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.

The Strange Case of Baby Lisa

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A possibly tragic but instructive situation is playing out in suburban Kansas City, Missouri right now. Initially, the case of baby Lisa Irwin garnered national attention, a massive multi-jurisdictional law enforcement response, and much sympathy for her distraught family. However, in the past 24-hours the case has changed dramatically. Baby Lisa’s case has deteriorated because her parents have made some terrible choices that have focused attention back upon themselves, and raised questions about their intent.

10-month-old Lisa Irwin was reported missing after her father came home from a late shift at work at 4:00 am last Tuesday morning. A distraught Jeremy Irwin said that, “the front door was unlocked, the windows were open, the lights were on and she (baby Lisa) was nowhere to be found.” He also said that three cell phones had been stolen off of the kitchen counter.

An Amber Alert was issued at about 7:00 am on Tuesday morning. The Kansas City Police Department is the lead agency in the investigation. Two days after baby Lisa was reported missing her mother, Deborah Bradley said that the police TOLD her she had failed a polygraph exam. Police will neither confirm nor deny that this is true. A local television station reported that the parents have made a “deal” with national media and will no longerspeak with local media outlets.

Also on Thursday, after many hours of what seemed like nonstop questioning Lisa’s father told the police that he needed a break from questioning and asked if he could leave the interrogation room. Shortly thereafter law enforcement held a press conference claiming that the family had stopped cooperating, although the family disputes that claim.

When children disappear attention always falls squarely on the shoulders of the family. This is because 82% of all abductions are family centric. Therefore, the family has to answer all questions, regardless of how tedious they seem, until law enforcement is convinced that they are innocent of wrongdoing. Only then will law enforcement be able to focus their full attention on the other possible scenarios. Those scenarios include: other family members; friends and neighbors; peripheral contacts; registered sex offenders; and finally the most ominous scenario of all – stranger abduction. If more than 300 police, search and rescue professionals and FBI agents are dedicating all of their time in the case of the missing infant, then the parents should stay on the hot seat until they are cleared of suspicion. To put their own needs ahead of baby Lisa’s recovery is pitiful and shortsighted.

All kidnappings are local events. Certain cases, such as baby Lisa’s, draw national attention. Satellite and microwave broadcasting trucks appear as if out of nowhere as miles of cable crisscross the missing child’s neighborhood. Correspondents fly in and set up live shots across the street from the family home. We get breathless reports and updates every hour on the hour. In fact, cable news outlets have come to depend upon true crime stories to drive their ratings.

For a brief moment in time baby Lisa has fulfilled America’s obsession with true crime and a good mystery. However, if there are no new developments interest will be impossible to sustain. Eventually, national media will move onto the next crime de jour. Satellite connections will be broken, antennas will telescope back down, cable will be coiled and stored and the correspondents will climb into their rental cars and fly off to their next destination. Now, the only outlet for getting the word out will be the local media. And, how receptive will they be if they were snubbed by the family seeking wider attention on the national stage?

Kidnapping is local and times are tough. Law enforcement will investigate as long as tips come in and the investigation moves forward. But, unless the public demands their full attention they will drift off to other cases and other crimes. If the parents of the missing child are not front and center on the local television screen recruiting public support, the fragile coalition of trust that includes law enforcement, media, the public and the family can crumble like a house of cards.

As bad as it looked for baby Lisa after the Amber Alert was activated, it is beginning to look even worse now.
Posted in Baby Lisa, missing children | Tagged | %

What I Know About the Death Penalty: Part 1

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I am unapologetic about my support of the death penalty because I do not believe that a majority opinion or the law of the land in 37-states and the Federal government requires apology of defense. Unfortunately, a public relations campaign waged by death penalty abolitionists has found such support in media circles that many people believe that our death rows are filled with innocent men and women who are denied due process as they are being led to the slaughter.

Since the days of Perry Mason, television has fed the public a constant diet of citizens accused and convicted of capital murders that they did not commit. Currently, the plethora of CSI series would have us believe that forensic evidence miraculously and regularly exonerates innocents as they rot in prison cells.

The wrongful accusation, conviction, imprisonment and execution of innocents is a staple of The Good Wife on CBS, which recently featured Innocence Project co-founder Barry Scheck and the case of Cameron Todd Willingham. The elegance of that particular case is that it is impossible to prove if Willingham truly was innocent as the Good Wife and Scheck claim, or was the remorseless arsonist who was executed in 2003 for torching his three young daughters in 1991. The point is that on these television programs forensics are always definitive, defense lawyers are never wrong, and innocent people are convicted, imprisoned and executed.

Of course, print media is complicit as well. Convicted killer Roger Coleman made the cover of Time Magazine on May 18, 1992 with the caption “This Man Might Be Innocent: This Man Is Due To Die”. Fourteen years after being executed DNA evidence proved that Coleman was guilty of murdering his sister-in-law.

The June 12, 2000 cover of Newsweek Magazine featured death row inmate Ricky McGinn. Again, the suggestion was that an innocent man was about to be executed. McGinn stated that DNA testing would prove that he didn’t rape and murder his 12-year-old step-daughter. Under intense media pressure Texas Governor George Bush ordered a 30-day reprieve. When DNA testing proved that McGinn was guilty beyond any doubt he was finally executed.

Wouldn’t you be surprised to learn then, that at the end of 2009 there were 1,613,740 prisoners under state and federal jurisdiction, yet less the total number of DNA exonerations for any kind of felony is less than 300? To date, despite years of parading remorseless killers as innocent victims the abolitionists and other death row apologists cannot definitively demonstrate that an innocent man has been executed.

The ultimate irony is that death penalty abolitionists crave the execution of an innocent man so that their indignation can run amok, while those who favor the death penalty pray that an innocent is never executed so that the fragile system of ultimate justice can be preserved.
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Michelle Le Memorial Comments

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It was a summer of conflicting emotions and fast paced events.

When I first met the Le family they seemed isolated, desperate, and hopeless. Their precious Michelle had disappeared. The Hayward police said that she was a victim of murder, yet she was nowhere to be found. Ultimately, the family led by brother Michael, cousin Krystine, and uncle Eric rejected that premise and promised to spare no resource in rescuing or recovering Michelle.

What began in isolation quickly morphed into collaboration: first with KlaasKids and law enforcement; ultimately with the Buddhist Temple, Safeway, Websleuths, countless local vendors, media representatives and a dedicated cadre of volunteers. One might wonder what drove these diverse groups and individuals to reach out to this family that had gathered in solidarity from all over California and whom most of us had only just met.

Was it their refusal to go quietly into the night? Was it their willingness to unblinkingly look the devil in the eye? Or, was it the face of a seemingly lost soul smiling angelically from missing flyers on telephone poles, storefronts, and media reports. Perhaps it was all of these things, but maybe it was something even more. Maybe, just maybe we were nurtured by the grace of angels.

Events were scheduled and searches were organized. Michelle’s family found strength in fellowship and resolve in the solidarity of purpose. Timelines were established, evidence was analyzed, and strategies were devised. Search teams were dispatched, time and time again, with little regard for personal comfort as a larger purpose drove us all. We looked and looked and looked yet again, but try as we might the angelic face that smiled from billboards and late night dreams continued to elude our grasp. But it mattered not, for we had climbed onto the wings of angels as the bright light of informed choice overwhelmed the darkness of despair.

Searches continued and an arrest was made. The Hayward PD provided us with new information, fueling hope, but the truth continued to elude our grasp. And then, seemingly, another angelic intervention. On the last afternoon of the last scheduled search for Michelle, a dog with the namesake of another stolen child owned by the mother of that child, led us to a tragic conclusion. The search for Michelle was over. She can now be put to rest with the dignity and respect that all good people deserve.

It is now autumn, and soon the leaves will be falling from the trees.

Son, my heart breaks for you, because I understand the agony of losing a child to the forces of evil. However, I am here to tell you that time will give you the gift of being able to recover a life of purpose, meaning and love. Eric, your leadership and intelligence positioned you perfectly as an interim Incident Search Commander. I would follow you anywhere. Michael, when we met you were a boy, but today you view the world through the eyes of a man who has experienced more than his youth would suggest. And Krystine, you put a promising career on hold to hold onto a promise you made to your beloved cousin, and you can always take solace in the knowledge that it was a promise kept, though not as you would have wished.

The experiences that you have recently suffered have the ability to sharpen your focus and make you stronger, better people than you otherwise might have been, because now you are guided by the spirit of angels.  

You might ask how I know these things to be true. The answer is simple: the angle on my shoulder has told me that the angel we were seeking was guiding us all along.
Posted in Michelle Le, missing adult | Tagged | Leave a reply

Big Reward for Bad Behavior

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The other day I sat in a satellite uplink studio in San Francisco with an earpiece in my ear and a microphone clipped to my lapel, staring at a camera lens during a taping of the Nancy Grace Show. 2,854 miles away in Orlando, Florida Drew Kesse, the father of Jennifer, a 24-year-old woman who has been missing since Jan. 24, 2006, was sitting in a similar room, wired up in a similar fashion, during the taping of the Nancy Grace Show. The Topic of the program was Dr. Phil’s interview with Casey Anthony’s parents George and Cindy.

A week earlier Drew Kesse came out swinging. He called the Anthony’s “a disgrace and an insult to every missing person and their families,” and Dr. Phil “a pimp for (airing) this garbage”. I was looking forward to supporting Drew’s position on the program, but alas the opportunity was never presented. Therefore, I’d like to take a moment to explain why Drew is right, why Dr. Phil is wrong, and why the Anthony’s have outstayed their welcome.

Drew and I have some things in common with George and Cindy. Like the Anthony’s, we both experienced the loss of a loved one. My daughter Polly was missing for 65-days before her remains were recovered. Drew still doesn’t know what happened to his daughter. However, he does know that she was taken against her will and remains missing to this day.  That’s pretty much were our commonalities with the Anthony’s end, because from the moment that both of our daughters disappeared we had only one goal: to pursue the truth in recovering our girls. We didn’t pursue celebrity or wealth. We were willing to do whatever was necessary, including turning in members of our own families to get our children back.

On the other hand, the Anthony’s wouldn’t know the truth if it kicked them in the butt. Their daughter Casey is apparently unable to tell the truth, and even if she did, how could you believe her? George and Cindy, as was demonstrated again in the Dr. Phil interview, are not only unable to acknowledge the truth, but continue to excuse and justify their daughter’s narcissistic, homicidal behavior.

During the interview Cindy said that grand mal seizures, a brain tumor and possible postpartum schizophrenia could potentially explain Casey’s behavior. I’ve never heard of seizures prompting murder, and according to the Psychologist on the Nancy Grace Show postpartum schizophrenia is a mental disorder that doesn’t even exist. No, the similarities that Drew and I share with the Anthony’s begin and end with the disappearance of our daughters.

Generally, the families of missing or murdered children struggle financially. In our single minded determination to recover our lost children we put other worldly considerations aside. Families give up incomes, or become too depressed to work. Medical and psychological costs can devour huge amounts of our savings. Failure or inability to attend to mundane bookkeeping can result in home foreclosures and or mounting debt. I am not complaining; I am simply stating the truth as I understand it.

According to all credible reports Dr. Phil did not pay the Anthony’s for the interview. Instead he donated nearly $500,000 to a “charitable organization currently being formed to honor their granddaughter called Caylee’s Fund.” Truth be told, Caylee’s Fund does not yet exist, therefore it is not a charitable organization, and therein lies the rub.

The Anthony family is handsomely rewarded for abysmal behavior. Casey gets away with murder, George and Cindy lie and parry and deny the truth, yet they receive a huge payoff from a daytime TV program seeking sky-high ratings. Caylee is still dead and the truth be damned.
Posted in Caylee Anthony, Jennifer Kesse, missing adult, missing children | Tagged | Leave a reply

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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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.
Posted in Casey Anthony Trial | Tagged | Leave a reply