National Alert!!!!!

[Goku Noble Warrior]

This is sad, A 9 year old girl was abducted from her home in Virginia and her parents were found Shot to death. CNN has given a national alert headline about it at its website. I hope and pray they kind find the girl safely.

http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/08/16/mis...nia/index.html

[LARAMANIAC]

As I'm sure you are all aware, we still have two ten year old girls missing over here in England. This article puts another young girl in all our prayers!!!!! We hope and pray they are returned safely!!!!

[PtTe2]

My uncle lives in Basset, VA. What can WE do to ensure this crap stops! I find that being honest and forth-right with folks only causes them to resent you.
I do, 99.99999% of the time, chose the "right thing". For this, my truck was recently lifted up onto railroad ties, by the miners I work with (middle-manager, ugh), so that the wheels weren't touching the ground when I returned to it at 4:30am in the morning. Anyhow, just wish I could help ...... God's Will for the little girl and her parents and relatives
Yuck!.

[Rose662]

That is really terrible news! I just read about it on Yahoo news myself.

They will be in my prayers. I hope they will be found alive and safe!

I saw on the news today that someone is trying to abduct 9 and 10 year old girls in Bucks County in Pennsylvania!

Has the country gone crazy lately? There have been a lot of abductions and attempted abductions of children this month! What the heck is going on? Or, are the stories being more publicized than usual?

Terrible!

[mulder]

I think it's been this bad, it's just that now we have 24 hour cable news and it's reported constantly. (which is a good thing)
Seems like years ago , the parents either had to be well known, wealthy, or the child had to be missing for a long time to get any mention Nationally or World-wide.


Now for an opinion:

Some might not like this but here goes....

I am a FIRM believer that Any crime against a child , Molestation, Kidnapping, etc....should be a one strike offense...world wide.
If you do it and we catch your sorry ass....That's it. Your're gone.
The offender does not get another chance.

Imprisoned for life. No if's, and's or but's about it.

Harsh? No...I don't think so.

All too many times i've seen people imprisoned for this and what happens? They prove to a parole board that they are rehabilitated and they go right out and do it again. Just like the guy recently in Los Angeles...That creep had already been arrested for raping his own step-daughter.
Why was this freak even out on the street?

Then it's not only they're fault but I will also blame the Judge and / or the parole board that released the sick individule.

Anyway....that is my opinion....Rant over.

[Drexel]

Originally posted by mulder


Now for an opinion:

Some might not like this but here goes....

I am a FIRM believer that Any crime against a child , Molestation, Kidnapping, etc....should be a one strike offense...world wide.
If you do it and we catch your sorry ass....That's it. Your're gone.
The offender does not get another chance.

Imprisoned for life. No if's, and's or but's about it.

Absolutely right!!

[dhama]

IMHO, I don't believe locking people away for their crimes is of much help to anyone, I think they should be trying to find out why some people are more prone to such atrocities, but instead, as you say Mulder, some are let out to re-offend. Plus of course there are still the ones who are already on the outside who have yet to be caught. I think perhaps we should also pray that they don't do it in the first place.

[mulder]

Dhama....I partially agree with you....Death is not an answer (never has been) And life in prison is such a waste....but what else can you do?
I just think that the worst crimes a human can commit are ones against children.

We as humans, should have no tolerance for crimes like this. Children are left scarred for life....and they are our future.

[Zaphod]

Originally posted by Rose662
Has the country gone crazy lately? There have been a lot of abductions and attempted abductions of children this month! What the heck is going on? Or, are the stories being more publicized than usual?

Publicized more than usual. That's all. Every so often the media latches on to one "hot topic." Right now it's kidnapping. Law enforcement statistics indicate that if the rest of this year plays out like they expect it, there will have been about 100 kidnappings nationwide in 2002, down considerably from the yearly average of 250-300. So, there's actually been less recently than normal.

And then the media starts with the "Are Your Kids Safe" and "What Can We Do To Protect Our Kids" and Dateline does 20 segments on it and Oprah does shows about it and everyone thinks its much worse than it is.

Not to downplay this tragic and horrible crime at all, mind you.

But just because it's been getting a ton of coverage lately doesn't mean there's more kidnappings than usual.

[LARAMANIAC]

I'm very sorry if my opinion upsets people but here we go:-

Today they have arrested two people under suspicion of the murders of our two 10 year olds over here in England. They have found two bodies about 20 miles away from where these people live!!!! I hope and pray that it is not our little girls but, it is beginning to look like it is. The people arrested are a caretaker and Non Teaching Assistant at the very school these young girls attended. Now I'm sorry but crimes committed against young, innocent children should only incur one penalty in my opinion and that is death!!! I know for a fact that I would find a way to do this myself should this have been my children!!!! I'm very sorry to upset anyone but I feel very strongly that crimes against children should be punishable by death!!!!!

[Azuriel]

Originally posted by LARAMANIAC
I'm very sorry if my opinion upsets people but here we go:-

Today they have arrested two people under suspicion of the murders of our two 10 year olds over here in England. They have found two bodies about 20 miles away from where these people live!!!! I hope and pray that it is not our little girls but, it is beginning to look like it is. The people arrested are a caretaker and Non Teaching Assistant at the very school these young girls attended. Now I'm sorry but crimes committed against young, innocent children should only incur one penalty in my opinion and that is death!!! I know for a fact that I would find a way to do this myself should this have been my children!!!! I'm very sorry to upset anyone but I feel very strongly that crimes against children should be punishable by death!!!!!

i agree

kill them all!!!!! ... SLOWLY

[@m]

Originally posted by mulder
Dhama....I partially agree with you....Death is not an answer (never has been) And life in prison is such a waste....but what else can you do?

Put them in psychiatry, kids are save then and they get the help they need.

[Wee Bald Man]

Castration is the answer.

Snip snip. Simple.

Only problem is, there's a weird idea in the world that everyone should have the right to have children.. including pedophiles..

There isn't even a smilie to express how I feel about that.

I'm going back to my home planet soon because the human race is, as my six-legged alien grandmother likes to put it, 'thick as mince and quite clearly cerebally disadvantaged'.

WBM

[Data]

Castration is an interesting idea, however I doubt as though it could remedy the situation.

It is curious though, to use an analogy, that the human race will quite happily cause harm to itself, however instead of realising it only need stop this self-affliction, it would continue on as if wearing blinkers, totally oblivious that the most straightforward solution is generally the one most overlooked.

[Arctic_Wolf]

Originally posted by LARAMANIAC
I feel very strongly that crimes against children should be punishable by death!!!!!

Many people who live deserve death, many people dead deserve life. Can you give it to them?


With Globalisation we relise ever more clearly how sick the human mind can get. How can we stop this ever growing percent of the 6 or 7 Billion humans from commiting such atrocities against their fellow life forms? Should we execute them or imprisson them? Neither I say, you all value life and liberty, therefore you can not stip it from another. I say find what causes such depravity and correct it, by any means.

[Dell]

Once upon a time, in California, I was on a project in college to research a topic suitable for a paper on psychological aberations. As there was current pedophile news activity, I chose that subject. It actually involved interviewing pedophiles incarcerated in a nearby mental hospital for "treatment".

Out of ten of them who I personally interviewed, after a bit of talking, nine of them admitted their activity (actually seemed to really enjoy discussing it with me), stated it had gone on in varying degrees since puberty, and furthermore stated that their average stay was two years of "treatment". All they had to do was obey the rules, get along, and present well to the parole board, and they were free again.

Why? Because that was the system and these people had molested no children while being incarcerated! What? You heard it correctly!

And what did the nine admit? That they knew they would do it again just as soon as the opportunity presented itself. They would just be more careful from now on.

Lo and behold! These marvelously rehabilitated and cured pedophiles were back on the street....

That is how the repeat offenders get away with it. One guy, when finally caught, actually yelled at the camera crews that he had "done" 150 kids, and would be out in a couple of years to "get your kids!"

Attention! Opinion based on solid information.

Pedophilia and other sexual aberations cannot be "cured" by any currently used method. Certainly keeping them in mental
hospitals or jails keeps them away from children (didn't molest a single child while there), but what happens when they get loose and feel that sex urge again? You bet, they seek out their desired objects...children.

Yes, we register sex offenders. But did that movement to announce to neighborhoods when a known pedophile was living in neighborhoods filled with children get shot down?

[Moggraider]

Mental hospitals are no place for proper treatment. I hate to admit it, but it's true. They're filled to the brim with patients. They get very little one-on-one treatment. I strongly believe that such behaviors can be cured, just as any other psychologically -founded misbehaviors can be.

Furthermore, any criminal, even sex offenders, who has served his time has the right to privacy. Period. The announcing that a certain person was a sex offender to the people around him would only instill further shame and conflict in the person, and make it harder for the ex-con to put his past behind him. The ex-con would be reduced to a fearful pariah. He'd see himself as an enemy of society and would be all the more likely to offend once more.

[Dell]

This is not about a pedophile, but I just picked this up from Associated Press. It is long but deserves to be read fully!

Would you like to have THIS man living unnanounced in your neighborhood? He will surely live somewhere! He had been incarcerated before...and he went right on killing.

It clearly states the inability of law enforcement to watch these people twenty four/seven. Rehabilitated? Ha Ha Ha


Serial Killer Scheduled for Release

By PAM EASTON
.c The Associated Press

HOUSTON (AP) - The murders were as random as they were vicious: stabbings, hangings, stranglings, drownings. The women didn't know each other or the hooded man who, according to one survivor, enjoyed the killing so much he was ``clapping and dancing.''

Police eventually caught up with Coral Eugene Watts but couldn't connect him to the savage crimes in Texas and Michigan.

Desperate to close the cases, prosecutors agreed to a plea bargain. In 1982, Watts admitted he killed 13 women - ``They had evil in their eyes,'' he said - but he went to prison for burglary with intent to commit murder.

He was sentenced to 60 years, and prosecutors, police and the judge thought that was enough.

Now, a quirk in the Texas legal system may short-circuit their intentions. Mandatory release laws aimed at relieving prison crowding require Watts be discharged on May 8, 2006, unless he loses good behavior credits that he has accumulated in prison. He will be 52.

Watts is believed to have killed dozens of women, and authorities in Texas and Michigan are scouring old files, archives and evidence folders for any shred that might tie him to an open case for which he didn't receive immunity in the plea.

``Everybody knows he is going to kill again,'' said Houston police Sgt. Tom Ladd, who interrogated Watts after his arrest in 1982. ``His last statement to me was: 'You know, Tom, if I get out, I'm going to do it again.'''

``He's a homicidal time bomb,'' Ladd said.

Watts declined an interview request from The Associated Press. His defense attorney in 1982, Zinetta Burney, did not return calls requesting comment.

Finding new evidence will be tough, Ladd said. DNA testing wasn't done in the 1980s, and evidence collection was handled differently.

And with Watts' attacks lasting just moments, he left little behind, the homicide detective said.

``He was a stalker, a predator,'' Ladd said. ``He would get in his car at night and he would drive around and he would see a female, and he would follow that female, and he would kill that female, and he would get back in his car. He might look for another one, he might go home.''

Watts first came to the attention of authorities in Michigan in 1974 when he was accused of choking and beating a woman in Kalamazoo. He was convicted of aggravated assault in 1975 and spent a year in jail.

He then moved to Ann Arbor, where police kept a close eye on him but never caught him committing a crime.

``There was no DNA, and lacking eyewitnesses, lacking a smoking gun, it is very hard to prove a case,'' retired Ann Arbor police detective Paul Bunten said.

Michigan authorities eventually suspected Watts of attacking at least 14 women and killing eight in Ann Arbor, Detroit and the neighboring Canadian town of Windsor between October 1979 and November 1980, according to the Houston Chronicle.

But they could do little more than relay their suspicions and details of Watts' background to Houston authorities after he moved south in 1981.

``Logistically, it was impossible to keep a 24-hour tab on this guy,'' Ladd said. ``We didn't have anything to follow him on.''

Twelve Texas women died before Watts crossed paths with police again.

On May 23, 1982, Watts choked to death Michelle Maday, 20.

Two hours later, he choked and beat Lori Lister in a parking lot outsider her home, then dragged her limp body up to her apartment.

Lister's roommate, Melinda Aguilar, awoke and found Watts staring her in the face.

``He grabbed me, pulled my hair back and started choking me,'' Aguilar said. ``I pretended like I passed out.''

Watts bound both women's hands with wire hangers.

``I knew he was there to kill just by the excitement he had,'' Aguilar said. ``He enjoyed what he was doing. I remember him jumping and clapping and being excited about what he was doing.''

While Watts filled the bathtub, Aguilar slipped out and called police, who arrived in time to grab Watts as he ran out the front door.

``It is a miracle I'm alive,'' said Lister, who was rescued from the bathtub and resuscitated. ``I was told and promised that he would serve his full 60 years. It took me years to get over a lot of fears. It would be a constant threat to me for him to be out.''

Texas' mandatory release program was approved in 1977 and rescinded in 1996, but prisoners who qualified in between those times remained eligible. Watts has earned enough good behavior credits to be freed in 2006.

Bryan Collier, director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's parole division, said that if Watts gets out in 2006 he will be watched closely from his release until his 60-year sentence expires in 2042.

``We would try and come up with the very best supervision plan we possibly could,'' Collier said.

Harriett Semander, whose 20-year-old daughter Elena Semander was strangled with her own shirt, isn't convinced that will be enough.

``There's no doubt in my mind that he has been sitting in prison for the last 20 years planning his next murder,'' she said. ``This man was street smart. He was cunning. He liked what he did. Of course he is going to do it again, and when there is the next victim, we can all take the blame for it.''

8/18/02 18:42 EDT
Copyright 2000 The Associated Press.

[sbp]

So this killer gets sentenced to 60 years {a light sentence}, does 24 years and gets out to murder again. Is it any wonder people have little faith in the criminal justice system? Yet another case of revolving door justice...

Wonder where all the bleeding hearts are now.

[LARAMANIAC]

Originally posted by Arctic_Wolf


Many people who live deserve death, many people dead deserve life. Can you give it to them?


With Globalisation we relise ever more clearly how sick the human mind can get. How can we stop this ever growing percent of the 6 or 7 Billion humans from commiting such atrocities against their fellow life forms? Should we execute them or imprisson them? Neither I say, you all value life and liberty, therefore you can not stip it from another. I say find what causes such depravity and correct it, by any means.

Liberty definitely should be 'stripped' from someone who commits a criminal act - our society is based on this principle!!! Life should be 'stripped' from someone who CHOOSES to commit sexual offences or murders against young and innocent children who have not even had the time to grow and experience life!!!! As Dell has just pointed out finding the cause and correcting it is just not an option anymore!! Time and time again these perverts are supposedly rehabilitated and released back into the community to yet again offend more and more innocent, young children!!!!!! Where is the justice in that?????

[Arlene]

Originally posted by Arctic_Wolf


Many people who live deserve death, many people dead deserve life. Can you give it to them?


With Globalisation we relise ever more clearly how sick the human mind can get. How can we stop this ever growing percent of the 6 or 7 Billion humans from commiting such atrocities against their fellow life forms?....

The only question I have is:

How can we not stop them?

I agree with LARAMANIAC 100%!!

[Xcom]

Originally posted by sbp
So this killer gets sentenced to 60 years {a light sentence}, does 24 years and gets out to murder again. Is it any wonder people have little faith in the criminal justice system? Yet another case of revolving door justice...

Luckily you don't know about dutch legal system. The punishments here are laughable.

Case: 2 dudes shot 4 people in a sexclub. 4 x manslaughter. 15 years.

Case2: father brutally kills his 5 year old son. Dumps the body in a lake. 8 years

For murder (1st degree) you can get (theoretically) life inprisonment at max (almost never happens, you probably need to construct and blow up a nuke in Amsterdam to get that sentence ).

Sexual Offences - well, I am not even going to discuss this. It's basically not a crime here.

[John Carter]

Neither I say, you all value life and liberty, therefore you can not stip it from another. I say find what causes such depravity and correct it, by any means.

What if such means include the scientific experimentation and long term vivisection of such persons? In order to "find out", liberty if not life must be "stripped away". Your statement is contradictory.

It very well may be beyond human ability to find and correct such causes, no matter the means used. Does one wait for such a happy day to come to pass, and hope for the best in the meantime? In our solicitude for the rights and "illness" of the child-murderer, do we allow him to deprive our species' future, its children, of their lives at his will? Why would we do such a thing?

[Amazeroth]

I'm not going to comment on how child molesters / abductors / murderers / whatever should be punished... this problem is, like any other question about justice and injustice, way to complicated to solve it with one single, wholesale statement.

However kudos to Zaphod who, IMO not for the first time, hit the nail on the head... it's almost frightening how powerful news media actually are... those people decide what a whole country is going to be raving and ranting about tomorrow. With a single report (maybe some 'special features' thrown in) or a big fat headline along with some article.

[Zaphod]

Originally posted by sbp
Wonder where all the bleeding hearts are now.

Right here.

It is a flagrant violation of a person's civil rights to have to "register" themselves when they move to a new area. And the rights of the individual, rather than the group, is the most traditionally Republican value there is. Hardly bleeding-heart liberal.

The police, nor any other law enforcement agency, should not be in the business of watching ANYONE 24/7. If we are going to let them out of prison (and I'm not saying it's a good idea. I think 60 years should probably mean 60 years), then we have decided that they have paid their debt to society and are free to go. I wouldn't want to live ANYWHERE where someone was "watching people 24/7." That's totalitarianism. That's a far cry from "The Land of the Free." Doesn't sound like too much fun to me.

The reason prisoners aren't "rehabilitated" anymore is that at some point in the early 1980s, we as a country (and I'm speaking here only of the US; I don't know enough to talk about anywhere else) moved from the more liberal idea of "rehabiliting" prisoners through education, counseling, etc., to simply "warehousing" them as both punishment/revenge and as a way to simply be able to forget about them for a few years. It's no wonder that sick, depraved people who are simply thrown into a cage with other sick, depraved people typically come out only more sick and depraved. If we really expect people to change while in prison, we have to give them a reason to.

Please don't misunderstand; I'd love to take all pedophiles and child-killers out into a lake and drown them like cats. However, a society, any society, has to be composed of the better angels of our nature, not our basest desire for revenge and retribution.