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Archives > Volume 7 Issue 16 - March 10, 2009 Two different junior high teachers have "affair" with 13-year-old Utah boy...Bountiful police have arrested two teachers from Bountiful Junior High School for having sex with one of their students. KSL news story here 
Valynn Bowers, 39, was arrested Thursday evening, and officers took 46-year-old Linda Nef into custody Friday afternoon.
Bowers was a popular teacher at Bountiful Junior High School. She became a math teacher at the school in 2006 and has been a teacher for a total of 13 years. But police say Bowers crossed the line with a 13-year old student. They say the two had an ongoing sexual relationship that began three months ago, shortly after the teen's affair with another teacher at the same school ended. "Two teachers at the same school with the same student is a surprise," said Bountiful police Lt. Randy Pickett. According to police, the teen told Bowers about his affair with the other teacher, Linda Nef. Bowers confronted Nef, who then went to police and confessed.  The Davis County School District says both women passed background checks. Police say Nef resigned earlier this week, but Bowers was still a teacher at the time of her arrest. "When we look at the charges, first-degree felonies, I don't think there's any other reaction than shock," said Chris Williams, community relations director for the Davis School District. Bowers and Nef have both have been charged with rape and forcible sodomy. Sexting teen commits suicide... Jesse Logan committed suicide over sexting, and her mother Cynthia Logan is bringing her daughter's death out in the public to bring awareness to the consequences of sexting. associatedcontent.com/article 
18-year-old Jesse Logan did what so many other girls her age have done: She sent nude pictures of herself to her boyfriend. Jesse Logan and her boyfriend broke up and he decided to share the private pictures with other teen girls. The girls then started calling Jesse names such as slut and whore. The pressure was too much for Jesse and she took her own life, she committed suicide by hanging herself. Her mother, Cynthia Logan, was on the TODAY show and explained what happened to her only child Jesse. See MSNBC News story here
Jesse Logan chose to speak out about sexting on television only two months before she committed suicide. Jesse just wanted to make other teens aware of the consequences of sending sexually charged pictures. Cynthia Logan talked to Matt Lauer to make other parents and teens aware of what can happen when you send nude pictures or sexually explicit messages through email or cell phone texts. Teens who send and receive nude pictures can be charged with child pornography. Six teenagers in Pennsylvania were charged with child pornography after sending and receiving nude pictures on their cell phone. The teens ranged in age from 14 to 17 years old. See vol7_iss3 Parenting in the 21st century presents a new set of challenges that require new solutions. Like their parents before them, today's parents have to help their kids navigate school, friends, crushes, extracurricular activities and sexuality. But they also face a bewildering new world, driven by technology and media. In this excerpt from "What Every 21st-Century Parent Needs to Know," Debra W. Haffner addresses what parents can do to help their kids navigate the Internet. MSNBC News story here For more tips on kids and technology, see How To Talk To Your Children About Sexting, eGuide/vol2_iss1, eGuide.org/vol2_iss2, and eGuide/vol1_iss44. Craigslist.com targeted in prostitution crackdown... A federal lawsuit filed by Cook County, Illinois Sheriff Tom Dart asked that the popular Web site be forced to take down its "erotic services" section, calling it a public nuisance that knowingly facilitates prostitution. Chicago Tribune news story here 
Even though prostitution is illegal in Illinois, one click on "erotic services" on Craigslist.com pops up hundreds of explicit ads that get down to the nitty-gritty of pricing: "Two hundred hour. One fifty half hour."
More subtle listings ask for "donations" or advertise "15 minutes for $50 Roses." Law enforcement is overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the trade and took a different approach to try to stop it. At a news conference, the sheriff said his office has made hundreds of prostitution arrests, many of them based on ads found on Craigslist. But the sex-for-sale ads still proliferate on the site five months after Craigslist promised new safeguards to settle a nationwide lawsuit by the top state prosecutors from Illinois and 39 other states. Dart, who garnered national publicity last fall when he halted all evictions related to mortgage foreclosures for a little more than a week, said Craigslist continues to be "the largest source of prostitution in America." But the filing came as a surprise to both the Illinois attorney general and the Cook County state's attorney, the public's usual representatives in lawsuits. Neither were consulted by Dart, who turned to the law firm of Querrey & Harrow to represent him free of charge. In other news... 
A convicted sex offender accused of killing a 13-year-old girl could be connected to at least two other Cincinnati homicides. WLWT News story here Sunday, the family of Esme Kenney confirmed that police had found her body after a search that ran into the early morning. Detectives arrested and charged Anthony Kirkland, 40, in connection with Kenney's death. In court Monday, Kirkland pleaded not guilty. News 5 has learned that Kirkland was kicked out of a halfway house one week prior to Kenney's disappearance, and had two outstanding warrants for his arrest when he was taken into custody early Sunday morning. Kirkland is a Tier 1 sex offender who was convicted of importuning in 2007 and sentenced to one year in prison. In 1987, when he was 18, Kirkland confessed to assaulting a woman, dousing her with lighter fluid and setting her on fire. She later died and he served 16 years in prison for her death. News 5 has also learned that Kirkland was a suspect in the 2006 homicides of 14-year-old Casonya Crawford and 45-year-old Mary Jo Newton. Investigators said that both bodies were badly burned to cover up possible sexual assault. Sources have told News 5 that Kenney's body was also burned below the waist. In addition to those 2006 homicides, police said there are other cold cases police will take a look at to see if Kirkland could be responsible for them as well.
A federal appeals court ruling has brought an Oregon man one step closer to suing the Vatican for sexual abuse he says he suffered by a Roman Catholic priest. Los Angeles Times news story here In a 59-page decision, a three-judge panel from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the man-who says he was molested in the 1960s by a priest at a Catholic school-can pursue a civil lawsuit against the Holy See because the priest allegedly abused him while serving in a religious capacity. Lawyers for the plaintiff hailed the ruling as a watershed moment for victims of clergy abuse, who for decades have wanted to hold the Catholic hierarchy accountable for protecting priests. A lawyer for the Holy See commended the ruling for acknowledging the Vatican's decentralized structure. Although the ruling does not permit victims to sue Pope Benedict XVI, Anderson said he intended to depose the pontiff. See more about clergy abuse at eGuide.org/vol1_iss36. 
Relatives of missing 5-year-old Haleigh Cummings have given DNA samples, and the mobile home where she lived is no longer off-limits as a crime scene, authorities in Florida said Friday. CNN story here The blue double-wide trailer near the tiny town of Satsuma, Florida, has been turned over to the child's father, but he does not plan to live there, said Capt. Dick Schauland of the Putnam County Sheriff's office. The 25-year-old father, Roland Cummings, "is just not comfortable" living in the trailer where his daughter was last seen, Schauland said. Authorities have collected DNA samples from Haleigh's father, her mother and other people connected to the case, including the father's 17-year-old girlfriend, Misty Croslin, Schauland added. Police have said they think Haleigh was abducted but have provided few details of their investigation.
In the summer of 2008, sex crimes against children were thrust into the forefront of local residents' minds when a 12-year-old Braintree, Vermont girl went missing. Less than a year after her death, Vermont Governor Jim Douglas signed legislation stiffening penalties against child sex offenders. WPTZ News story here Brooke Bennett, a basketball and lacrosse player who had just finished seventh grade, disappeared June 25 after being seen with her uncle at a local convenience store. She was found dead a week later, buried not far from the home of her uncle, Michael Jacques, who police say drugged, sexually assaulted and killed Bennett by putting a plastic bag over her head. Police have said Jacques was part of an online sex ring that involved Bennett's former stepfather and a young relative Jacques had been sexually abusing. For more on this story see vol6_iss46, vol6_iss47, and vol6_iss48.
An Austrian woman whose father locked her in a cellar for nearly a quarter of a century and had seven children by her will tell a court next week that she "tried to please him" in order to protect her daughter and sons from his abuse. The Times news story here In filmed testimony, Elisabeth Fritzl, 43, will describe being assaulted by her father for the first time at the age of 11, when she defended herself against rape by "kicking and screaming", according to sources close to the investigation. Josef Fritzl, 74, who goes on trial next week for murder, incest, unlawful imprisonment and "enslavement", is convinced he could serve fewer than 10 years in prison for what has been described as Austria's most horrific post-war crime. The trial will raise uncomfortable questions about Austrian society, highlighting police failings and a town's astonishing blindness to what was unfolding beneath one of its main streets, where Fritzl held Elisabeth as a sex slave for 24 years in a warren of windowless, soundproofed rooms. Fritzl wants to cash in on his worldwide notoriety by selling his memoirs and public tours of the "house of horrors" He believes he could earn up to £1m for his story and the same for a television documentary about the "beast of Amstetten" that would include exclusive footage from his cellar. He is trying to sell interviews to the press for a similarly astronomical sum. For more on this story see vol6_iss78.
A convicted sex offender accused of helping a man pose as a 12-year-old boy and enroll in Arizona schools has been sentenced to 51 years in prison. MSNBC News story here Yavapai County Judge Robert Brutinel sentenced 37-year-old Brian Nellis to three consecutive 17-year prison terms with no chance of parole. The Chino Valley man had been charged with three counts of sexual exploitation of a minor. Nellis was accused of helping 29-year-old Neil Rodreick pose as a 12-year-old and trick four Arizona middle schools into allowing him to attend school as a student. Nellis posed as Rodreick's cousin; they lived with two older men posing as Rodreick's uncle and grandfather. For more on this story see vol5_iss6, vol5_iss10, and vol6_iss57.
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