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Archives > Volume 7 Issue 24 - April 3, 2009 California girl, 8, missing for a week...
It's been a week since 8-year-old Sandra Cantu vanished from a Tracy, California mobile home, and police and the FBI are no closer to finding her, despite searching a local landfill, rivers and the homes of two men who live nearby. San Francisco Chronicle story here
Sandra, a second-grader at Jacobson Elementary School, disappeared March 27 from the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park. Tracy police are investigating what they have called a missing persons case but have a cast a wide net. They are considering whether Sandra ran away, was kidnapped or fell victim to foul play. "We're not going to rule absolutely anything out until we have a definite 'This is what happened,'" Tracy police Lieutenant Jeremy Watney said at a news conference Thursday. Watney said, however, that he believes investigators are getting closer to finding out what happened to Sandra. "I'm really starting to get a feel that we're getting on to some things now that are leading us in the right direction," Watney said without elaborating. Police have received more than 600 tips, reviewed surveillance video and looked for the girl with bloodhounds and by helicopter. Investigators have towed four cars, searched several residences in the mobile home park as well as other locations in Tracy and Oakdale (Stanislaus County). "There isn't a single lead that is being dismissed or that's being ignored until it's investigated," Watney said. "Our main concern is getting her back, period." Investigators have also been searching a dump in Tracy for any clues. A pink Hello Kitty shirt - similar to the one Sandra was wearing - that was found in the trash did not belong to her, police said. "We are going through absolutely everybody's trash in the city of Tracy this next week, that has been dumped," Watney said. "It's just covering a base, because a week from now we can't go back and recreate this week's garbage." They also swept Old River in San Joaquin County Thursday. Police have questioned Sandra's father, Daniel Cantu, a number of times, Watney said. Cantu, who is estranged from the girl's mother, said he hasn't seen his daughter in a year. He denied taking Sandra to Mexico, where he lives. Enforcement spurs rise in Web sex arrests... 
More people in the United States have been arrested in recent years for sexually soliciting youths online, but the sharp increase comes from better enforcement, and the Internet remains a relatively safe social environment, researchers said in a new study. MSNBC News story here
Researchers saw a nearly fivefold jump in arrests for soliciting undercover investigators who posed as juveniles - to 3,100 in 2006, from 644 in 2000, the last time the study was conducted. By contrast, arrests for solicitations of actual children increased 21 percent to about 615 in 2006, from an estimated 508 in 2000, during a period in which Internet usage also grew sharply. The disparity indicates that the rise in arrests largely results from tighter enforcement rather than from an increase in the number of offenders, said David Finkelhor, director of the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center, which conducted the study. Otherwise, he said, the rate of growth for the two groups would be more similar. Throughout the decade, the federal government helped fund Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces across the country, while some states have updated their laws to address online solicitations. The large increase in arrests shows that such efforts are working, said John Palfrey, an Internet safety expert at Harvard University who was not involved in the study. The full study is available online at http://www.unh.edu/ccrc/pdf/CV194.pdf. For more on internet safety visit eGuide/online safety. In other news... 
Oprah Winfrey's elite boarding school for girls in South Africa has been rocked by its second sex scandal in fewer than two years. NY Daily News story here Seven students were suspended last week for sexually harassing their schoolmates, the "Afrikaans on Sunday" newspaper reported. One 15-year-old was accused of preying on another pupil and forcing other girls to lie to investigators about it, the paper reported. "You have been found guilty of physical contact of a sexual nature with another pupil on campus, harassment, bullying other girls on campus and of being dishonest by not telling investigators the whole truth," a letter to her parents read. Winfrey called it the proudest moment of her life when she opened the $46 million school near Johannesburg in January 2007 to help high achieving but poor South African girls. The school, which aims to house 450 girls in grades 7 through 12 by 2011, offered free tuition, books and uniforms, as well as room and board. In return, the girls were required to follow the rules. Ten months later, Winfrey sobbed uncontrollably after 15 girls reported they had been sexually abused by a matron who was supposed to be watching over them. The talk show queen said the sex abuse charges hit her especially hard because she was raped and molested by a cousin, uncle and family friend when she was 9. For more on this story, see vol5_iss70 and vol5_iss73.
A mother is accused of providing alcohol to young teens at a party in Missouri and offering $10 to whomever could chug a glass of vodka the fastest. AP story here Two girls were hospitalized. Authorities in Kansas City say 43-year-old Karen Christine Downs and 25-year-old Kelsee Guest face felony child-endangerment charges alleging they provided liquor and beer to six 13- and 14-year-olds at a February birthday party for Downs' daughter. The Platte County prosecutor's office said neither woman had a lawyer to speak for them as of Tuesday. Authorities say girls at the party told officers Downs offered them shots and told them not to tell their parents. While Downs allegedly offered money to the faster drinker, Guest is accused of pouring vodka shots. For more on teens and drinking, see eGuide/drugs and alcohol.
A Washington state convenience store robbery suspect brought his 9-year-old daughter along while he committed the crime, the local sheriff said. Fox News story here Robert Daniel Webb, identified as the suspect by Kittitas County detectives using store security video, pulled a gun on a clerk at the Ellensburg AM-PM while a girl in a pink coat watched. The child is named as Webb's daughter, Meadow. The renegade dad fled with about $200 and his little girl, driving east on I-90, according to the sheriff's office. 
Eric Mohat, 17, was harassed so mercilessly in high school that when one bully said publicly in class, "Why don't you go home and shoot yourself, no one will miss you," he did. ABCNews story here Now his parents, William and Janis Mohat of Mentor, Ohio, have filed a lawsuit in federal court, saying that their son endured name-calling, teasing, constant pushing and shoving and hitting in front of school officials who should have protected him. The lawsuit - filed March 27, alleges that the quiet but likable boy, who was involved in theater and music, was called "gay," "fag," "queer" and "homo" and often in front of his teachers. Most of the harassment took place in math class and the teacher - an athletic coach - was accused of failing to protect the boy. The parents aren't seeking any compensation; rather, they are asking that Mentor High School recognize their son's death as a "bullicide" and put in place what they believe is a badly needed anti-bullying program. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, names school administrators Jacqueline A. Hoynes and Joseph Spiccia, as well as math teacher Thomas M. Horvath. None would comment on the allegations. The Mohats also claim that bullying was a "significant factor" in the deaths of three other students in Eric Mohat's class in 2007. Mentor high school officials confirmed that a girl and two other boys in Eric's class had killed themselves in 2007. For more on these issues see eGuide/bullying and eGuide/teen suicide.
Pope Benedict's probe into an influential Roman Catholic priestly order could uncover more cases of sexual abuse similar to those committed by its founder, a victims' group in Mexico said. Reuters News story here Pope Benedict ordered the investigation into the Legion of Christ last month following a string of scandals tied to its founder, Father Marcial Maciel, a Mexican, who died last year at the age of 87. "We have testimonies that there have been other Legionaries who followed Maciel's example," said Jose Barba, the legal representative of eight former Legionaries who started court proceedings against Maciel in 1998. "The ramifications of the problem exist throughout the Legionaries of Christ," he added. Barba, who says he was abused by Maciel when he was in the order as a teenager training to be a priest, said he expected the investigation would take months.
A suburban Philadelphia baby sitter who procured young children for her sexual-predator boyfriend to film and sexually abuse was sentenced to 30 years in prison in what the federal judge called a ''sociopathic'' child pornography case. The Morning Call news story here Dorothy Prawdzik, 45, undressed and posed her young female charges, and in one case even held the camera while the boyfriend tried to penetrate a 10-month-old girl. Co-defendant John Jackey Worman ejaculated on the baby and compiled a movie of the encounter with the infant, prosecutors said. Worman and Prawdzik also took part in a three-way sexual encounter with a 10-year-old girl. They filmed abuse so disturbing that jurors at the fall trial at one point asked for a break from viewing it. 
A 9-year-old autistic boy, whose mother is accused of failing to give him medication doctors said could have cured his cancer, died on Monday. The Boston Channel.com news story here Jeremy Fraser's mother, Kristen LaBrie, 36, of Beverly, is awaiting trial in Massachusetts on charges of child endangerment. Prosecutors are now considering filing more serious charges. LaBrie lost custody of Jeremy last year after his oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital suspected Jeremy was not getting his medications after realizing his cancer, originally non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, had progressed to leukemia. The doctor contacted the Department of Children and Families last March and reported neglect. Investigators later learned that most of Jeremy's prescriptions went unfilled and that LaBrie had canceled at least a dozen of Jeremy's medical appointments. Police in Salem, where LaBrie lived at the time, charged her with child endangerment.
Police say a western Pennsylvania mother drugged her 13-year-old daughter so her boyfriend could get the girl pregnant. Fox News story here Uniontown police say 32-year-old Shana Brown is no longer able to have children, but wanted a baby with her boyfriend. Detective Donald Gmitter says Brown and her boyfriend, 40-year-old Duane Calloway, attempted to impregnate the girl on three occasions. Gmitter says the girl prevented the rapes. The girl's paternal grandmother reported the incidents to police. Brown is facing several charges, including endangering the welfare of children. Brown's attorney Patrick McDaniel did not immediately return a call for comment. Calloway faces charges of attempted rape. It was not immediately clear if he has an attorney. *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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