in July targeted the most serious charge usually leveled against suspects nabbed in online stings. The court ruled 2-1 that attempted sexual misconduct with a minor, a Class B felony, requires that the victim be a minor; an undercover officer doesn't count. It also used the same reasoning to reverse Randy Gibbs' conviction of dissemination of matter harmful to a minor, leaving only a child solicitation conviction intact.

South Carolina child-care providers who seriously harm children would face mandatory prison time under a state bill to be introduced this month. http://www.thestate.com/local/story/639932.html?RSS=local State Senator Mike Fair, R-Greenville, confirmed Friday his office is drafting legislation that would impose a mandatory minimum prison sentence on anyone–including child-care providers–convicted of inflicting great bodily injury on a child. Fair said he favors even longer minimum sentences for convicted child-care providers, citing a recent Richland County case in which a home day-care provider received no prison time after admitting to seriously harming a 7-month-old baby.

A Harrisburg, Pennsylvania man is facing several charges after police said he beat and scalded his girlfriend's 4-year-old son. WGAL News story here Maurice Bostick was baby-sitting Richard Adair, Harrisburg police said. VIDEO: Man Accused Of Burning Child In Bathtub Bostick beat Adair with a belt buckle and forced him to sit in a tub of scalding water for 10 minutes, court papers state. Police also discovered Bostick is a convicted child sex offender in Georgia. He did not register when he moved to Pennsylvania last year, police said.

Aruban prosecutors said their investigation into the 2005 disappearance of U.S. teenager Natalee Holloway is nearing the end and appealed for anyone with information to come forward. Fox News story here Chief Prosecutor Hans Mos said his office still needs "at least another few months" to investigate statements made by the only remaining suspect, Joran van der Sloot, during a hidden-camera interview which was broadcast on Dutch television last year. See more at vol6_iss74. But he then said prosecutors "are approaching the end of this lengthy investigation."

*for access to member only sites like the New York Times, use the ID "JohnDoeID" and the password "whatever". On sites asking for an email address, feel free to use "info@childprotectionprogram.org"


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