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Archives > Volume 7 Issue 48 - September 2, 2009 Jaycee Lee Dugard Found After 18 Years, Kidnap Suspect Fathered Her Kids...A girl who was snatched off the street 18 years ago has been found and the man-and-wife team that allegedly grabbed her has been arrested and charged with kidnapping and rape. ABC News story here 
The identity of Jaycee Lee Dugard, now 29, was revealed when she accompanied Phillip Garrido for questioning by his California parole officer. Garrido, a convicted kidnapper and rapist, also was accompanied by his wife Nancy and two young children that Garrido said were his. ABC video story here
Undersheriff Fred Kollar said in a news conference that Jaycee was the mother of the two young children who had been fathered by Garrido. Jaycee, who Garrido had renamed Allissa, was reunited with her mother Terry Probyn, and the mother told ABC News that her daughter had been held against her will all these years and confined in a box in the back of the Garrido's house. Kollar said that Jaycee had been held captive at a house in Antioch, Calif., since the day she was abducted and none of their neighbors ever knew. He described the location as a "hidden back yard" within a larger yard that was arranged in such a way "to isolate the victims from outside contact." Entrance to the secret yard was guarded by a 6-foot-tall fence, tall trees and a tarp, he said. Kollar said Jaycee and the two children lived a series of sheds, including one that was soundproofed and that could only be opened from the outside. In addition, there were two tents in the yard. "None of the children had ever gone to school, they had never gone to a doctor," Kollar said. "They were kept in complete isolation." When asked about Jaycee's condition, the undersheriff said, "She is in good health, but living in a backyard for 18 years does take its toll." On June 10, 1991, Probyn watched his long nightmare begin to unfold. His daughter was hurrying to catch a school bus when he heard her scream. He looked up to see his Jaycee disappear into a strange car. "I saw them pull her in and I tried to get her," Probyn said. The kidnapping terrified the community and led to a massive manhunt. Garrido - known to kids as "Creepy Phil" in his neighborhood - had a reputation for peculiarity. He rambled nonsensically. He was dismissed as "kind of nutty." He said God spoke to him through a box. AP story here Related stories: USA Today on monitoring sex offenders after Garrido; The L.A. Times report on Garrido's pre-trial psych evaluation; MSNBC reports no link found between Garrido and local murders; USA Today looks at why kidnapped kids don't flee; The N.Y. Times looks at Jaycee's long road to recovery; CNN look at the complex trauma repeat abuse victims suffer; NBC interviews Shawn Hornbeck's parents; Time magazine looks at Stockholm Syndrome; CBS looks at missed opportunities to find Jaycee; CBS looks inside Jaycee's tent compound; MSNBC reports on other crimes in which Garrido may be a suspect; The L.A. Times looks at why Garrido wasn't still in prison; MSNBC looks at the tale in pictures; and A.P. looks at the hope this story gives families of other missing kids. American ex-tourists arrested in Cambodia... Three Americans "tourists" are on their way home from Cambodia after being arrested in an ongoing federal sex tourism investigation. Fox News story here 
The arrests are part of "Operation Twisted Traveler," an effort by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to identify and prosecute American sex tourists in Cambodia. Fox News arrest video here
The suspects - Jack Sporich, 74, Erik Peeters, 41, and Ronald "John" Boyajian, 59 - are all convicted child sex offenders who have served time in U.S. prisons. After their release, investigators say, the three headed to the most destitute neighborhoods in Cambodia, itself one of the poorest nations in Southeast Asia, where it is believed they once again sexually assaulted young boys and girls. Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for ICE John Morton stressed that Operation Twisted Traveler is still very much ongoing. Investigators say the men are part of a thriving billion-dollar sex tourism business. After a crackdown in Thailand on child sex, the industry has moved primarily to Cambodia where pedophiles molest Vietnamese girls and Cambodian boys with little risk of being caught. ICE hopes the arrests, done in conjunction with federal prosecutors in Los Angeles, Cambodian police and two anti-child trafficking organizations, International Justice Mission and the human rights organization Action Pour Les Enfants, will send a message that police are watching. Since 2003, ICE has arrested 70 international sex offenders under the Child Protect Act. An Arizona man nicknamed "the Pied Piper of Pedophiles" is one of the three Americans arrested for allegedly traveling to Cambodia to molest children. Fox News story here Retired engineer Jack Louis Sporich, 74, was classified as one of California's most dangerous sex offenders in the 1990s, when he spent nine years in prison for molesting more than 500 young boys since the 1960s, MyFOXPhoenix reported. He was released from a state mental hospital in 2004 after jurors couldn't agree on whether he was at risk of committing more sex crimes against children. After he left prison, he moved into a luxury condo in Sedona, Arizona. Authorities say he also built a mansion in Cambodia, where he was charged with indecent acts against minors in a case involving four boys there, ages 9 to 13, according to MyFOXPhoenix. Sporich reportedly would lure boys in Cambodia with toys, candy and $1 bills he dropped on the streets as he rode through town on his motorcycle, the station reported. He faces 30 years in prison in the United States, but only three years in Cambodia. In other news... 
Most children will engage in sexual behaviors at some time during childhood. Pediatrics story here These behaviors may be normal but can be confusing and concerning to parents or disruptive or intrusive to others. Knowledge of age-appropriate sexual behaviors that vary with situational and environmental factors can assist the clinician in differentiating normal sexual behaviors from sexual behavior problems. Most situations that involve sexual behaviors in young children do not require child protective services intervention; for behaviors that are age-appropriate and transient, the pediatrician may provide guidance in supervision and monitoring of the behavior. If the behavior is intrusive, hurtful, and/or age-inappropriate, a more comprehensive assessment is warranted. Some children with sexual behavior problems may reside or have resided in homes characterized by inconsistent parenting, violence, abuse, or neglect and may require more immediate intervention and referrals. The full article is available online at http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/peds.2009-1692v1
A judge has finalized his decision to throw out convictions of a Missouri mother for her role in an Internet hoax directed at a 13-year-old neighbor girl who committed suicide. Findlaw.com news story here U.S. District Judge George Wu said in his written ruling that the case was never a legal test of crimes involving "cyberbullying." Prosecutors, who adopted that terminology early on, brought charges against Lori Drew under the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Statute which does not involve cyberbullying, the judge said. Wu acquitted Drew of misdemeanor counts of accessing computers without authorization last month but stressed the ruling was tentative until he issued it in writing. For more on this story see vol5_iss76, vol6_iss38, vol6_iss75, and vol7_iss40. Drew's attorney, Dean Steward, believes Wu's ruling in effect strikes down a portion of the computer fraud act. "He's pretty much found that portions of it are unconstitutional," said Steward, who expects Department of Justice attorneys to go back to Congress for a clarification. Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, said no decision had been made yet about a possible appeal. Wu's 32-page ruling, filed late Friday, cited vagueness of the statute and the chance that innocent users of the Internet could become subject to criminal charges if Drew's conviction was allowed to stand. To learn more about protecting kids online see eGuide/online safety, eGuide/MySpace, and eGuide/bullying.
Celebrity fashion designer Anand Jon Alexander was sentenced to 59 years to life in prison Monday afternoon for sexually assaulting seven young women and girls he enticed with the promise of modeling jobs. LA Times story here Alexander, who was a guest designer on the reality television show "America's Next Top Model," was convicted last November of 16 charges of rape, sexual assault and other crimes. Wesley handed down the maximum sentence to Alexander for all but two of those counts, saying he showed no remorse for his actions and posed a danger to other young women. Alexander's use of violence and cruelty in his assaults and his manipulation of young, vulnerable women also added to the seriousness of his crime, Wesley said. Alexander, 35, faces similar charges in New York and Texas. Should he be convicted in other states, whatever sentence he receives would be added to the time for his California sentence, prosecutors said. Several of Alexander's victims spoke before the sentencing, each choking up with emotion. Prosecutors had argued during the trial that Alexander lured girls as young as 14 to his apartment in Beverly Hills, often through the Internet, and used them to act out his sexual fantasies. "I was 14. You took my adolescence, my trust, my dream and completely manipulated them for your sexual desires," one of the victims said, reading from a statement. The victims said they continue suffering from depression and paranoia, and that their trust in others has been completely shattered by what they went through. Their families were also tormented by what their daughters went through, they said in statements.
One in three teenage girls has suffered sexual abuse from a boyfriend and one in four has experienced violence in a relationship, according to an in-depth British study. The Guardian story here The survey, by the NSPCC and Bristol University, found that of the 1,353 teenage girls and boys questioned across the UK, nearly 90% of girls aged 13 to 17 had been in an intimate relationship. A similar number of boys had been in relationships. A quarter of girls had suffered physical violence, including being slapped, punched or beaten by their boyfriends, according to the study. As part of the research, 91 young people were questioned at length. Of the girls, one in six said that they had been pressured into having sex and one in 16 claimed to have been raped. A small minority of the boys - one in 17 - reported being pressured or forced into sexual activity and almost one in five suffered physical violence in a relationship. The NSPCC said that having an older boyfriend placed young girls at a higher risk of abuse, with three-quarters of them saying they had been victims. For boys, having a violent group of friends actually made it more likely that they would become a victim, or be a perpetrator of violence, in a relationship. For more information visit http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2009/6524.html
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