Mr. Speaker, this past week, we have been reaping the destruction of a hurricane that brought the wind and rain and flooding of a natural and national disaster. But we have been for years reaping the greater destruction of a hurricane that…
Mr. Speaker, this past week, we have been reaping the destruction of a hurricane that brought the wind and rain and flooding of a natural and national disaster. But we have been for years reaping the greater destruction of a hurricane that continues to bring the wind, rain, and floods of the effects of child predators on America. We are talking about the murder of America's children by those child predators who live among us.
The children I am referring to tonight have all been kidnapped, murdered, some sexually assaulted, and some are still missing. It is because of them, Mr. Speaker, we passed the Child Safety Act yesterday.
Tonight, I will read just a few names of those children, the roll call of the dead: Cary Ann Medlin, 8, Tennessee; Nicole Parker, 8; California; Chris Byers, 8, Tennessee; Sherrice Iverson, 7, Nevada; Amanda Brown, 7, Florida; Christina Long, 13, Connecticut; Michelle Vick, 14, Washington; Maryann Measles, 13, Connecticut; Amber Hagerman, 9, Texas; Adam Walsh, 6, Florida; JonBenet Ramsey, 6, Colorado; Danielle Van Dam, 7, California; February the 1st, 2002.
This, Mr. Speaker, is a photograph of Danielle Van Dam. She was 7 when she was abducted and murdered in California on February 1, 2002. She grew up in Sabre Springs, California. She loved coloring, playing with dolls, and writing and drawing in her journal. Danielle was a piano player and active in her Girl Scout troop. Her friends' parents described her as strong-headed, but very obedient. She loved sleep- overs with her friends. Her father, Damon Van Dam, described Danielle as a caring, studious child who adored her family.
Danielle Van Dam was last seen alive when her father tucked her into bed on February 1, 2002. Danielle's parents reported her missing the next morning after her mother went to wake her up; she was not there.
Almost a month later, Danielle's decomposed, brutalized body was found. Searchers found her on February 27 in a lot full of trash 25 miles from San Diego, California. David Westerfield was the only neighbor that was not home the morning Danielle Van Dam was discovered missing. Investigators recovered child pornography from his home. His home was two doors from the Van Dam family. This child predator lived in the neighborhood. The motive for her abduction was sexual.
Authorities also said they found traces of Danielle's blood in Westerfield's motorhome and was on an article of his clothing. He was charged with murder, kidnapping, and possession of child pornography. Two days before Danielle disappeared, she had sold Girl Scout cookies to Westerfield. He was sentenced to death, and he is currently in San Quentin on death row, where he ought to be.
There are more, Mr. Speaker. Christopher Meyer, 10, Illinois; Mary Mount, 10, Connecticut; Jeannie Singleton, 8, Michigan; Kenny Dawson, 11, Virginia; Jackson Carr, 6, Texas; Troy Ward, 6, Utah; Brittany Lochlear, 5, North Carolina; Bradley Lions, 6, Washington; Brianna Jackson, 5 months, Alabama; Tommy Gibson, 2, Oregon; Rosy Tapia, 6, Utah; Rosie Gordon, 10, Virginia; Richard Stetson, 11, Maine; Jeralee Underwood, 11, Idaho; Samantha Runnion, 5, California, July 2002.
Samantha, like all of these others, Mr. Speaker, was a real person. She was a real child that lived in America. She was a beautiful and bright and joyful little girl. It is said she loved to read and write stories, paint, draw, play with guitar, sing, and dance. Most of all, she loved to play games with her family and friends. She liked Peter Pan and Hercules. She approached each day as a new adventure, eager to learn and play. She looked forward to growing up, being a teacher and a mommy.
Samantha was playing a board game with her 5-year-old friend when a man drove up. The two children were seated on a short wall about 150 feet from Samantha's home. The man got out of his car next to the girls and asked them to help him find his dog. Samantha and the man spoke to each other for a minute, but then he grabbed her and drove off in his car. She was last seen, Mr. Speaker, screaming and kicking, saying, ``Tell my grandma, tell my grandma.'' She was saying this to her 5- year-old friend. This 5-year-old ran to the house and was able to give a good description of the man and his car.
She was found a day later. Alejandro Avila kidnapped, sexually molested, and brutally murdered Samantha Runnion. He left her body on the side of a road 50 miles north of her home. A day later, he was arrested charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, and murder.
Just one year before he kidnapped Samantha, Avila was accused of molesting two other young girls. This past July he was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder, kidnapping, and sexual assault of this little girl, Samantha Runnion. He is awaiting execution and, hopefully, justice will not be delayed or prolonged.
There are others, Mr. Speaker. Shelby Barrackman, 3, Texas; Jamaree Coleman, 2 months, Georgia; Destiny Marie Flores, 4, Texas; Cecil Turner, 2, California; Jared Kitchen, 1, Michigan; Kendrick Broadway, 5, Missouri; Amy Sue Seitz, 2, California; LaTonya Wilson, 7, Georgia; Jennifer Noon, 5, Connecticut; John Short, 3, New York; Richard Short, 7, New York; Timothy Wiltsey, 5, New Jersey; Summer Rogers, 5, Oregon; Deborah Palmer, 8, Washington; Carlie Brucia, 11, Florida; February 1, 2004.
Mr. Speaker, Carlie, a little girl from Florida of the age of 11, disappeared February 1, 2004. Her grandmother described her as blond and bubbly, affectionate, a great hugger. When she was in New York, she loved to go to the movies with her dad, go shopping, and go out for ice cream. Her favorite ice cream was mint chocolate chip. Her grandmother said, I always had that in the house when she visited me. When she was at our house, she would shoot baskets in the driveway with her Aunt Ginny, play softball in the back yard with her Aunt Catelyn and the rest of the family.
She liked music. She was especially fond of Jennifer Lopez and knew all the words of all the songs that Jennifer Lopez sang. Carlie liked to help her dad at home, especially when the family was over for dinner. She pitched right in and helped with the serving and cleaning up. Here grandmother says, I can just picture her now, loading the dishwasher. She was a very good student, voted most popular, and a math whiz at McIntosh Middle School.
Carlie disappeared February 1, 2004, while walking home from a friend's slumber party in Sarasota, Florida. A surveillance camera behind a car wash taped Carlie's abduction. The sixth grader may have walked through the car wash's parking lot as a shortcut to her home in her neighborhood. Carlie's remains were found 5 days later, just a few miles from where the car wash was. The defendant: Joseph Smith. The
Sarasota Police Department questioned Joseph Smith after they received tips from anonymous sources. He had been in their custody the day after Carlie was abducted on an unrelated parole violation. A woman who said she lived with Smith was one of the tipsters who contacted the police.
Of course, he refused to admit any involvement with the disappearance until later when the investigators questioned him more and he told them where he had hidden her body. On February 6, 2004, it was announced that Carlie's body had been found. Mr. Speaker, she had been brutally murdered and thrown in a church parking lot just miles from her home.
Joseph Smith was a 37-year-old car mechanic, father of three who had been arrested at least 13 times in Florida since 1993. He had been previously charged with kidnapping and false imprisonment, and he was held in custody as the main suspect of the murder of this little girl, Carlie. On February 20, Smith was indicted on a first-degree murder charge and separate charges of kidnapping, capital sexual battery, and others were filed by Florida's attorney general's office. He had previous convictions: aggravated battery, carrying a knife, possession of heroin, possession of drugs without prescriptions, possession of cocaine, and attempts to obtain controlled substances by fraud.
Mr. Speaker, thanks to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Harris), part of the Child Safety Act includes legislation that is a result of Carlie's murder. Joseph Smith, on the other hand, is scheduled to stand trial on the kidnapping and murder charges of Carlie Brucia on November 7. Prosecutors are seeking, and rightfully so, the death penalty. Until then, he will be in the county jail where he has been housed since his arrest.
Mr. Speaker, I can continue with more names of real kids in America: Adam Finch, 4, Florida; Harley Hall, 6 months, South Carolina; James Hargon, 4, Mississippi; Tahisha Clay, 6, California; Elizabeth Byrd, 8, Arizona; Maile Gilbert, 6, Hawaii; Tracy Neef, 7, Colorado; Isaiah Lewis, 3 months, Michigan; Tara Huffman, 5, Illinois; Patricia Miles, 6, Arkansas; Alonzo Daniels, 4, Utah; Brittany Hendrickson, 7, Ohio; Danny Davis, 4, Utah; Amy Yates, 8, Georgia; Dylan Groene, 9, Idaho; May 16, 2005.
Mr. Speaker, to my left is a photograph of Dylan at the age of 9 and his sister, Shasta, at the age of 8. This is his story: Dylan liked to be outdoors. He liked camping, fishing, and catching crawdads. He also liked to play games on his Play Station. He loved playing with his sister.
Dylan and his sister, Shasta, were declared missing on May 16, 2005 after police found the beaten and bound bodies of their mother, their older brother, and their mother's boyfriend. Authorities believe that Joseph Edward Duncan, III, a registered sex offender, abducted Shasta and Dylan from their home and held them for 7 weeks at a primitive camp site in the vast forests of Montana. According to Shasta, Duncan repeatedly molested the children and eventually he killed Dylan. Shasta was discovered on July 2 at a local restaurant with Duncan. Two days later, human remains were discovered at that primitive, remote, western Montana camp site and on July 10, the remains were identified as Dylan Groene, this person, 9 years of age.
Investigators have not really told us exactly what they believe happened to Dylan or how long they believe the boy was alive after the children's mother, 13-year-old brother and her boyfriend were beaten to death, but they have given us some information.
Sheriff Rocky Watson has said that he believes the motives for the killings, of course, was to acquire these two children as sex objects. Watson always said authorities believe the family was chosen at random, but the attack was carefully planned.
The police have interviewed Shasta a couple of times, and the details are agonizing, and they are slow in being revealed, but she has provided certain information that is astonishing. Dylan, when he was 9, like the others that I have mentioned, was a real person. He wanted to live like all kids, but he never made it to his tenth birthday, because of this criminal, this individual by the name of Joseph Duncan, III.
Joseph Duncan, by the time he was 16, he had committed 13 sexual assaults. In 1980, Duncan was arrested for breaking into a neighbor's house, stealing guns and then accosting a 14-year-old and sexually assaulting him at gunpoint.
He was convicted of the rape and sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in the penitentiary. However, in lieu of prison, somebody sent Duncan to the Sex Offender Treatment Center at Western State Hospital. An evaluation at Western State Mental Hospital found that Duncan, who was then 17, met the definition of a sexual psychopath, so Western State Hospital had given up on Duncan.
Then, at 19, he announced that he wanted to leave treatment and serve the rest of his time in the penitentiary. So he received 14 more years for the rape and sexual assault and 3 more for parole violations. When he got out of the penitentiary, he moved to Fargo, North Dakota.
Then, after leaving the penitentiary, he decided to create a blog on the Internet. Many of the entries appear to focus on his own sexual abuse crimes, and he seemed to be proud of it. It also shows us his rage over how sex offenders are treated in our community.
Brenda Grone and her boyfriend, Mark McKenzie, and the 13-year-old Slade Grone were killed in their home sometime on May 15 by Joseph Edward Duncan, III. They were beaten to death with a hammer.
Duncan, after kidnapping Shasta, he told her and explained to her what he did to these three before he murdered them. He said he watched the house and specifically had watched her for 2 or 3 days. At night, he would sneak up to the house and peer into the windows. He said it was real simple to kidnap them and kill the other three.
He said he used a night vision goggle to learn about the family's layout before breaking into the home. And he bragged to Shasta about killing her family with a hammer, and he even taunted her with the hammer that he had used to kill her family.
Duncan was charged with first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping in the bludgeoning deaths of this family. He is awaiting trial.
Dylan, four-foot, 60 pounds, blond crew-cut, blue eyes and 9 years of age when he was murdered.
I continue, Mr. Speaker.
Carol Dougherty, 9, Pennsylvania; Sarah Pryor, 9, Massachusetts; Jennifer Short, 9, Virginia; Anthony Martinez, 10, California; Michelle Norris, 7, Rhode Island; Roxann Reyes, 4, Texas; Brandon Dyson, Jr., 1, California; Benjamin Brenneman, 12, California; Mary Lou Olsen, 10, from California; Joshua Walden, 10, Tennessee; Constance Carrillo, 8, Ohio; Louis Peytonn, Jr., 5, Arkansas; Janet Perkins, 9, Missouri; Charlie Keever, 13, California; Megan Kanka, 7, New Jersey, July 29, 1994.
Mr. Speaker, this is Megan Kanka, 7, from New Jersey. In July of 1994, she disappeared. She grew up in the quiet suburban Hamilton township of New Jersey. She was a chatty little girl who loved chocolate chip ice cream, cookies and milk.
In July of 1994, at the age of 7, Megan, an enthusiastic animal lover, was lured into a neighbor's home, 100 feet from her own door. Once again, another child predator living in our neighborhoods. She went over to his house with the hopes of seeing his new puppy he claimed he had. That neighbor, unknown to Megan's parents, was a convicted sex offender.
The chatty little girl rode her bike over to Jessie Timmendequas' home. He told her that he had a puppy, but it was too young to go outside, so she needed to go inside to see it. Of course, there was no puppy. It was a lie.
The defendant, Timmendequas, was a previously convicted sex offender, and he sexually assaulted Megan. Then, like the others, he murdered her.
When he got her into the house, he tried to kiss her, but she attempted to escape. So he strangled Megan with a belt. He says he slammed her head into the dresser and strangled her. He sexually assaulted her. He tied two bags over her head. Mr. Speaker, he tied two bags over her head. He put her body into a toy box, and he drove his pickup truck to a nearby park with her in the toy box. He sexually assaulted her again and dumped her body into a patch of high weeds.
In the hours following Megan's disappearance, a massive search effort
took place all over the quiet Hamilton township of New Jersey. The red and blue lights of police cars filled the once quiet suburban neighborhoods.
Police were instantly drawn to Timmendequas' home after learning that he and his roommates were both convicted sex offenders. They immediately questioned him, and only 1 day later, he confessed and led the police to Megan's body.
His history? Well, he had a criminal history of sexual assault of children. In 1979, Timmendequas pled guilty to the attempted and aggravated sexual assault of a 5-year-old girl in New Jersey. He was given a suspended sentence. Mr. Speaker, that means, in simple terms, he did not go to jail.
But somebody recommended that he get counseling for his sexual assaults. He did spend 9 months in the Middlesex Adult Correction Center.
Then, in 1981, he pled guilty in regard to the sexual assault of a 7- year-old girl. He was imprisoned for 6 years.
In May of 1997, he was sentenced to death for the murder of Nichole Kanka. He remains on death row in New Jersey State Prison in Trenton. Hopefully, justice will be done, and he will see his maker soon.
In honor of Megan's memory, a section of the Child Safety Act creates the Megan Nichole Kanka and Alexandra Nichole Zapp Community Notification Program. This program requires appropriate officials to notify the communities within 5 days of a change of a registered sex offender's information.
Megan's parents had no idea that a sex offender was living across the street from them in their quiet suburban neighborhood. Hopefully, the Child Safety Act will rectify this in the future, and parents will know who lives among them.
Kelly Albright was 12 when she disappeared in Kansas; James Francis Connelly, 15, from Illinois; Sandy Hoyt, 14, from Connecticut; Andrea Harriet Sax, 16, from Illinois; Tamika Turks, 7, from Indiana; James David Richards, 15, California; Stacey Sue Simpson, 4, Georgia; Tyrna Middleton, 14, Ohio; Clifford Grant Sheppard, III, 11, Alabama; Reginald Brown, 16, Illinois; Carla Jo Otto, 14, from Michigan; Lori Ann Hill, 14, Ohio; Carmen Joy Otto, 10, from Michigan; Jacob Wetterling, 11, from Minnesota, October 27, 1989.
Mr. Speaker, Jacob Wetterling, this is a photograph of him. He lived to the age of 11, and then he was kidnapped and hasn't been seen since. He was born on February 17, 1978. He grew up in St. Joseph, Minnesota, with his parents, Patty and Jerry Wetterling, and his three bothers and sisters.
On the night of October 27, 1989, Jacob and his brother, Trevor, and a friend rode their bikes to a local convenience store to pick up a movie and a snack. On the way home, a man wearing a mask carrying a gun stopped the boys on a dark stretch of road less than a mile from Jacob's home. The gunman, wielding a pistol, told the boys to throw their bikes into a nearby ditch and lay face down on the ground. He then asked each of the boys their age. After the boys responded, he instructed Jacob's brother and friend to run into the woods and not look back or he would shoot them both.
As they ran away, they glanced back to see the gunman grab Jacob's arm. When they reached the wooded area and turned around again, the gunman and Jacob had disappeared into the night.
Local police were called to the scene of the abduction minutes later, and a search ensued that involved hundreds of volunteers, local law enforcement, the FBI and others. To date, law enforcement and Jacob's family still do not know what happened to Jacob or his abductor or where they are now.
Sixteen years later, and the Wetterlings refuse to change their phone number or move from their four-bedroom home in hopes that Jacob would come back some day. He would be 27 this year.
Mr. Speaker, in 1994, the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act was passed as a part of the Federal Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 by Congress. This requires States to implement a sex offender and crimes against children registry.
Part of the Children's Safety Act that was passed yesterday amends the Jacob Wetterling Act that was passed in response to his kidnapping. It improves the sex offender registration and notification program on many levels. It seeks to ensure that sex offenders register and keep current where they reside, work and where they go to school. It creates a national sex offender database and requires that it be on-line and easily accessible to everyone in this country.
The law also expands community notification requirements and creates harsher punishments for sex offenders.
I would like to continue, Mr. Speaker.
Jonathan Sellars, 9, California; Charlie Stevens, 12, Georgia; Christina Benjamin, 13, Texas; Brittany Billette, 1, Michigan; James Bryan King, 14, Texas; John Pius, 13, New York; Lacy Chandler, 16, California; Amy Rachelle Schulz, 10, from California; Lazaro Figueroa, 3, Florida; Mickey David Niles, 7, Texas; Christe Rogers, 14, Florida; Naja Smallwood, 5, Pennsylvania; Sarah Cherry, 12, Maine; Stephen Wicks, 10, Colorado; and Jetsetta Gage, 10, Iowa, March 25, 2005.
Mr. Speaker, this is Jetsetta Gage, 10. She was kidnapped and sexually assaulted and murdered this year, in 2005, in Iowa, Cedar Rapids. According to news reports, Jetsetta Gage's goal each day was to give 20 compliments to people. She wanted to give them to her teacher. She gave them to a cab driver who took her to school. She gave them to her grandmother and anybody that came into her view.
Her mother said that she was friendly, and she liked to say hi to everyone. She would come up to you and say, you look nice today. She would tell everyone that, even strangers. The adults who knew Jetsetta described her as bubbly, a happy girl. She would wear colorful but mismatched outfits. She loved the outdoors, and she loved her mother and her grandmother.
Trina Gage was attending classes at Hamilton College the night her daughter was taken. Roger Bentley, a family friend, went to the Gage's home on the evening of March 25 of this year supposedly to fix the car. While there, he kidnapped Jetsetta.
He took her to an abandoned mobile home in rural Johnson County about 45 miles south of Jetsetta's Cedar Rapids home in Iowa. In the darkness of the night he sexually abused her. He bound her feet. He suffocated her by putting a plastic bag over her heard. Twelve hours after killing and kidnapping Jetsetta, authorities came to the mobile home, and Roger answered the door with blood stains still on his cloth. Officials searched the home and they found the little girl's body.
Jetsetta's mother, Trena Gage, had met Roger Bentley through his brother James Bentley whom she had dated several years ago. Court documents suggest that Jetsetta was sexually abused over a 2-year period by this James Bentley. James Bentley, well, he had already been arrested and charged with sexually assaulting Jetsetta in two counties. He is scheduled for trial on October 3 in Linn County. The second trial on the same charges follows in November 3 in Benton County.
His brother Roger was charged with first degree murder and first degree kidnapping in the death of Jetsetta. His trial is scheduled for November 28 of this year. Hopefully, justice will be served in both of these cases.
Shaun Jenkins, 5, from Pennsylvania. Kevin Wooden, 6, from Louisiana. Anthony Carter, 9, from Georgia. Durga Owens, 8, Alaska. Laura Arroyo, 9, California. Donald Todd, 13, from California. Angela Barnes, Washington, D.C., 14. Mary Angela Comacho, 8, Texas. Michael Lyons, 8, California. Mary Jennifer Love, 6, Ohio. Diana Hernandez, 7, Nevada. Liana Sandoval, 1, Arizona. Angie Housman, 9, Missouri. Samuel Rice, 9, Florida. Polly Klass, 12, California, October 1993.
Mr. Speaker, this is Polly Klass, 12. She, like the others, kidnapped. She was born in January of 1981 in Fairfax, California. When she grew up she liked Mel Gibson as her favorite actor. She also liked a football player, a guy by the name of Joe Montana. She liked to read Archie comics and Judy Blume books. She liked popcorn and hot fudge sundaes. She had two cats, Spooky and Milo. She enjoyed performing in school plays and had dreams of becoming an actress. She loved music and she was
active in the school band, but on the night of October 1, 1993, Polly Klass was hosting her first sleepover party with two of her friends.
When Polly went to retrieve pillows from another room, she was confronted by a large hulking man armed with a knife. The man, Richard Allen Davis, threatened to kill all the girls if they did not do as he told them to. Davis made his way into the bedroom of the 12-year-old Polly Klass and he tied her up with her two sleepover companions and then he abducted her.
When Polly's body was found later, she had been brutally sexually assaulted and strangled to death. Davis is a career criminal whose life has a twisted tangle of much violence and criminal activity. A few days after Polly's abduction, Davis confessed to the murder and led the police to her body. After a trial, he was found guilty of first degree murder. He was sentenced to death, as he should have been.
Perhaps the most telling part of Polly's story is this: according to Polly's father, she had always had a fear of the dark. She had trouble sleeping unless there was a night light on. As many children are, she was scared of the boogey man and the possibility of being kidnapped.
It is unfortunate, Mr. Speaker, in our culture too many kids go to sleep afraid of the boogey man, like Richard Allen Davis. It was something that she had discussed often with her parents, and her father Mark recalls with bitter irony how he had assured his daughter that everything would be all right and that he would be there to protect her.
Mr. Speaker, there are more children, there are many more in this country. Tonight I have just listed a few, a few over 100.
Felicia Elliot was 8 in Arkansas. Mary Caussin, 6, in Michigan. Jason Verdow, 9, in Florida. Marcia Trimble, 9, in Tennessee. Christi Meeks, 5, in Texas. Michael Cameron Rainey, 14, in Nevada. Shelby Barrackman, 3, in Texas. Adam Benjamin Clark, 6, Arizona. Jenny Waltz, 16, California. Molly Ann Bish, 16, Massachusetts. Jessica Lunsford, 9, Florida. February 23, 2005, this year, just a few months ago.
Mr. Speaker, we have all seen this photograph of Jessica Lunsford with her pink hat. She was 9 years of age this year. She had a lot of spunk. She was always smiling.
When Jessica walked into the room, she was always having a good time. She and her grandmother collected dolls together. She loved people. She loved purple, and she loved pink.
Jessica liked to do cheerleading and gymnastics. She and a friend were going to have a band, but they did not have any instruments, only a microphone, so they just decided to sing and to dance. She liked doing karaoke. She liked doing it with her friends. She also liked to ride bikes. And even though Jessie had several two-wheeled bikes, the one she liked riding best was an old three-wheeler with no brakes that her grandpa Archie had given her.
She loved jewelry. She liked shoes. She liked putting on clothes and she liked putting clothes on her dog, Corky, and she loved make-up. She liked music. She liked to sing and dance. And she always said, I love you.
Her father, Mark Lunsford, will always remember his last hug from her. Mr. Speaker, I have had the opportunity to meet Mark Lunsford and to talk to him at length. He is a good person. He loved his daughter, and he says he will never get over the fact that he lost his daughter the way that he did.
John Couey, the criminal, well, he was a convicted sex offender and he was living in a mobile home within eyesight of the Lunsford home. On February 24 of 2005, he snuck into the Lunsford home and he stole Jessica from her bed. He took her to his place and Couey said he watched for the police and noticed that they went to the Lunsford home.
He then, Mr. Speaker, did the following: he chose to sexually assault her. When he was not sexually assaulting her, he stuffed her in a closet in his habitation. When he was through having his way with her, Mr. Speaker, he says he did the following: he decided it was time to get rid of this little girl, so he took stereo wire and tied her feet and her hands. He then wrapped her inside two plastic garbage bags. He dug a hole in his yard and as he said, he threw her in a hole. He buried her alive.
When she was found days later, Mr. Speaker, she had poked her fingers through the plastic bags seeking air.
John Couey, well, he was a registered and convicted sex offender with a long criminal history. It included 24 arrests and went back more than 30 years. A section of the Children's Safety Act that we passed yesterday establishes the Jessica Lunsford Address Verification Program. Although Couey was a registered sex offender, the address that he lived in and where he had kidnapped and taken Jessica was not the address that he had used when he was a registered sex offender. He had changed address and had not told anybody.
The Jessica Lunsford Verification Program under the Child Safety Act authorizes verification and requires mailing verification of child molesters anywhere in the country every 30 days.
Since Jessica's death, Mark Lunsford has made it his mission to protect other children and families. Mark Lunsford started the Jessica Marie Lunsford Foundation to help children in crisis and to inform people about the dangers of child predators. We are thankful that Mark Lunsford, this father, this good guy from Florida, came here to Congress and went door to door talking to people about the murder, abduction, and assault of his daughter and changed the minds of many so this bill, the Child Safety Act, would pass.
Mr. Speaker, the House did pass the Child Safety Act yesterday, thanks to the leadership of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner). Many, many people were involved in the preparation and drafting of this legislation, people on both sides of the aisle, Republicans and Democrats. Because, Mr. Speaker, child safety is not a partisan issue. It is a people issue. It is an American issue. And it is important that we continue to focus on those people that do our children harm.
We know that sex offenders live among us. The risk of attack to our children grows every day. There are approximately 550,000 convicted sex offenders in the United States. We know that 100,000 of these people who have been convicted are lost in the system. We do not know where they are, where they are hiding in the United States, because they failed to have registered in communities required under current law. We do not know where they work, where they live, or what they are up to.
We know that statistics show that in this country one out of every five girls and one out of every 10 boys are sexually exploited before they reach adulthood. We also know that only 35 percent of these incidents are ever reported.
According to the Department of Justice, one out of every five children receive unwanted sexual solicitations online from their computers. And we know that 67 percent of all the victims of sexual assault are kids. So the Child Safety Act of 2005 is a comprehensive legislation to address those people who commit crimes and to try to stop the epidemic of violence and sexual abuse against our children.
We know that these crimes are not confined to any one neighborhood, any area of the country, but these types of crimes are everywhere. Federal action is needed to solve the increasing dangerousness and widespread problems of violence against children. The legislation that we passed yesterday, which I was proud to be a co-sponsor of, reforms our sex offender registration and notification laws.
It is aimed at preventing crimes against children through a coordinated law enforcement approach that includes broadening the definition of these crimes. It increases reporting requirements for new offenders. It increases the penalties for those convicted of sexual assault. It requires States to share information about sex offenders in their States. Because, Mr. Speaker, what occurs is someone will leave the penitentiary in some State. They will register under that State law, but then they will cross States lines, and they will disappear in that second State.
That is what happened to many of these children that I mentioned tonight: registered sex offenders crossed State lines. Now we will be able to keep up with them when they cross State lines because failure to register when they move to that new State is a
Federal offense. It is a Federal offense where they can go to a Federal penitentiary for up to 20 years for failure to notify law enforcement, the community, the media about their new residence.
This Child Safety Act will also enhance punishments for sex offenders who reoffend. It will require sex offenders to register and notify people in the newer neighborhoods where they move. It will require verification monthly. It will require or allow citizens Internet access to the child predators that live among them. It will create Web sites to search for sex offenders in communities, and it will require and expand sex offenses covered by registration and notification to include the military and crimes that occurred against American kids overseas.
These are some of the many, many requirements of this new law, Mr. Speaker. It will expand, in addition, law enforcement's use of DNA to solve criminal activity of these predators. This comprehensive legislation hopefully, Mr. Speaker, will send a message to those who live among us that wish to commit crimes against our children.
Portions of this law, Mr. Speaker, are named after children. I hope we get to the point in this country that we quit naming laws after murdered children. Hopefully, that day will come.
Mr. Speaker, I have four kids, three girls and a boy. I have three grandkids, one born last week. And as a parent I am very, very protective of my children. All parents are. Children are, as the Good Book says, a blessing to parents. And the worst thing that any parent can comprehend and the thing that we dread the most is the loss of a child at any age.
To lose a child under any circumstances is tragedy. To have a child kidnapped, assaulted and murdered in their youth is something that parents cannot comprehend, but it happens in America.
Mr. Speaker, in this Capitol, we have throughout these great hallways paintings and photographs of important people, people in our history that have done things for our country. They are of all persuasions, all parties, all races and both sexes. But I say, Mr. Speaker, that if we had on these same walls the photographs of the murdered children in our country, that this Capitol, this enormous building does not have the room for all of their photographs. We should remember who they are, their names and how they lived.
We have done a lot in this country, organizations such as the National Children's Alliance here in Washington, D.C., the umbrella organization that takes care of sexually exploited children throughout the offense and after the offense is over with and helps them in court.
One of those organizations is Children's Assessment center in Houston, Texas, one of the best advocate centers for children anywhere in the country. There are many of those, and it is unfortunate we have to have those to protect our children and take care of their needs after they are exploited.
Mr. Speaker, these children have something in common. The last person on earth that these kids saw was not their mother, not their father, not their friends, not their grandparents. The last person they saw on earth was the killer, the person who stole their life in their youth. We hope, Mr. Speaker, that when we pass from this life to the next we are surrounded by the people who care about us, the most important people in our life, but not so with these children. They were surrounded by the person, the predator, that preyed on them and stole their life and their existence.
Mr. Speaker, we have been talking a lot about resources the last few weeks, things that have happened in the country, the hurricane, but we need to remember one important factor. The greatest resource in this country is our children. They are the greatest natural resource that we have, and we should be as concerned about what happens to them and what predators do to them as we are about other resources and the disappearance of them.
The darkest of history will report the blackness in the souls of those who have committed these crimes against our children. Those barbarians that kidnap, sexually assault and pillage and murder our children will be held personally accountable for their evil choices.
It has been said in the scriptures that for whoever causes harm to a little child, it would have been better for him with a heavy millstone hung around his neck he would have been cast into the sea. Well, we do not throw child molesters in the sea. We claim to be too civilized for that, but we will throw them into the sea of accountability, the sea of consequences, the sea of humiliation and the sea of punishment. They have sown the wind of harm, shame, injury and murder. They will reap the whirlwind of justice and intolerance.
Mr. Speaker, I was a prosecutor in Houston, Texas, for 8 years. I still have in my office this photograph. This was Kevin Wanstrath. He was murdered in May of 1980. He was 14 months old. The people who took his life, took the life of his mother and his father and his grandmother saw justice. Two of them received the death penalty, and they have been executed. The other two received prison terms in the Texas penitentiary.
But, Mr. Speaker, Kevin was born the same year my son was born, Curt. Curt is a big ole strapping boy. I still call him my boy, and at times I look at my son Curt and wonder what could have happened and how Kevin could have turned out. I keep this photograph in my office as I have since that murder to remember that what we are about in this culture is to protect our greatest resource, children.
After serving 8 years in the district attorney's office, I got to be a judge in Houston for 22 years and saw 25,000 felonies during that time. Many of those were child predators, and I learned, as we all now know, a couple of things about child predators.
We know that most of them when they get out of the penitentiaries in our country they do it again. That is just a historical fact. They repeat their ways. They repeat their criminal activity against our kids.
Mr. Speaker, we do not need to give them therapy as some say. They need to be kept away from our kids. Yet that is why we build the penitentiaries, to house those individuals who seek and destroy our children.
We also know, Mr. Speaker, that most of them get out. You see, they are model prisoners when they are in the penitentiaries, so they usually come up for parole. They get parole rather early, but at least they all eventually return to society, but they want to remain anonymous in our communities.
Mr. Speaker, child molesters are not what we sometimes think of as an individual walking around with a trench coat. They do not look like that at all. They look like anybody else in our communities, and it is time that we in this country quit excusing the conduct of child predators. For whatever reason they choose to commit a crime, they must be held accountable for that.
Too often in this country we have become the land of excusable conduct. We excuse somebody's conduct because something bad happened to them when they were a kid. That is certainly no excuse for committing a crime against a child today. We can no longer live in the land of excusable conduct. We must hold people accountable for what they do.
Mr. Speaker, when a cow is born in the United States on some ranch in Texas or Montana or Kansas, we track that calf until that calf ends up as a steak on somebody's supper table. We do that for public safety. We want to make sure there is nothing wrong with that beef.
Mr. Speaker, now we are going to track child molesters when they leave the penitentiary indefinitely. We should raise at least the safety of our children to the same level as the safety of the beef that we eat and protect them from those child molesters.
Mr. Speaker, as stated by a couple of the kids, their fear each night is to be abducted by some bogeyman, and so we lock ourselves up in our homes. We put the bars on the windows. We have the alarms in our rooms to protect us from the bogeyman, those child predators.
Mr. Speaker, it is time that we quit being imprisoned in our own homes and our children imprisoned in their homes, and it is time that we make child molesters our prisoners rather than us continuing to be their prisoners.
So to the child molesters, we will state this wisdom, we will send this
word, we will spread this warning. Leave our children alone or face a lifetime of severe, unpleasant and unrelenting consequences.
Mr. Speaker, we are not judged by the way we treat the rich, the famous, the powerful, the important. We are judged by the way we treat the innocent, the weak, the children of our community; and it is time that we focus on what is important for them rather than maybe on other issues in our culture.
So it is our resolve, Mr. Speaker, as a Nation, to those child predators, we say, you cannot run, you cannot hide, you cannot avoid justice. Because as injustice hopefully will soon fade away, justice will rule this day. That is just the way it is.