All posts by Marc Klaas

I am President of the KlaasKids Foundation and BeyondMissing, Inc. Both organizations are 501(c)(3) public benefit non profit organizations.

DOA: Megan’s Law for the 21st Century

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John Gardner, the registered sex offender now serving a life sentence for killing Chelsea King and Amber Dubois, last logged into his MySpace account on Feb.24, 2010, the day before he murdered Chelsea King. An email account linked to Gardner’s profile was registered with MySpace; however the social networking website did not know who he was or what he had done, so they were unable to implement their zero tolerance policy toward registered sex offenders. This is because Megan’s Law does not require California’s 123,821 registered sex offenders to submit email addresses or other forms of Internet identification.
Megan’s Law is based on the premise that convicted sex offenders pose a threat to society and that the public deserves to know when they are in the community. Since Megan’s Law was signed into law and implemented in 1996, all 50-states have registered individuals convicted of felony sex crimes. Law enforcement collects personal, private and identifying information from the registered offenders. They then release some of that information to the public so that we can use it to protect ourselves from known threats in our neighborhoods. Law enforcement maintains all of the information collected from registered sex offenders in secure databases so that it can be used for investigative purposes.
This system served society well until communities expanded beyond our streets and neighborhoods to include Internet based social networking sites. Until social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace have an effective mechanism to monitor registered sex offenders they will continue to exploit the Internet’s anonymity and troll for victims in online communities.

California Senate Bill 57 (SB-57) would have updated Megan’s Law by requiring registered sex offenders to provide law enforcement with their email addresses and other Internet identifiers. Social networking websites would then be able to use that information to monitor or scrub registered sex offender profiles from their online communities.

SB-57 is based on legislation passed in New York in 2008. The Electronic Securing and Targeting of Online Predators Act (e-STOP), which was sponsored by New York Governor, then Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, has thus far successfully removed more than 24,000 social networking profiles belonging to registered sex offenders. SB 57 is also consistent with the federal KIDS Act of 2008, which requires sex offenders to provide email addresses as part of the state regulations.

Unfortunately, this important legislation was placed on the suspense file in the Assembly Committee on Appropriations where it died. The official reason that SB-57 was placed on suspense is that it was thought to be too costly for California to administer. However, in reality SB-57 only required a new form field to be entered onto an existing database. And, compared to the millions of children who would have been protected from the lurid advances of Internet predators like John Gardner who use social networking sites, minor administrative costs are inconsequential.

As has been demonstrated so many times in the past few years, government has failed us yet again. The fate of SB-57 was in the hands of Assembly Committee on Appropriations Chairman Felipe Fuentes (D-San Fernando Valley). Chairman Fuentes had the power to remove SB-57 from the suspense file and put it to the committee for a vote, where it surely would have passed, yet he failed to do so.

We have lost our opportunity to drag Megan’s Law into the 21st Century. Instead children who use social networking sites remain at risk of being victimized by known sexual predators. Our elected leaders have made a stark choice. The safety of California’s children is not a priority.

Posted in amber dubois, chelsea king, legislation, Megan's Law | Tagged | %

A New Concept: The Polly Center

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Brad’s Suburban

KlaasKids strives to remain on the cutting edge of child safety. To that end, on July 23, 2011 we introduced a revolutionary concept in child abduction and exploitation response. The Polly Center, located in Pensacola, Florida is a proactive missing child resource center. It was created to provide a preemptive response network to serve families of missing persons. This regional resource center will also provide abuse prevention programs for children and services for victims of exploitation.

 Responding to a missing person case is akin to communities responding to natural disasters. When a 911 call is placed reporting a missing person, the response must happen very quickly as time lost can be critical and even life threatening. So it is with natural disasters: communities must respond from the ground up. Currently, most communities have an emergency disaster response plan which consists of pre-planning and the identification of resources necessary to respond to a give disaster. The Polly Center will mirror that approach as it applies to missing person and human trafficking cases.

The concept behind the Polly Center is based on events that happened and surrounded my daughter Polly’s case in 1993. The entire community of Petaluma: business; churches; individuals; fraternal organizations all came together to assist in building the search effort for Polly. For the past 18-years KlaasKids has been responding to communities that are grappling with predatory or highly suspicious missing child cases. However, each time that we respond we have to invent the wheel all over again by locating relevant resources. With the Polly Center much of that work will already be in place and resources will be put on alert to respond as necessary.

A preemptive response plan includes creating key partnerships with law enforcement, businesses, civic organizations and churches willing to participate during the search for a missing person or willing to assist in the rescue and recovery of victims of exploitation these partnerships allow the Polly Center to create a response framework prior to a missing response or rescue attempt.

Currently, we have the support of local authorities including the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office.
Several agreements have been established with key organizations. California based BeyondMissing will provide parents with a parent flyer tool. They will be able to upload pictures, fill out form fields and quickly create a professional English or Spanish language missing child flyer that can be shared via fax or email. The Florida Coalition against Human Trafficking will provide assistance in identifying and placing victims. The Gulf Coast Kids House, a Children’s Advocacy Center, will provide services to child abuse victims. Area Search and Rescue teams will provide professional services in the search for missing persons

The Polly Center is the brainchild of Brad Dennis, the KlaasKids Foundation National Director of Search Operations. Brad, who has more than 25-years of experience in search and rescue and crisis management, has managed search efforts for more than 180-missing and exploited children throughout the United States, including the community assisted search effort following Polly’s 1993 kidnapping. Most volunteer search protocols currently being used were developed by Brad during the search for Polly.

If KlaasKids finds success with the Pensacola based Polly Center we intend to replicate the template throughout the United States. We know that such an ambitious vision will be difficult to implement and will take time, but we believe that our children are worth it. Don’t you?
Posted in Polly Center, SAR | Tagged | Leave a reply

Why America’s Long Haul Truckers Deserve TV Service

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This evening Nancy Grace made a call to action to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the agency that regulates broadcast media, to grant a license so that America’s vast long haul trucking community could at long last be able to watch a suite of television options during their federally mandated rest stops. Climb on board and demonstrate your support of this important initiative by letting the FCC know how you feel.

Since 2004, the KlaasKids Foundation has been aggressively participating in a case at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in Washington, DC. KlaasKids wants the FCC to approve a proposal that will unleash major resources for the cause to recover missing children and adults at no cost to Government.  The case has suffered from prolonged delays, and we need your voice to arouse the FCC from its slumber and jar it to action.

The proposal we support has been made to the FCC by Clarity Media Systems, LLC, a subsidiary of Flying J Inc., the company that owns and operates hundreds of Flying J travel plazas across the country’s highways. The U.S. Department of Transportation requires America’s 2-million long haul truck drivers to spend 10-hours or more per day resting. Flying J provides a variety of vital services to long haul truckers making it a popular and viable rest destination. However, one service that truck drivers have never been able to access is basic television service. Clarity has proposed to provide 70 channels of television programming – local stations, national cable and satellite channels, and its own specially originated program channels to entertain and inform long haul truckers during federally mandated rest stops.

In other words two million people, four million eyes that could immediately respond to word that a person is missing and seek to locate them are not getting that word.  Clarity’s proposal will enable these drivers — who are out on the roads and at highway rest stops, convenience stores, gas stations, and fast food restaurants where persons on the run frequently go – to receive news flashes, special reports, and full-length programming about unresolved missing person cases from local television stations, national cable and satellite channels, and Clarity channels.

Of particular note, Clarity proposes to originate a special Public Safety and Alert Channel that will focus on the plights of missing persons. With my assistance, programming will be produced to highlight high profile cases like the disappearance of Morgan Harrington from a concert at Virginia Tech University on October 20, to low profile cases that failed to receive media attention to missing adults who are excluded by their age from the Amber Alert system. Clarity will make this special channel the default channel that every truck driver sees when he turns on the television set while at rest in his cab and that plays continuously in the common areas of the highway travel plazas.

I know firsthand the valuable role that informed long haul drivers can play in fulfilling our mission to recover missing persons.  When Polly was abducted, the long-haul driver community made a point to circulate her poster broadly in the hope that she could be recovered. Had the service that Clarity proposes been available when Morgan Harrington disappeared from a rock concert tens of thousands of long-haul drivers in Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, DC, Maryland and other surrounding or regional states could have been alerted and on the lookout for her immediately following her abduction.  Instead, her whereabouts remain unknown without this effort even being made.  There are thousands of similar examples.

In short, with Clarity’s programming in the cabs of their trucks and at their rest stops during their government mandated rest periods, professional long-haul drivers will become an army of millions of law-enforcement-minded first responders to disseminate vital information to their colleagues, apprehend abductors, and recover our missing dear ones. 

Please add your voice to the wake-up call that we will soon be sending to the FCC demanding that it stop sitting on this important case and approve Clarity’s proposal.  To do so, please select this link, type in your own words the reasons why it is important for the FCC to act immediately to make this public safety service a reality, and return to me.  We will bring your words to the direct attention of the FCC Chairman and Commissioners right away. 
Posted in FCC, Flying J, trucker TV | Tagged | Leave a reply

Social Networking and Missing Kids

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Not every parent has the good fortune to have their missing child profiled on television or in nationally distributed magazines. Most families must find other ways to raise awareness and distribute information about their missing children.
Social networks have a reach that extends around the world with hundreds of millions of profiles, and the ability to embrace causes. These invaluable resources provide no-cost opportunities that were inconceivable when Polly was kidnapped in 1993.
If your child is missing, you can take advantage of opportunities available from Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and YouTube.
These free sites enable you to create informational profiles of your missing child. You can post articles, photographs, testimonials, blogs, and videos. By organizing your profile and editing content to create a compelling presence, you can link and interact with vast networks of individuals and organizations interested in your issue. Cross-pollinating with true crime websites like Websleuths provides you with allies who are dedicated to maintaining interest in and solving ongoing cases.
A Southern California mother whose two children were reported missing 15 years ago tracked them down in Florida using Facebook. The children’s father had taken off with them in 1995 when they were still toddlers, but in March 2010 the mother found her daughter’s profile after searching for her name on the social networking site. My friend Robert McConnell used Facebook to locate his daughter, who was illegally kidnapped to Indonesia by a noncustodial mother in 2003. Personally, I regularly use my Facebook profile picture to post photos of America’s missing.
Child abduction is a big problem in China, with thousands of children disappearing each year. According to the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs, as many as 1.5 million children are beggars. Most of them have been forced into servitude and many of them are kidnap victims. A viral Twitter (Weibo) campaign, launched on January 25 by social scientist Yu Jianrong, encourages citizens to post photos of child beggars and compare them with photos of missing children. More than 220,000 netizens responded and so far six children have been reunited with their families.

In an unrelated case, 33-year-old Peng Gaofeng recovered his son who was kidnapped in 2008 through a micro blog. When law enforcement efforts proved futile, Peng posted his son’s picture on Weibo. A newspaper reporter tweeted about Peng’s micro blog campaign to his 110,000 followers. It was reposted more than 5,000 times before a citizen compared the missing boy’s photo to a child who looked just like him. It turned out to be the same child. The reunion video posted on the Internet became an online sensation and captured the attention and respect of authorities. 

Of course, liabilities do exist. Information may not be accurate or time sensitive. A visible time stamp on missing flyers will mitigate social networking shortcomings. Outdated information posted on social networking sites can be distracting. Time and resources are wasted when misinformation passes from hand to hand – Particularly if the case has been resolved. Before information is distributed it should be verified with Law Enforcement or National Crime Information Center.
Overall, the assets outweigh the liabilities. The Internet empowers the families of missing persons. With new and innovative applications constantly in development, the possibilities inherent in social network websites and other online innovations are limited only by our imaginations.
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A Father’s Hope

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 KlaasKids has been helping the family of missing nursing student Michelle Le ever since her case was reclassified as a homicide. For the past two weeks we have offered advice, counsel, experience and our hearts as the family struggles to reconcile fear and confusion with a desire to recover their daughter. Today is the third day of the Michelle Le volunteer ground search, and despite my misgivings that anybody would show up early in the morning on Father’s Day, we have already dispatched more than 90-volunteers and it is not yet 9:00 am.

Instead of waiting helplessly for 26-year-old Michelle’s case to run its course, the Le family decided to become pro-active, and that’s when they called KlaasKids. KlaasKids Search & Rescue Director Brad Dennis flew into San Francisco from his home base in Pensacola, FL last Wednesday night to organize and facilitate the search effort. We instructed the family to secure a facility that could be, used as a staging area, to send a press release requesting search volunteers, and to keep an open line of communications with the jurisdictional law enforcement agency, the Hayward, CA Police Department.

Our design is to create an infrastructure that will endure beyond our departure.  To that end, we have been training family members as we dispatch volunteers. It is an enormous task, because there are so many moving parts including, but not restricted to: indoor staging locations with electricity, adequate parking, and plumbing; map acquisition and office supplies; projector for PowerPoint presentation; bottled water and food; administration and media relations; volunteers and directors.

So, here it is 10:00 am and we need to vacate this building within the next two hours. More than 100-searchers are in the field and all need to be de-briefed upon their return. Brad is flying back to Pensacola tomorrow morning and the search will be put on hold for at least a week. Where it goes from here is anybody’s guess, but have confidence that Michelle’s family will rise to the occasion.

Personally, I get great satisfaction from a job well done. There are many missing persons in the San Francisco Bay Area, but the only one people are talking about is Michelle Le. Coverage of her disappearance has dominated local television and radio. Approximately 450 volunteers have responded over the past three days and we have eliminated many high probability search areas. We have created a strategy for the future and the Le family understands the dynamics of our operation.

Will any of this bring Michelle home? I don’t really know. However, I do know that without KlaasKids involvement and our mentoring things would have gone quite differently for her family. Now, they have the tools to match their determination. They have the infrastructure to support their need. And, they have the structure to support their vision.
Posted in Michelle Le, missing adult | Tagged | Leave a reply

Casey’s Eyes!

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The Anthony women have pretty eyes. Like her mother before her and her daughter for a brief moment in time, Casey’s large almond shaped, blue-green eyes once held an alluring quality. They drew women to her side and men into her bed. They seemed to express joy in portraits and candid shots taken with her daughter, little Caylee. They even captivated a lawyer, who waded into the deep end of the pool before he realized that he didn’t know how to swim. Now Casey’s eyes stare straight ahead, toggling between occasional bursts of anger and lifelessness as real as the little girl in the duffel bag that she tossed into the swamp.

When young Casey decided to escape reality and depend upon deception and ploys to achieve her goals, her eyes kept her secret. When she was with friends they expressed carefree desire, and when she was with her family they were guarded.  However, now that the details of her deceit are being revealed one after the other, her eyes have finally betrayed her evil intent. The jury, sitting mere yards away, on the opposite side of the courtroom, cannot avoid the blank stares as her world unravels. The unblinking lens of the television pool camera transmits every blank expression around the world before she can hope to wipe away the next non-existent tear.

If eyes are truly the window to the soul, Casey is in deep trouble. Instead of shining brightly Casey’s eyes are absorbing the light, turning the courtroom into a dark chamber of her tortured heart.
Like a vampire caught in the bright light of a desert noon, Casey has nowhere to hide.
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Double, Double Toil and Trouble; Fire Burn, and Caldron Bubble

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When lies roll off of a tongue as easily as water runs downstream, and those lies convince you that water actually runs upstream, you know that you are dealing with an accomplished liar. When the details of those lies are intricate, multi-generational and occasionally grounded in reality, you know that you are dealing with a master manipulator.

Casey Anthony had distilled a fantasy life that suited her purposes: she didn’t have to work, she had few responsibilities; and she had a circle of ever changing hot-body friends that would host her at trendy nightclubs and in-house parties.

Life was not perfect however. The carefully crafted happy, no sweat, no worry demeanor that she displayed to friends turned bitter and resentful in the home she shared with her family. Casey seemed in constant conflict with her mother, avoiding real issues through fabrication and deceit in order to secure a roof over her head and stability in her life.

Little Caylee, the daughter that her mother Cindy pressured her not to put up for adoption hampered her lifestyle and further exposed her shortcomings as a tug of war for the affections of the toddler erupted between mother Casey and grandmother Cindy. As much as she needed her family to manage the necessities of life, she needed her freedom to enjoy “La Bella Vita”.

This bubbling cauldron of desire, deceit, resentment, and need brewed a toxic concoction that would expose a family’s twisted psychology, naked desires, unholy bonds and homicidal tendencies.
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Sex, Lies and Videotape

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The environment of emotional overload in the Casey Anthony murder trial has been replaced by an atmosphere of objectivity as law enforcement testimony begins. Emotion has been replaced by reason, and investigative clarity has trumped obfuscation. Lies are amplified even more when they are repeated by the law enforcement professionals who interacted with the family. Now that the police are testifying it is becoming increasingly difficult to extend the abuse excuse for Casey Anthony’s behavior. For the time being, the case moves from the dysfunctional family dynamic to behavior, storyline and lies. Casey has free will, and her choices are her responsibility, regardless of the circumstances of her life.

The investigation concluded that Casey’s employment claims were false, that her litany of friends and associates, including Zanny  the nanny, were fantasy, and that her convoluted explanation that, “I’ve been looking for her (Caylee) and have gone through other resources to try to find her,” is as ludicrous as it is disingenuous.  Casey’s July 16, 2008 handwritten statement to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office has proven to be a total fabrication. None of the persons named in the elaborate storyline even existed, and none of the events occurred. As the extent of deceit becomes more obvious one has to conclude that Casey Anthony has been exposed and that it is becoming increasingly difficult for her to hide behind the litany of lies that she has spent her adult life building.

How does the defense counter the wall of evidence that is being constructed by law enforcement? Since they cannot effectively impeach the institutions, they go after the individual investigators and attempt to dismantle the wall of evidence brick by brick by brick. They accuse the lead investigator Yuri Melich of unprofessionalism because he briefly blogged on the popular Websleuths true crime website. The judge didn’t buy it. Just like the big bad wolf in the Three Little Pigs, sometimes you can huff and you can puff, but you can’t blow the house down.
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The Ultimate Betrayal

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The Casey Anthony trial is demonstrating something I have known for far too long: the great drama in the courtroom is not demonstrated through stunning revelations; instead it is demonstrated via raw, unfiltered emotion. An intimate drama played out in court as the final and defining 911 call was being played for the jury, the call made by Cindy Anthony only moments after learning that her beloved granddaughter had been missing for more than a month. Prosecution witness Cindy Anthony slumps in the witness stand doubled over in the agony of loss, grieving for the three-year-old granddaughter that defined her world as her recorded voice repeated, “I have a 3-year-old who has been missing for a month.” At the defense table, murder defendant Casey Anthony offered the jury a peek into the black void of her soul, betraying no emotion as her mother’s voice reverberates throughout the courtroom, “it smells like there’s been a dead body in the damn car.”

These are the kind of details that cannot fail to impress the jury.
Posted in Casey Anthony Trial | Tagged | %

Happy Birthday Colton Clark! Where in the world are you?

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I am given to introspection on this day before National Missing Children’s Day. Two separate but connected items crossed my desk this morning. While scanning our files I came across a flyer for 10-year-old Colton. An Amber Alert was not issued, but after 3-days of searches the Sheriff issued a Missing Child Alert.  Colton’s whereabouts remain a mystery 5-years after the fact. Soon thereafter I received a letter from 10-year-old Dominic, whose modest donation demonstrated the giving and trusting nature of children and means more than he will ever know. One item was as heartbreaking as the other was heartwarming.

On April 20, 2006 at approximately 1:30 pm, Colton Clark disappeared from his adoptive parent’s home in Seminole, OK. On April 22, Seminole County Sheriff Joe Craig issued a BeyondMissing, Missing Child Alert to no avail. Instead of celebrating his fifteenth-birthday with his family today, Colton remains missing. Sheriff Craig believes that Colton is dead is based on a “gut feeling”, but there is no evidence that Colton is dead. Neither is there evidence that he is alive. Like so many before him, Colton Clark seems to have vanished off of the face of the earth. Occasional tips are still received, but they lead nowhere. As time passes, the leads become more infrequent as hope for Colton’s recovery diminishes.

Earlier today we received a handwritten letter from ten-year-old Dominic that stated in part, “I would like to help you help others and save kids lives”. The 3-one-dollar-bills enclosed overwhelmed me. Dominic, wise beyond his years, doesn’t realize that we don’t want his money. We want to protect him, not to take from him. Dominic’s gesture, so heartfelt and innocent, illustrates the impressionable nature of children, and the influence technology has upon their impressionable minds. Instead of spending Dominic’s generous donation we are going to frame it with his letter and hang it on the wall of our office as a reminder of our sacred promise to our children.

The world belongs to the children and we are only holding it in trust until they are old enough to take possession. For far too long the burden of child safety has been placed on the shoulders of the children. While it is important for kids to be knowledgeable and aware it is our responsibility as adults to ensure that every child has the opportunity to live in a safe and secure world. By addressing the escalating problem of crime we will attain our mission of stopping crimes against our children. 
Posted in Colton Clark, missing children | Tagged | Leave a reply