Tears



Christina	Long	13	BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) - A man convicted of state manslaughter charges for strangling a 13-year-old girl he met on the Internet pleaded guilty Thursday to federal charges of crossing state lines to have sex with the child. Saul Dos Reis, 25, admitted traveling from New York to Danbury to meet the girl and also pleaded guilty to making a similar trip in 1998 to have sex with a 15-year-old girl he met online. Authorities say Dos Reis strangled Christina Long on May 17, 2002, while the two were having sex in his car after he picked up the sixth-grader at a Danbury mall. Police said Dos Reis met her in an Internet chat room. The case led to a push in Congress for a kids-only domain on the Internet. Dos Reis was convicted in March of state charges of manslaughter and sexual assault in Christina's death. He entered a plea under the Alford Doctrine, in which he did not admit guilt but conceded the state had enough evidence to convict him. Police investigating Christina's disappearance had found messages to her Internet account that led them to Dos Reis, a Brazilian national who was working in his stepfather's restaurant in Port Chester, N.Y. After being questioned by police, Dos Reis allegedly led investigators to Christina's body in a shallow ravine near Greenwich. In court Thursday, prosecutors said Dos Reis tried to create an alibi after Christina's death by writing an e-mail asking her: "So how was that date with that guy last night?" Dos Reis, through his lawyers, had contended Christina's death was accidental. Federal prosecutors said they will seek a 25-year prison term, the maximum allowed for the two counts of traveling in interstate commerce to engage in illegal sex with a minor, when Dos Reis is sentenced July 7. Defense attorney James Lenihan said federal sentencing guidelines would call for a six- to nine-year term. On the state charges, Dos Reis faces a maximum of 30 years and is to be sentenced May 6.


Sandy	Hoyt	14	On February 13, 1979, Bruce D. Williams, Jr. brutally raped and murdered fourteen year old Sandy Hoyt. Williams calculated and planned his crimes by telephoning Sandy and introducing himself as a doctor who required her to baby sit his son at his home. He stated to her that he just received a call to attend an emergency for one of his patients. Williams met Sandy on his street while using his ten month old son as a decoy to convince her that this was a legitimate baby sitting job. In his home, while Sandy was occupied with his son, he put a rope around her, tied her to his bed and raped her. After he completed his savage rape he warned her not to disclose to anyone what he did to her. She told him that she would tell her parents and the police. In an angry rage, Williams strangled her to death, dumped her body in a wooded area to cover and conceal his tracks. He never showed any remorse or responsibility for his crimes. At the time, he was employed as a US Postal worker and special policeman. His father was a Stamford police officer. More at the Parents of Murdered Children website.


Dalton	Mesarchik	7	CHICAGO March 27, 2003- Authorities say the body of a young child found in the Vermilion River has been identified as that of a Streator boy missing since Wednesday evening. Earlier Thursday, hundreds of searchers were looking around Streator for Dalton Mesarchik, 7, who disappeared from in front of his home Wednesday evening while waiting for a bus to pick him up. Streator Police Chief Jeff Anderson and Livingston County Sheriff confirmed that Dalton's body had been found by a fisherman near a tree at the boat club in Streator shortly before noon. That location is approximately 2.5 miles from the boy's home. "Between 11 a.m. and 11:30 a.m., the body of a white male child was found in a rural Streator area near a body of water," Lt. Robert Turner, of the Streator Police, told reporters Thursday afternoon. No cause of death was immediately available, with autopsy results pending. NBC5's Lisa Turman reported that police consider this an active investigation. As part of their investigation, police are talking to the 40 or so registered sex offenders in the area. Anderson said Dalton had been waiting for a school bus to take him to a church program, but the program was canceled and the van never arrived. When his parents called him to come back inside the house, he had disappeared.


Brittany	Locklear	5	HOKE COUNTY, NC- Brittany was abducted on the morning of January 7, 1998 as she stood waiting for the school bus to pick her up from her residence on Gainey Road in Hoke County. The following day, after an intensive search by a combination of local, state and federal law enforcement officers assisted by hundreds of volunteers, Brittany's body was located in a drainage ditch next to a farm road, approximately 3 miles from where she had been abducted. Recently, the SBI formed a task force to continue this investigative effort. Significant strides have been made. Information developed during this investigation is routinely re-evaluated and compared with new information on a daily basis. Analysis of the physical evidence is continuing. The SBI Task Force remains committed to this investigation and confident that this case will be resolved. We must all work together to protect our community. The only way we can do that is to remove the ongoing threat and prevent this from happening to another innocent child. Please contact the SBI Brittany Locklear Task Force or the SBI Operations Center at the following numbers. All leads will be handled in a discreet and confidential manner. SBI Operations Center, Raleigh, NC - 800-334-3000

Jocelyn	Pennington	4	Syracuse, NY Jan. 24, 2002 -- Larry J. Seeley II, accused of sexually molesting and then killing his girlfriend's 4-year-old daughter last week, may face a death penalty prosecution. Defense lawyer J. Kevin Mulroy said Wednesday the Capital Defender Office had been put on notice in the case. Chief Assistant District Attorney Rick Trunfio confirmed that and said his office is considering whether to ask a grand jury to consider first-degree murder charges in the suffocation death of Jocelyn Pennington last Friday. Seeley, 27, of 802 Spring St., Syracuse, is to be in County Court today for the appearance of lawyers from the Capital Defender Office in Rochester. The District Attorney's Office routinely notifies that office in murder cases. Authorities charged Seeley with second-degree murder, alleging he killed the girl recklessly with depraved indifference to human life. Seeley could face a first-degree murder charge under the theory that he intentionally killed her during the commission of a felony sexual assault. Police described the attack on the child as "brutal," and Seeley also could face a first-degree torture-murder charge depending on what evidence the prosecution has developed. Should a grand jury indict Seeley on a first-degree murder charge, the prosecution would have 120 days from his arraignment to decide whether to seek a death sentence.



April Sherry	Turner	7	Gautier, MS -- Sept. 3, 1989 April 15, 1994 -- The state Supreme Court on Thursday reversed the capital murder conviction of Henry Lee Harrison, saying a forensic pathologist went too far in describing to the jury the injuries that killed a 7-year-old Gautier girl. Pathologist Dr. Paul McGarry had testified that April Sherry Turner's injuries could have been caused only during a rape. The testimony was improper, the court ruled, because defense lawyers had not expected McGarry to say that and because they had no pathologist of their own to refute his findings. On Saturday, September 2, 1989, seven year-old April Sherry Turner was riding her bicycle with a friend in Gautier, Mississippi. The two children rode to a nearby convenience store and April went inside. Henry Lee Harrison, the appellant, was outside the store. According to the other little girl, when April came out and got on her bicycle, Harrison chased her out of sight. April did not come home that night. On September 3, 1989, searchers found April's nude, mutilated body in a wooded area close to the neighborhood where she lived. The child's bloody shirt was knotted tightly around her neck. As part of the murder investigation, the body of April Turner was examined by forensic pathologist, Dr. Paul McGarry. Upon removing the knotted shirt, Dr. McGarry observed thirty-six stab wounds to the child's deeply indented neck and throat. He observed six more stab wounds on her forehead and one behind her left ear. Some of the wounds appeared to have been made by a sharp instrument while others exhibited a "star-shaped crisscross" configuration. In addition to the stab wounds, Dr. McGarry documented a deep curved laceration of the child's forehead above her right eyebrow. This wound displayed swelling and hemorrhaging indicating that April was alive when the blow fell. The doctor next noted extensive bruising of the head and face and extensive abrasions over the back of the body. The child's genital area had been subjected to a "massive penetrating tearing injury" so severe that nothing separated her vagina from her rectum. Finally, the doctor noted extensive rubbing type abrasions on the outside and the inside of the lips. Upon being called by the State at trial and after being qualified as an expert witness, Dr. McGarry offered several opinions based on the injuries he had observed. He believed that some of the stab wounds were caused by something with a long tapering point and sharp edges. The curved laceration above April's eye was consistent with a downward blow from the blood-stained metal canister recovered by authorities. Finally, Dr. McGarry offered his opinion that April's vaginal and anal injuries were caused by the forceful penetration of a penis. Thus, he concluded that despite the lack of positive tests for semen, April Turner was raped before being murdered. In addition to the above opinions on the causes of the victim's various injuries, Dr. McGarry offered expert testimony to the effect that April Sherry Turner was alive and conscious at the time the injuries were inflicted. His opinion was that strangulation was the cause of death. McGarry and law enforcement officers noted wounds on the body of April Turner that appeared to be bite marks. Accordingly, the child's body was examined by Dr. Michael West, a forensic odontologist. At trial Dr. West was called by the State to testify to the injuries he discovered and the possibility that they were caused by the defendant. His method was to directly compare study models of Harrison's teeth to the wounds on the victim. Harrison was found to exhibit a number of highly distinctive dental characteristics. For example, he was missing a central incisor on his upper jaw, and he had only two of the typical four lower incisors. Dr. David Bonderer, a dentist who participated in making models of Harrison's teeth testified that the defendant's particular dental configuration was "very unique." Dr. West photographed and videotaped the correlations he found. Some of the photographic and videotape comparisons were introduced as exhibits to his testimony. West testified that he was able to identify over forty-one bite marks on the body that were inflicted by Harrison. They were located "from her head to her ankle, front, backside, rear; completely covering the body." No bite marks were found that were inconsistent with the teeth of the defendant. Additionally, West testified that in his opinion, some of the bites were inflicted while the victim was alive and responsive while others occurred while she was unconscious or dead. March 23, 2000 -- The man accused of brutally murdering two Jackson County girls more than a decade ago will spend the rest of his life in prison after entering two guilty pleas Wednesday. Henry Lee Harrison, 43, admitted to killing 7-year-old April Turner and 13-year-old Felicia Smith in separate incidents in 1989.
Felicia	Smith	13


Rosie	Tapia	6	Las Vegas, NV -- April 4, 1997 -- Police are arranging forensics tests to determine whether a sex assault suspect arrested in Charlotte, N.C., may be the same man who killed Diana Hernandez three years ago. Also, detectives from Salt Lake City and Reno suspect the man charged with kidnapping and raping a Charlotte toddler may be the same man who abducted and murdered two young girls in their cities. John Brewer Eustace was charged with kidnapping, rape, taking indecent liberties with a child, first-degree sex offense and first-degree burglary, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Sgt. Mike Justice said. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Sgt. Rick Sanders, who questioned Eustace for 12 hours, declined to comment on the investigation but said police believe Eustace was in the Western cities at the time of those killings. Metro Sgt. Kevin Manning said investigators have placed Eustace in Las Vegas when he applied for a work card for employment in a hotel. Detectives have asked Charlotte police for forensics samples. The tests "could take weeks," Manning said. "What it essentially will do is eliminate him as a suspect," Manning said. Police say Eustace, 31, crawled through the bedroom window of an east Charlotte apartment and snatched the toddler. They say he chose the girl at random. The day before Easter in 1994, Diana disappeared from her parents' apartment. Police eventually found her nude body in a trash bin at the complex. She had been sexually assaulted and suffocated, police said. The following August in Salt Lake City, someone removed the screen covering Rosie Tapia's bedroom window, climbed into the basement apartment and took the 6-year-old girl from her bed. A jogger found her body that morning in a canal. Monica DaSilva, 7, disappeared from her Reno apartment while her parents slept. They told police somebody removed a window screen and took their daughter from her bed, also in a ground-floor apartment. Monica's skeletal remains were discovered three weeks later in a canyon 10 miles east of Reno, but were not identified as Monica's until a year later. No arrests have been made, however, Michael and Julie Crain, Monica's parents are suing the police department, claiming police wrongfully identified them as suspects in the disappearance of their daughter and mishandled other aspects of the investigation.


Sophie	Hook	7	Sophie Hook traveled to Llandudno with her family July 29, 1995, intending to celebrate the ninth birthday of one of her cousins with a barbecue and garden party. A pedophile who murdered Sophie Hook after abducting her from a tent in her uncle's garden was given three life sentences at Chester Crown Court. Police had been aware of Howard Hughes's sexual deviance for 15 years before he killed seven-year-old Sophie. But they had been unable to secure convictions against him because the parents of his young victims were reluctant to allow them to testify. In the two-and-a-half years before his arrest, Hughes, 31, had allegedly attacked or threatened at least five girls. A day before Sophie disappeared from the house in Llandudno, north Wales, he is suspected of having tried to abduct a six-year-old girl but was not charged. After the unanimous verdicts, the jurors were told that Hughes had been charged with raping a 14-year-old girl nine years ago. That charge will be allowed to lie on the file. Passing sentence, Mr. Justice Curtis said the case represented "a clarion call" for immediate steps to improve protection for children. He told Hughes: "You are a fiend and your crimes are every parent's nightmare come to pass. My recommendation, bearing in mind your appalling crimes and the risk you pose to young girls, is that you are never released." Hughes, convicted six hours after the jury began its deliberations, was still protesting his innocence as he was led away. He mouthed to the press gallery: "I didn't do it." Sophie's parents were too distressed to attend court. Her uncle, Danny Jones, from whose garden she disappeared, began crying as Hughes was led away. The judge said it was obvious that Hughes had been assaulting and spying on young girls. Yet there appeared to be no statutory system that would have enabled professionals to supervise him. He hoped that the Home Office would act immediately upon his recommendation, "so that perhaps Sophie Hook will not have died entirely in vain." Hughes came to police attention in 1981 when he assaulted a seven-year-old boy, for which he was given a two-year supervision order. In the ensuing years he was interviewed about many allegations. He was said to have made indecent suggestions to a four-year-old and tried to rape a 15-year-old. However, in some cases parents declined to pursue their children's complaints. In others it was decided that there was insufficient evidence against Hughes, an unemployed gardener, who lived with his mother in Yerburgh Avenue, Colwyn Bay. Sophie's murder on July 30 last year came 18 months after Hughes had told another pedophile of his wish to have sex with a girl and murder her. The detective who led the investigation insisted that police could have done nothing more to apprehend Hughes before the murder. Det. Supt Eric Jones said: "Everything that could have been done was done." The Home Office said later that the issue of tighter supervision for pedophiles was under consideration. Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, announced plans to give probation officers a role in supervision of offenders on release from prison.


Vicki	Hoskinson	8	Tucson, AZ -- Vicky Hoskinson disappeared Sept. 17, 1984, while riding her bicycle home from mailing a letter. Her body was found in the desert seven months later. Sentenced to death in 1987 for kidnapping, molesting and killing Vicky was Frank Jarvis Atwood who had been paroled from prison five months before Vicky was killed. He had been in prison after being convicted of kidnapping an 8-year-old boy and performing lewd and lascivious acts.


Angie	Houseman	9	Nov. 23, 1999 -- Six years after 9-year-old Angie Houseman was found dead in a nature preserve, an anonymous donor has offered a $250,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of her killer. Angie vanished Nov. 11, 1993, as she walked home from school in this town of 15,000, according to St. Ann Police Chief Robert Schrader. Her parents reported her missing at around 5 p.m., setting off a massive search effort, Schrader said. In the days that followed, police, FBI agents and volunteers searched the neighborhood and posted fliers. A team arrived to check the sewers for signs of the girl and a motorcycle group scoured the Busch Wildlife area, authorities said. In the end, it was a hunter who found Angie in the wildlife preserve Nov. 27. Schrader told APBnews.com that the girl was naked and had been tied to a tree. She had died of exposure only three or four days earlier. "It was real cold," Schrader said. "When we found her, there was a pile of ice chips on top of her." Police found a bag with Angie's clothes, schoolbooks and a coat nearby. Schrader says Angie must have been held alive for about a week before being taken to the woods. During that time, she was molested, he said. In the six years since Angie's killing, investigators have received thousands of leads from around the country, but the case remains unsolved. Schrader says that he hopes the reward money will encourage anyone who may know anything about the case to call St. Ann police at (314) 428-6822.




Sierra	Osborne	8 mos.	Nov. 6, 2001 -- A prosecutor yesterday withdrew a felony child neglect charge filed against a South Richmond woman in the death of her 8-month-old daughter, who authorities allege was killed during a sexual assault by her father. Betty Osborne was charged about 10 days after the Jan. 22 death of Sierra Osborne. The father, Steven Douglas Osborne, was charged with murder, aggravated sexual battery, felony child neglect, forcible sodomy and animate-object sexual penetration. In July, two psychologists concluded Steven Osborne was too retarded to understand the charges against him or assist in his defense. He will be held at a state mental hospital until he is determined to be competent to stand trial. His mental status will be reviewed periodically by a Richmond Circuit Court judge. Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Joy Hodges Robinson said the Richmond Department of Social Services has taken custody of Sierra's 6-year-old half-sister and another child of Steven and Betty Osborne who was born after Sierra's death. Steven Osborne was charged in 1993 with the aggravated sexual battery of a 3-year-old, but doctors found him then to be too retarded to understand the charges against him or assist in his defense. He was committed to Central State Hospital in late November 1994, and a prosecutor withdrew the criminal charge in February 1995. The Department of Social Services took custody of Sierra and her 6-year-old half-sister last year because of the condition of the Osbornes' apartment in the 5800 block of Orcutt Lane. The Osbornes had married as part of Betty Osborne's effort to regain custody of the children. The department returned the children to the mother's custody about three months before Sierra's death, aware Steven Osborne was retarded but with no knowledge of the 1993 incident. Background checks of biological parents usually were not conducted during an evaluation of returning a child to the parents, as they are in placements to foster homes or relatives, a social services official said. The department now makes checks on biological parents as a result of the Osborne case.


Merita	Shabiu	11	U.S. Army sergeant pleads guilty to murder of 11-year-old girl Staff Sgt. Frank J. Ronghi July 28, 2000 Web posted at: 4:56 p.m. EDT (2056 GMT) WUERZBURG, Germany (CNN) -- A U.S. Army sergeant pleaded guilty Friday to premeditated murder, sodomy and committing indecent acts with a minor, military sources said. Staff Sgt. Frank J. Ronghi offered his plea in a U.S. military court here concerning the death early this year of Merita Shabiu, 11, an ethnic Albanian. He made it as part of a plea bargain under which he would escape the death penalty, the sources said. In exchange for Ronghi's guilty plea, the Army dropped two additional charges of rape and felony murder. Sentencing was scheduled for Monday afternoon, local time. Ronghi, of the 82nd Airborne posted to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, faces a sentence of life in prison. Shabiu was found dead January 11 near Vitina, in southwestern Kosovo. Ronghi was charged with killing her two days later. In February, 11 witnesses, including soldiers from Ronghi's own unit, testified at a hearing. A sergeant told the court that a soldier under his command reported that he helped Ronghi bury the girl. The soldier said he aided Ronghi out of fear. The soldier led others along a trail of blood to the site where the girl's body was found. Ronghi had originally told colleagues that he had found the girl's body in an apartment building basement and buried her because he was afraid, a witness testified.



Audra Ann	Reeves	5	AMARILLO, Texas 1996-- Robert James Anderson learned you can work up a real sweat trying to kill another human being, even a 5-year-old girl tortured for the better part of an hour. The 26-year-old Anderson -- after snatching her off the street and into his Amarillo home -- sodomized the 5-year-old, then stabbed and stabbed her with a kitchen knife. He slit her throat. He stabbed her twice in the back so hard with a carving fork that the tines bent. He bashed her in the head with a metal pipe and a heavy wooden stool made of 2-by-6 boards. He tried to strangle her with shoestrings that broke. At last, he held the little girl under water in a bathtub. Feeling no pulse and seeing her tongue hang out, Anderson thought the child was dead. He stuffed her 3-foot body into a cooler box, preparing to dump it. But Audra Ann Reeves wanted to live. Audra aroused and stood up in the ice chest. Winded and no doubt surprised at the strength of a small child's will to live, Anderson asked the girl one question: "Why don't you die?" "Because I love you," said the tiny girl, giving an answer that she apparently thought might stop the hurting and spare her life. The 5-year-old's survival instinct was enough to wear a guy out, so Anderson took a break. He left his victim in the bathroom and went to the refrigerator for a cold glass of milk. He smoked a cigarette. He turned the stereo louder to better block his little victim's screams of agony. Then Anderson -- a worse monster than a child could conjure under a bed or in a closet of a darkened bedroom -- finished his aerobic workout. He finally snuffed Audra's life by holding her under water in the bathtub for the second time. He again stuffed the girl's nude and battered body into a fetal position in the ice chest and closed the lid. He put the box in a shopping cart and pushed it to a nearby Dumpster. He tossed the box and child into the trash. We know what Anderson did to the child -- what he said, what she said -- because he nonchalantly confessed all to police. Police arrested him about an hour after the slaying. Several people in the neighborhood saw Anderson pushing the cart and cooler box. The monster's history of abusing children went back years, to his upbringing in Oklahoma. Undisputed was testimony of the abuse Anderson heaped on family members and his retarded wife, prior to his ultimate act of evil. His strongest sexual arousal was for children. His wife testified Anderson once stripped and apparently molested a diapered 2-year-old girl, whom she was baby-sitting. Anderson wrote about his perversion in a letter to an inmate, while he awaited trial for killing Audra. "I always had a desire for children when I was younger and growing up. "I'm not crazy, but I do have a problem. It's something I can't control. If I was found innocent, it would happen again. Maybe not the killing part, but the desire is still strong," Anderson wrote. He said Audra "just happened to be present when I exploded." The 5-year-old came to Texas from Florida to visit her father and stepmother for the summer. She was in Amarillo for about a week, when she went to a nearby park to play on June 9, 1992. The park, her parents' home and Anderson's home were within a small child's walking distance in a rundown and poor neighborhood. Anderson was having a bad day. He had an argument with his wife, and she left the house. Audra walked from the park near Anderson's home. The upset husband grabbed the child, took her inside, and locked the door. Then and there began about 45 minutes of torture. Anderson confessed to authorities that first he stripped the girl and tried to sodomize her. He claimed he couldn't do it, but the victim did show evidence of anal rape. "She was fighting and screaming, and I could not get her to be quiet. I commenced to choking her, stabbing her and hitting, but she would not die," he told police. In his confession, Anderson said Audra asked him why he was killing her. "I couldn't give her an answer," he said in his statement. A six-man, six-woman Potter County jury took 39 minutes to find Anderson guilty of capital murder on Nov. 10, 1993, and five days later, needed less than 90 minutes to sentence him to death. The district attorney and Anderson's own court-appointed attorney said the case was the most-sickening in their careers. Authorities and jurors needed counseling. Two appeals of Anderson's death sentence were denied in 1996, but more appeals no doubt will keep the monster alive on death row in Huntsville, Texas, even in the state that executes more killers than any other.