Tears

Sarah	Payne	8	Roy Whiting married once, but when they had a son their marriage broke up. Later in his life he was convincted of kidnapping and indecently assulting a 9 year old girl. He got about four years and served about two and then was (one of the first people) put on the sex offender register. Later he was convicted of the kidnap and murder of 8 and three quarter year old Sarah Payne. He is currently serving a life sentence with the Judge's recomendation that he not be allowed out when he finishes his sentence.


Latacha	Pettis	12	St. Louis, MO -- Jan. 9, 1988 -- Noyal D. Raymond was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murder of a 12-year-old girl whose body was found in a dumpster on Christmas Day 1986. Raymond, 23, was sentenced by Judge Robert G. Dowd Jr. of the St. Louis Circuit Court. Raymond admitted that he raped and strangled Latacha early that Christmas Day at her home in south St. Louis. Her naked and bruised body was found a few hours later in a dumpster in an alley about half a block away. Raymond had been staying with the girl's family for about three weeks before the crime, authorities said. As part of a plea agreement, prosecutors agreed to drop a charge of rape, said Dwight A. Warren, special assistant circuit attorney.


Kali	Poulton	5	Police said security guard Mark Christie confessed to strangling
			Kali Poulton on the night of her disappearance in May 1994 from a secluded housing estate in Pittsford, a Rochester suburb. Christie, a reserved young man with a 1-year-old son who, weeks earlier at a playground, had made disquieting remarks to Judy Gifford about her girl's good looks, took part in a neighborhood search for Kali that spring night but had already submerged her body in a water tank at a Rochester factory where he worked as a security guard. Her body was too decomposed to be analyzed for sexual assault.

Robert	Priest	15	John Wayne Gacy was convicted of 33 murders of mostly teenage boys. He was sentenced to death for 12 of those murders (12 proved to have been committed after Illinois had passed post-Furman death penalty), and to natural life in prison for the others. The bodies of most of the victims were unearthed in the crawl space under Gacy's middle class home in the Chicago suburbs. Evidence showed that the defendant led a double life, engaging in charitable and political activities at the same time he was committing a series of sadistic torture murders. He enticed many young men to his home for homosexual liaisons, tying or handcuffing his partners then strangling or choking them. Gacy was a successful contractor, was active in the community, and often dressed up as a clown for parties. On December 11, 1978, a 15-year-old Des Plaines high school sophomore, Robert Piest, disappeared shortly after leaving work at a pharmacy where Gacy had recently completed a remodeling job. Police put Gacy under surveillance, and when it was learned that two teenage employees of Gacy, Gregory Godzik and John Butkovich, also had recently disappeared, the police obtained a search warrant for Gacy's home. A roll of film belonging to Priest was seized in the ensuing search. A second search warrant was executed and three lime-covered bodies were found in the crawl space. Gacy pointed officers to the precise locations of certain bodies in the crawl space and stated that he had lured the victims to his home, either expressly for sex or through the promise of employment, and then strangled them. A total of 29 bodies were recovered on the property and 4 more were discovered in a nearby river. Gacy recanted his confession and did not testify at trial, where he asserted an insanity defense unsuccessfully.
Greg	Godzik	17
John	Butkovich	17
William	Carroll	16

Gracie Marie	Purnhagen	16	Dennis Thurl Dowthitt and his 16 year old son son picked up son’s girlfriend and her 9 yr old sister from bowling alley, drove to woods. Father attempted to touch 9 year old in truck while son and girlfriend were outside. 9 yr old became upset, father immediately got out and cut throat of 16 yr old, sexually abused her with beer bottle, then cut her throat again. Dowthitt told son to kill 9 yr old. Son complied and strangled 9 yr old with a rope. Father blamed it all on son until minutes before execution, when he confessed. Son testified and sentenced to 45 years. More details of Dowthitt assault on his own daughter's at the link.

Tiffany Elena	Purnhagen	9


Zachary	Ramsey

Samantha	Runnion	5	Samantha was abducted kicking and screaming on July 15 as she played with a friend outside her Stanton home. Her naked body was found the next day along a highway between Orange County and the Riverside County community of Lake Elsinore. She was sexually assaulted and asphyxiated. The man arrested in the investigation of the kidnap-murder of little Samantha Runnion, has in the past been accused of molesting two girls under the age of 14. This was two years ago and at that time a Riverside County jury found Alejandro Avila innocent.


			Arthur Gary Bishop: "I'd Do It Again"
Alonzo	Daniels	4	Four-year-old Alonzo Daniels was playing in the courtyard of his Salt Lake City apartment complex on October 14, 1979, when he vanished without a trace. Bishop had lured him from the courtyard with a promise of candy, attempting to undress and fondle Alonzo in his living room. He panicked when the boy began to cry, sobbing threats to tell his mother what had happened. Bishop clubbed the child with a hammer, but it failed to stop Alonzo’s wailing. Finally, Bishop carried him into the bathroom and drowned Alonzo in the tub. Afterward, he stuffed the corpse into a large cardboard box and carried it out to his car, past Alonzo’s mother as she paced the courtyard, calling out his name.

Kim	Peterson	11	Nothing in the bland 29-year-old’s demeanor let police know that he had bludgeoned Kim Peterson to death and buried his corpse near Alonzo’s, outside Cedar Fort. Bishop still feared arrest, still spared his victims if they promised not to talk, but he was learning that murder provided a rush all its own. In time, he would begin to crave it like a drug.


Danny	Davis	4	By the time police visited his rented house to question Bishop, Danny Davis was already dead. After molesting Danny,Bishop had silenced the boy’s sobbing by manually pinching his nostrils and covering his mouth. The next day, Wednesday, Bishop made another trip to Cedar Fort, planting his third victim beside the other two.

Rachael	Runyan	3	When three-year-old Rachel Runyan was kidnapped from a school playground in Sunset, 30 miles north of Salt Lake City, in August 1982, the public outcry was predictable. Discovery of her strangled corpse a short time later turned the fear to panic. Deafened by grass-roots calls for action, local politicians did what politicians always do: they passed another law.

Troy	Ward	6	Troy Ward celebrated his sixth birthday that Wednesday afternoon. Permitted to play by himself at a park near his home, Troy was supposed to meet a family friend at 4:00 p.m., on a predetermined street corner. Come 4 o’clock, however, there was no sign of Troy on the sidewalk. At home, Bishop repeated his grim ritual of fondling and molestation. He later told Detective Bell (quoted in the Deseret News) that he considered freeing Troy alive, but a last-minute threat to report the assault changed his mind. The hammer and bathtub were waiting.

Graeme	Cunningham	13	Graeme Cunningham, 13 years old, was looking forward to a weekend camping trip on Thursday, July 14, 1983. He would be camping with a junior high school classmate and an adult chaperone, one Roger Downs, Bishop's alias. Graeme never made the campout, though. Instead, he vanished from his neighborhood without a trace that Thursday afternoon. As with most predators, Roger Downs came calling to offer Cunningham’s mother any help that lay within his power.


Jimmy	Ryce	9	Jimmy Ryce was a 9-year-old boy who was kidnapped at gunpoint, raped,and murdered on September 11, 1995. The Jimmy Ryce Center For Victims Of Predatory Abduction was established in his memory.


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