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Archives > Volume 7 Issue 62 - October 27, 2009 15-year-old charged in murder of missing 9-year-old...Authorities have charged a 15-year-old with first-degree murder for the death of 9-year-old girl in central Missouri. CBS News story here 
Cole County Juvenile Court Administrator Michael Couty said Saturday that the 15-year-old is being detained for the death of Elizabeth Olten.
Police did not release the teen's gender or name. Elizabeth's body was found Friday - two days after she went missing - after the suspect led police to a wooded area near her home west of Jefferson City. Cole County Sheriff Greg White said Saturday that the girl was found in an area that had previously been searched but she had been "very well concealed." White said Elizabeth was acquainted with the suspect but declined to elaborate. The sheriff did not give any details on how Elizabeth died or about the juvenile in custody except to say that the person lived in the area west of Jefferson City. Police said Elizabeth's body was found just before 3 p.m. "We were able to obtain some physical evidence and through some analysis of some of the evidence and in all honesty some written evidence, we were able to develop a person of interest," White said. "Once we reached that person and interviewed them, ultimately they led us to where we've recovered Elizabeth's body." Elizabeth, of St. Martins, was last seen when she started walking home from a neighbor's house on Wednesday evening, police have said. Somer's killer may have killed before... The person who killed 7-year-old Somer Thompson may have preyed on children before, making the search for the second-grader's slayer that much more urgent, police said. ABC News story here 
Clay County authorities said they are running frustratingly low on credible leads despite receiving more than 1,000 tips about Somer's kidnapping and murder. But "America's Most Wanted" host John Walsh said County Sheriff Rick Beseler is "looking very hard at certain people.
"The sheriff and I both feel that it's a predator who has probably done it before," Walsh, who has been following Somer's case since she disappeared last week, told "Good Morning America" today. He pointed to a string of four child disappearances in the Jacksonville area about 20 years ago that have never been solved. "I would hate to think this is a serial child killer who has raised its ugly head," Walsh said, noting that it's not unusual for such a predator to come out of "retirement." Somer disappeared October 19 while walking home from school with her twin brother and older sister, 10. She ran ahead after a squabble with her siblings and vanished shortly after. Somer's body was found Wednesday in a Georgia landfill after detectives followed garbage trucks from Somer's Orange Park, Florida hometown in search of clues. Police say they've checked out nearly all the more than 90 sex offenders living within a three-mile radius of Somer's home and repeated searches of a vacant house near where the little girl disappeared have not yet yielded any obvious clues. For more on this story see vol7_iss61. FLDS trial begins with jury selection... More than 150 potential jurors, including 10 women in prairie dresses and braids, crammed into a makeshift courtroom Monday as jury selection began in the first criminal trial stemming from the raid of a polygamist sect's ranch last year. MSNBC News story here 
Raymond Jessop, 38, is charged with sexual assault of a child, stemming from his alleged marriage to an underage girl. The girl, according to church documents seized by authorities, gave birth at age 16 at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado. If convicted, Jessop faces 20 years in prison.
He is also charged with bigamy, but that charge is to be tried separately. Prosecutors allege Jessop has nine wives, including three that were married to a brother before the brother was excommunicated by Warren Jeffs, the jailed leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The FLDS, which believes polygamy brings glorification in heaven, is a breakaway sect not recognized by the mainstream Mormon church, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago. In all, 12 sect members have been charged with crimes ranging from failure to report child abuse to sexual assault and bigamy. For more on this story see vol6_iss78. In other news... 
Police believe as many as a dozen people watched a 15-year-old girl get beaten and gang-raped outside her California high school homecoming dance without reporting it. MSNBC story here Two suspects were in custody Monday, but police said as many as five other men attacked the girl over a two-hour period Friday night outside Richmond High School. "She was raped, beaten, robbed and dehumanized by several suspects who were obviously OK enough with it to behave that way in each other's presence," Lieutenant Mark Gagan said. "What makes it even more disturbing is the presence of others. People came by, saw what was happening and failed to report it." The victim remained hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. Manuel Ortega, 19, was arrested at the scene and was being held on $800,000 bail for investigation of rape and robbery. He is not a student at the school. A 15-year-old student also was booked late Monday on one count of sexual assault, Gagan said.
The FBI said it has rescued more than 50 children who were being victimized through prostitution in a national sting. Fox News story here The operation, part of the Innocence Lost National Initiative, took place in 36 cities over the past 72 hours. The FBI said 631 others, including 60 pimps, were arrested on local and state charges. "Child prostitution continues to be a significant problem in our country, as evidenced by the number of children rescued through the continued efforts of our crimes against children task forces," Kevin Perkins, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division, said in a statement on Monday. Local and state law enforcement agencies assisted the FBI in the 3-day operation. "There is no work more important than protecting America's children and freeing them from the cycle of victimization," said Perkins. "Through our strategic partnerships with state and local law enforcement agencies, we are able to make a difference." The Innocence Lost Task Forces and Working Groups have rescued nearly 900 children from the streets to date, the FBI reported. FBI release here
Charleeni Ferreira's father, accused with his wife last week in the abuse death of the 10-year-old Feltonville girl, was found hanged yesterday morning in his jail cell at the Curran-Frumhold Correctional Facility. Philadelphia Inquirer story here A guard found Domingo Ferreira, 53, during a routine inspection around 3:10 a.m. lying on his bunk with a torn bed sheet tied to the upper bunk. CPR was administered and medical staff responded, but Ferreira was declared dead. Ferreira, who was admitted to the jail Friday, had been kept alone in a cell in the housing intake unit because of the notoriety of his case. He had been given a mental evaluation when he arrived and judged not suicidal. Ferreira and his wife, Margarita Garabito, 43, were charged with murder after Charleeni died Wednesday. Garabito is the girl's stepmother. Police called the "ongoing torture" of the girl one of the worst cases of abuse they had ever seen. Charleeni had numerous old and fresh wounds, and she had been sexually assaulted. She died from an infection stemming from untreated broken ribs. A fractured hip caused her to limp, and a large gash in her head had been stuffed with gauze and hidden beneath a hair weave. The wound was months old, and skin had begun to grow over the gauze.
Most of the estimated 1.6 million children who run away each year return home within a week. But for those who do not, the desperate struggle to survive often means selling their bodies. New York Times feature here Nearly a third of the children who flee or are kicked out of their homes each year engage in sex for food, drugs or a place to stay, according to a variety of studies published in academic and public health journals. But this kind of dangerous barter system can quickly escalate into more formalized prostitution, when money changes hands. And then, child welfare workers and police officials say, it becomes extremely difficult to help runaways escape the streets. Many become more entangled in abusive relationships, and the law begins to view them more as teenage criminals than under-age victims. Estimates of how many children are involved in prostitution vary wildly - ranging from thousands to tens of thousands. But many child welfare advocates and officials in government and law enforcement say that while the data is scarce, they believe that the problem of prostituted children has grown, especially as the Internet has made finding clients easier. "It's definitely worsening," said Sergeant Kelley O'Connell, a detective who until this year ran the Boston Police Department's human-trafficking unit, echoing a sentiment conveyed in interviews with law enforcement officials from more than two dozen cities. "Gangs used to sell drugs," she said. "Now many of them have shifted to selling girls because it's just as lucrative but far less risky."
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