Recently in Kidnapping Category

I'm going to go way back and focus on the Lindbergh kidnapping.  Charles Lindbergh and famous aviator and his wife Anne Marrow Lindbergh were at their East Amwell, New Jersey home with their 20 month old son Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr.  On March 1, 1932 Charles Jr. was abducted from his home.  Just two months later the boy of Charles Jr. was found near the Lindbergh home.  The baby had died from a massive fracture of the skull.  Two years went by before Bruno Hauptmann was arrested for the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby.  Hauptmann was found guilty and was executed by the electric chair in 1936.  This crime spurred Congress to pass the Federal Kidnapping Act also called the Lindbergh Law, which made transporting a kidnapping victim across state lines a federal crime.

The law aspects of the case found start from the time of the kidnapping, the finding of the body, the actual investigation, the arrest of Bruno Hauptmann, the trial and the death of Hauptmann by electric chair.  Of course all the other aspects that went in between these parts of the time line.  The psychology aspects of the crime are what was the kidnapping thinking when he took Charles Jr.  The parents emotional state went out the window.  The American people were effected by this.  This was a very public case and everyone knew about.  It scared the American people to know that someone could just come in a take a baby, this was even a baby of a famous person.  We could even think of how this effected the people finding the body of Charles Jr.  This case had an emotional impact not just on the family, but on the American pubic.

Here is the link for more details about the case:

http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/lindber/lindbernew.htm

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/01/12/scotus.sex.offender.law/index.html

In the article it gives a first hand account of a boy that was kidnapped and sexually assulted that is now an advocate for others that have also been sexually assulted.  They support a procedure that many states already have in place and that is a detention sort of program for sex offeneders when they get out of prison and what it does is it serves as a coaching program on how to cope in the world around them now that they are out and they oppertunity is there for them to commit a crime again. The program is state funded and has psychological staff on hand to help these previous offenders fight their urge soon as they are out of prison. But they also get into the other side of things and have previous sex offenders that advocate civil rights and say that the right due process is being over turned.  The basic question is, is it legal to hold someone even after they serve their time for the crime they commited? My personal opinion is in the case of sexual predators YES. They not only broke a law but they aslo violated another person against their will. They deserve to be thought how to control those anti-social behavior because jail time alone does not deter offenders from reapting those crime in most cases it simple puts their fantasizes on ice until they get out again.  

Many people have probably heard about Jaycee Dugard, but if not, here is a little glimps into her life. Jaycee was kidnapped on June 10th, 1991. She was 11 years old at the time. She was abducted at her bus stop by Phillip Garrido. She was missing for over 18 years. She encountered several years of sexual assault and rape by Garrido and his wife Nancy. Garrido's unusual behavior at his parole meeting is what set a spark to the investigation. Jaycee was rescued after more then 18 years after her abduction. Convicted sex offender Garrido and Nancy, are awaiting trial on charges of kiddnapping and sexually assauting Jaycee for years while they keeping her hidden in a tent in their back yard. Jaycee also has two children; Garrido is the father.

This type of event shows the holes in our legal system as well as all the sick people we have out on the streets! On several occasions authorities failed to make a connection with Garrido and Jaycee Dugard. There were many missed opportunities. If you are interested in learning more follow the links I have provided:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32614326/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=8426124

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/03/05/2010-03-05_jaycee_dugard_shows_home_movies_to_document_journey_toward_normal_life_after_18y.html#ixzz0ht6wZt4J

The Movie takes place in Mexico City, it starts off with a rich man having to pay for his son's ransom, and that is what the whole movie is about, it is about money and kidnapping.  A Body Guard is hired and is being payed very low because of his alcohol problem.  He is hired to escort a daughter named Pita by a Wealthy man.  His wife took a liking to the Body Guard immediately all because he was an American.  The Body Guard had many related skills relating to being a Body Guard, however he had never protected children before.  At first the Body Guard does not want to develop a friendship with the little girl but later on he does anyway.  The Pita (the little girl/daughter of the rich guy) informs the Body Guard that there has been 24 kidnappings in the last six days, four each day.  He is some how psychologically damaged from his past, he dislikes his job so much, he tries to fit in God into his life and wonders if God would ever forgive him (because of his psychological damage I can see why he has a drinking problem). Later on both the Boday Guard and Pita take notice of a car behind them, they both write down the license plate number.  Pita is at her piano classes, the Boday Guard is waiting outside, a dog is let loose the Body Guard puts it back in the car from where it came from and all of a sudden he sees the familiar car pull up where Pita was coming out tries to kidnap her but the Body Guard pulls out his gun unfortunately cops get in the way, Boday Guard shoots and kills two, kidnappers kidnapped Pita.  Turns out the cops were not on duty and yet still had their uniform on and exactly at the scene of the crime so they were crooked cops.  A ransom was offered but no successful, later on turns out the head of the dapartment of anti-kidnapping stole half of the ransom money which was 5 million in total 10 million, but the head stole 5 million of paper not money, the other million went to the Pita's father's lawyer and the kidnappers and in a way he got some money back to help him out of debt but everything was placed on hold because the other half was fake. Of course the Body Guard discovered all of this by going back to the scene of the crimes going around asking questions to witnessess or suspects like a detective.  He builds an alliance with a newsreporter named Maria and his old partner during his lasts jobs.  The Father committed suicide and he made a deal with the kidnappers, "A life for a life."  In exchanged the main Kidnapper's brother and the BodyGuard for Pita, Pita returned safely.  Can you actually imagine going through all of that?  Of course the movie is a bit exagerated, you just wouldn't be blowing off anyone's head off out of anger.  Kidnapping happens every where in this world at any time and any place but rich people are the ultimate targets all because of the economic issues that a person faces that or because of greed.

While I am working on my Blogs for this week I have the TV turned to an episode of "Criminal Minds". This is a TV show about a FBI team of Profilers. They are out of Quantico, VA and called to different cases based on the severity of the case. What there job is to analyze the information collected and create a profile for what the suspect looks and acts like. This usually happens when there is trouble coming us with a suspect.

 

The episode tonight was about kidnapping that had been going on for eight years. This couple would cry wolf that they were looking for their child and while the parents helped the wife the husband would take the child. What I found interesting about this case is that they got all of the parents together from the children that had been kidnapped in the eight years and they were there to help. In the end they found the kidnappers, but not all of the children were returned to the parents. Some of the children were killed while being held captive. This drew my interested because of the negative psychological impact this can have on the parents. They were brought in after many had already accepted the fact that their child was gone and given false hope. Then they had to watch as other parents were reunited with their children. I know this is a TV show, but I wonder how many times something like this happens in the real world and what the government does to help these families cope if it does.

 

Here is a link to the page where you can watch episodes of "Criminal Minds"

 

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/criminal_minds/ 

 

Recently, a New Jersey man was charged with kidnapping and endangerment after locking and abandoning his 20-month-old daughter in a restroom of a gas station in Delaware.  The child seems to be okay and is currently in a foster home.  The thing I find interesting about the case is that it is linked (although officials aren't saying how right now) to another recent crime in New York.  A young woman was killed and burned in a parking lot.  It is speculated that the young woman is the child's mother, although that information hasn't been released. 

What could possibly make someone do this? Now, I'm not a parent, but I'm pretty sure most parents wouldn't kidnap and abandon their children.  Especially a 20-month-old. 

Here are some links to the stories I read:
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100225/NEWS01/100225029/N.J.-man-charged-with-kidnapping-girl-abandoned-in-Del.

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/toddler-abandoned-gas-station-bathroom-police-investigating-mother/story?id=9937791

I was doing research for another class about how people with mental disabilities were being treated after committing a crime. I actually came across a very sad story of a mentally disabled woman tortured to death by people she thought were her friends. This is a very eye opening story and thanks to the new law passed by President Obama, prohibiting hate crimes against those who are mentally disabled, her so called "friends" will be punished as they should be.

She was not only murdered, but tortured prior to her death. Her "friends" did things to her such as making here drink urine and chemicals and writing a suicide note to go along with the idea that is was her who wanted to die. She was also physically abused. She was hit with various objects and her body was stuffed into a garbage can. I actually think that after someone commits these acts towards another person the real question is who really has a mental disability? Jennifer may not have been at the same learning level as her "friends", but she is not the one who felt the need to torture another human being. If I were evaluating the case I would say that her attackers had a serious mental problem that needed to be taken care of.

Here is a link to just one of the sites on the case and at the bottom of the site there are links to other information on the case. I think everyone who believes people with mental disabilities are not positive parts of society should read this article. It is not right for someone to be treated differently because they are different than you.

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/02/17/crimesider/entry6216214.shtml 

      In a previous post I wrote about a girl who was abducted during the super bowl and later found dead after authorities delayed releasing an Amber Alert. This idea brought about many questions regarding who is allowed to release amber alerts and what is the criteria? Interestingly enough, today while I was driving back to Cedar Falls an important announcement interrupted the song playing on the radio. This announcement came from the Iowa Police issuing an Amber Alert for 14 year old, Janakaye Marie Lee, of Council Bluffs stating she had been abducted earlier today and seems to be in danger. Interestingly enough later in the day when I was on the internet trying to find more information regarding the Amber Alert  I found it had been cancelled; however the girl is still missing. The police felt this situation was important enough to issue an amber alert, yet later retracted the alert because they felt she was not longer in danger. Yet if you read on the girl is still missing, and the person who is suspected to have taken her left a suicide note. I felt this article/situation was interesting not only does it deal with law enforcement and the procedures they go through when looking at a case (more specifically an abduction case) but it also is taking place here in Iowa. From the information given we know the amber alert was released because Lee was in danger, and we know it was retracted because Lee is not said to be in danger anymore. I would be interested to know what ideas and pieces to this puzzle made police retract the amber alert. Also, for those of you who have read my post on the super bowl killing I want to highlight that for the young girl taken in that situation an Amber Alert was not issued until 18 hours later.

 

Below are some links referred to in this post:

News Report of Janakaye Marie Lee's abduction (KCCI, Des Moines)

http://www.kcci.com/news/22634757/detail.html

Cancelled Amber Alert for Lee:

This website shows the cancelled alert; however, you can still see the type of information police obtained and used in creating the Amber Alert.

http://www.iowaamberalert.org/app.php?pgname=alertdetails&id=6

Iowa Amber Alert Website

http://www.iowaamberalert.org/

Super bowl Killing Link:

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/famous/carlie_brucia/1.html

 

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/10/new.york.teen.rape.case/index.html?iref=allsearch

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/05/21/smiley.face.killer/index.html

I came across this theory while watching the evening news tonight. The disappearance of an ISU student has grabbed the hearts of Iowans and has had many people speculating. With lack of evidence police are might be turning to theory. Speculation surrounding the case has hinted that the disappearance might be related to a series of deaths that have been plaguing the Midwest for almost 2 decades. The Smiley Face Killer Theory is a working police theory that links over 40 different accidental drownings to a serial killer or group of killers. The circumstances of the cases are all similar. All the victims were 20 to 23 year old males who were popular and were in great academic standing. The autopsies of the victims show no sign of foul play but they do indicate that the victims were intoxicated at the time of their drowning. A series of smiley faces placed near where some the bodies were found lead many to speculate that the drowning were not by accident. In Lacrosse Wisconsin alone there has been a total of 9 different drown-victims and several more in the states of Iowa and Minneapolis. Speculation around this theory has grown so much that they have even made an official website for the theory.

http://sfkillers.com/?page_id=2.    

FBI has made an official statement on the subject that they do not believe these deaths are linking in any way and they are still ruling these drownings as accidental. There is still no word on ISU student that is still missing but the police have not ruled anything out yet.

Playing devil's advocate here, I am going to go along with the theory and pose some hypothetical scenarios. Firstly, regardless of if the recent disappearance of an ISU student is linked in any way to this theory, the deaths of nearly 40 other male college students is more than enough to raise an eyebrow at. The circumstances of the case might lead us to make some initial investigatory inferences. First, all the victims were male, college age, in good academic standing (deans list or above), and all were described as being popular. From that we could make some inferences that if a killer exists they might be someone who would have a grudge against these types of bright and popular males. Also all of the alleged drownings took place in the Midwest and northern U.S. States indicating that the killer or potential killers may live in the Midwest. This theory opens the doors for many different theories; could this be the work of copy cats? Could it be one killer or some sort of cult across several organizations on various campuses?

As I said above the FBI has made their official statement that there is no evidence to believe that these deaths are in any way related so I do not intend to stir up any feelings of paranoia, just merely playing devil's advocate.   

Many of you have probably heard about this story at least once on the news or online. After Haiti was faced with a tragic earthquake, 10 American missionaries were arrested and detained after allegedly kidnapping 33 Haitian children. The Americans supposedly tried to take these children out of the country into the Dominican Republic without proper documentation, and were turned back. According to CNN.com, the judge of this case has up to 3 months to decide whether or not he wants to prosecute these individuals. Many people have completely differing views on this case and their are arguments for both sides. Here are a couple links that are following this case as it is just starting to get underway.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/04/haiti.arrests/index.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/world/americas/10prisoners.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2010/0211/Haiti-kidnapping-case-Americans-could-be-released-today

 

 

In 2004 Carlie Brucia was reported missing by her mother after she never made didn't arrive home from her fiends house (a 15-20 min walk). Carlie was abducted in a car wash parking lot the night of the super bowl in 2004 and later that night was brutally murdered. The interesting thing about this case was not that she was abducted an murdered but it was how the manatee sheriffs department responded to her mothers request for an amber alert. Since the mother reported her daughter missing after approximately 10 min of her being abducted the police department had to inclination that a crime had been committed. It wasn't until 18 hours later when the police saw the video tape of her abductor via the car wash security camera was an amber alter released. Many people came forward stating they new who the guy in the video was; Joe Smith, cocaine addict. In the article below you read about Smiths addiction to cocaine, how he went into relapse and how the night of the super bowl his intentions were not to kill Carlie but to kill himself. The article takes you through the entire case from her abduction, her murder, and into the trial. In the end Smith is sentenced to execution.  It is apparent that if the manatee sheriffs department would have issued an amber alert sooner maybe she would be alive today.

 

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/famous/carlie_brucia/1.html

After reading the custody battle between Sean's parents and the legal system it started me to think about how often such situations occur. On this website they say that over 200,000 kids are kidnapped by family members. I knew that there were a lot of cases but did not expect it to be that high.
 
Along with this this goes what happens when a custody battle takes place and what are the different types of custody a parent/guardian can have over a child.
The website below talks about the different types of custody's a parent will petition for when dealing with a divorce. It also informs you of what happens after a custody battle with dealing with visitation rights and everything else that goes along with it.

http://www.divorce-lawyer-source.com/html/custody/battles.html

Can you imagine having your 2 year old go missing and not even bothering to look for her???  Well read the article about little Caylee Anthony who was reported missing 31 days AFTER her disappearance and how her remains were found near her home.  Read the articles and decide who you think did it....but the mom is looking pretty guilty with her string of lies and how she did not even bother to report that her daughter was missing (Caylee's grandmother filed the report).

http://investigation.discovery.com/blogs/criminal-report/casey_anthony_full_coverage/caylee_anthony.html

Photo from: http://www.blisstree.com/files/35/2008/08/caylee-anthony-nc.jpg 

Can you imagine having one of your children taken away from you by your spouse, and have them take the child abroad to where you couldn't get to them?  Well it actually happened to David Goldman.  David's son Sean was taken by his mother.  David's wife told David and his family that she wanted to take Sean to her home country of Brazil so that her family could see Sean.  They agreed to the trip.  After David's wife and son landed in Brazil, David's wife called him to tell him that their marriage was over and Sean would never return to the US.  This website is David's website to try and bring back Sean.  (Sean is now back in the US.)

http://bringseanhome.org/index.html

 In this article, you will read about what happened and why this custody battle raged on for 6 years.  On December 24, 2009, the father and son were finally reunited and told they could both go back to the US together. 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091224/ts_nm/us_brazil_usa_boy