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Archives > Volume 7 Issue 70 - November 24, 2009 Bustamante sent to mental hospital...Alyssa Bustamante, the 15-year-old accused of killing her 9-year-old neighbor, Elizabeth Olten, was sent to a Missouri mental hospital after her lawyer said she showed signs of severe depression and anxiety. CBS News story here 
A judge ordered Bustamante to be taken to the Fulton State Hospital for up to 96 hours, but it was unclear exactly when that clock started. The order by Cole County Circuit Judge Patricia Joyce is dated Thursday but did not have a time stamp; it was released Friday.
Bustamante had been held at the Morgan County jail since being indicted Wednesday as an adult on charges of first-degree murder and armed criminal action for Elizabeths death. Police say Bustamante strangled, stabbed and cut Elizabeth's throat on October 21 because she wanted to know what it felt like to kill someone. They say Bustamante confessed and led them to Elizabeth's body two days later in a wooded area near their homes in St. Martins, just west of Jefferson City. During a court hearing Wednesday, a juvenile justice officer testified that Bustamante had attempted suicide two years ago and had received both inpatient and outpatient mental health treatment for depression and cutting herself. Her juvenile defense attorney said Bustamante also had attempted to cut herself with her own fingernails while being held in juvenile custody after Elizabeth's death. Meanwhile, a best friend of Bustamante says her friend once said she wondered what it would be like to kill someone. CBS News story here For more on this story, see vol7_iss61, vol7_iss62, vol7_iss64, and vol7_iss69. Irish Archbishops protected abusive priests... Four Dublin archbishops were aware of complaints against priests for sexually abusing children over 35 years, a damning report has revealed. Evening Herald news story here 
The four Catholic archbishops who preceded Dr Diarmuid Martin - John Charles McQuaid, Dermot Ryan, Kevin McNamara and Desmond Connell - did not reveal their knowledge of widespread sexual abuse by the clergy to the gardai.
Yet the Archbishops, who presided over the Dublin diocese from the 1960s, were aware of allegations of sexual misconduct by priests of the diocese. The Child Abuse Commission Report reveals that a desire to protect the Church meant the horrific crimes were not reported to the gardai. The report did not find any evidence of a pedophile ring operating in Dublin, but it did find some connections between more than 40 priests serving in the Archdiocese. The Commission says Cardinal Connell was shocked at the extent of the of child sexual abuse within the diocese but he was slow to recognize the seriousness of the situation, took bad advice from legal and medical counsel and failed to realize that clerical sex abusers could not be dealt with in secret. The long awaited report of the Commission, set up in 2006, will be published on Thursday, but a majority of clerical child sex abusers will not be identified by their real names for legal reasons. As directed by the High Court, parts of the report will also be withheld to avoid jeopardizing any prosecutions or ongoing investigations. Gardai and the Director of Public Prosecutions are already pursuing cases against identified offenders. The report found that the church authorities covered up clerical child sex abuse in Dublin and that this was facilitated by its structures and rules. It also found that this was helped by State authorities who allowed the church to be beyond the reach of normal law enforcement processes with some gardai making inappropriate contact with the archdiocese about allegations. See more on this story at vol3_iss59, vol7_iss26, vol7_iss33, and vol7_iss42. In other news... 
The state of North Carolina is reviewing what kind of contact the Cumberland County Department of Social Services had with Antoinette Davis and her children, The Fayetteville Observer reported. Winston-Salem Journal news story here The announcement, made by the N.C. Child Fatality Task Force on Monday, comes a little more than a week after police arrested Davis and charged her with human trafficking and child abuse by prostitution. Two days after her arrest, on November 16, the body of her daughter, 5-year-old Shaniya Davis, was found off a rural road south of Sanford. She died of asphyxiation, according to preliminary reports. Mario Andrette McNeill, 29, is charged with first-degree murder, first-degree rape and kidnapping in Shaniya's death. Police, Davis' family members and DSS have declined to say what kind of involvement the agency had with Antoinette Davis and her family. One of Shaniya's uncles, Michael Davis, has told reporters that DSS investigated Antoinette Davis in the past. He said DSS investigated Davis regarding her 7-year-old son. The uncle told reporters that DSS completed its investigation, and Antoinette Davis was allowed to keep her children. On Friday, the director of the Cumberland County Department of Social Services released a statement saying the release of any information about the agency's involvement with the Davis family would jeopardize the state's ability to prosecute Davis and would hurt any current or future investigation. Meanwhile, more than two thousand people attended her funeral Sunday at Manna Church in Fayetteville. ABC news story here At one point, more than a hundred looked through the windows of the church door because they couldn't get in. See more on this story at vol7_iss67, vol7_iss68, and vol7_iss69.
Lawmakers in Georgia are working to close what they say is a loophole in the state law that has already freed at least two teachers who were jailed for having sex with their students. ABC News story here In June, the Supreme Court in Georgia ruled in a 5-2 decision that a female teacher who had been convicted of assault against her 16-year-old female student should have been allowed to use consent as a defense in court. The student, who was not named, testified that she had initiated the relationship with 28-year-old Melissa Lee Chase, but her statements were barred from being used during the trial. The age of consent in Georgia is 16. Chase was subsequently released from jail. The statement by the majority of the court said the law specifies that only certain relationships between people in authority and their subordinates - a psychotherapist and his patient or a police officer and a criminal in custody, for example - were not allowed to use consent in their defense. No mention of using consent as a defense in a teacher-student relationship was noted in the statute. For more information on this subject, see eGuide/educator abuse and eGuide/statutory rape.
A 14-year-old Alabama girl might have helped arrange the gang rape of her ninth-grade classmate and could face charges as an accomplice based on her comments in a televised interview, a district attorney said. Fox News story here The girl told reporters last week that she and her 14-year-old classmate had planned to have sex with the suspects who have been charged with rape. The girl under investigation is dating one of the three suspects who are 16, 17 and 20 years old. "The victim told police that the attack did begin as consensual contact," Monroe County District Attorney Tommy Chapman told the Press-Register of Mobile for a Monday story. "But when all three suspects began to join in, she told them no repeatedly, but they did not stop." Authorities said the girl required surgery after the November 16 attack and was in intensive care for three days. "I am exceedingly angry, and you can quote me on that," Chapman said. Police took the girl who may be charged into custody on Chapman's orders Friday and she was later released. Investigators said the fellow ninth-graders left Monroe County High School with Steven Scott, 20, DeShon Riley, 16, and Justin Williams, 17, before the start of classes the day of the attack. Investigators said that the three took turns assaulting one of the girls at a home. The other girl claimed that they attempted to rape her, but that no intercourse occurred. A medical examination indicated that the girl had sex. The men then took the classmates back to school where the injured girl sat in bloody clothes for hours until school officials called police, investigators said.
The Canadian federal government plans to introduce new legislation forcing Internet providers to alert police if they encounter any host sites linked to child pornography, The Vancouver Sun has learned. Vancouver Sun news story here The Internet companies would also be forced to safeguard evidence if they believe a child-pornography offence has been committed using a server they provide. The new bill also makes it mandatory that any tip received by Internet companies about potential child-porn sites be reported to a designated agency. The legislation allows for fines to Internet providers who do not comply of up to $100,000 for corporations, and up to $10,000 and six months in jail for companies owned by a sole proprietor. At present, Internet providers are not obligated by law to pass on information to law enforcement agencies, though many do so voluntarily. Three Canadian provinces - Ontario, Manitoba and Nova Scotia - have made it mandatory under child protection laws for Internet companies to call police if they suspect or have knowledge of online child porn. The proposed law comes just days after the release of a study that found Canada is one of the leading countries in the world for hosting child-porn sites. The report, released by Cybertip.ca, examined more than 15,000 child-porn websites worldwide and found Canada ranked second behind the U.S. in terms of the number of commercial porn sites featuring children.
Nancy Ortiz, the Orosi, California woman convicted of second-degree murder in the death of her newborn daughter, was sentenced Monday to 22 years to life in prison. Fresno Bee story here Ortiz, 24, received a sentence of 15 years to life for her daughter's death in December 2006. Tulare County Superior Court Judge Joseph Kalashian also sentenced her to seven years and four months on felony counts of child abuse. She will serve the sentences consecutively and will be eligible for parole after 22 years and four months. Ortiz abandoned two other babies in February 2005 and January 2006, but both were discovered alive and are now living in foster homes.
Police said they recently uncovered a "chilling collection" of child pornography in a Kenosha, Wisconsin apartment. WISN News story here On Monday, prosecutors charged 53-year-old Kevin Derks with 20 counts of possessing child pornography after agents raided his apartment. Agents said they tracked Derks down through purchases from a child porn club. Inside his apartment, agents said they found 100 DVDs which they believe contain child porn. Police also said they found hundreds of pornographic photos decorating the walls of his apartment. According to court records, the following items were found in Derk's home: a picture showing actresses Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen with a handwritten caption saying they were 11 years old and asking Derks to perform a sex act on them, a Hannah Montana lamp with handwriting on the shade that read, "Make Love to Me Mom" and other photos including one of kidnap victim Elizabeth Smart and one of actress Dakota Fanning. Derks has no criminal record, and police and prosecutors alike said they were boggled by the arrest. "It's a very small apartment. The walls were allegedly covered with children. You can't even imagine it," prosecutor Rosa Delgado said. Derks had posters on walls, mannequins posed suggestively, and 21 firearms in his apartment. Neighbor Margaret Ambrosini said Derks never let anyone in his apartment, but neighbors never suspected anything wrong. "But the firearms, that's what really scared me. If this guy had flipped out, we'd all be dead," Ambrosini said. If convicted, Derks could potentially face 500 years in prison for possession of child pornography relating to photos he downloaded from the internet alone. Investigators also said Derks had a significant collection of pictures of children he had taken himself at Kenosha's beaches.
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