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.

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The environment of emotional overload in the Casey Anthony murder trial has been replaced by an atmosphere of objectivity as law enforcement testimony begins. Emotion has been replaced by reason, and investigative clarity has trumped obfuscation.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.
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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. 
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California Sex Offenders Have a Friend In Sacramento: His Name is Tom Ammiano

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On April 26, the California Assembly Public Safety Committee was positioned to do something quietly wonderful for California’s children. Instead they sent a loud and clear message that they are more concerned with the rights of California’s registered sex offenders than they are about the safety of California’s nearly 10-million  children.
Assembly Bill 755 (AB 755) would have created California’s Electronic Security and Targeting of Online Predators Act, or CAL E-STOP, which would require sex offenders to register any internet service provider to the California Department of Justice. The Department would then provide this information upon request to third-parties, to allow them to restrict or remove sex offenders from their services.
 Sex offender registration laws are necessary because: sex offenders pose a high risk of re-offending after release from custody; protecting the public from sex offenders is a primary governmental interest; the privacy interests of persons convicted of sex offenses are less important than the government’s interest in public safety; and the release of certain information about sex offenders to public agencies and the general public will assist in protecting the public safety.
 Megan’s Law built a community notification component into already mandated sex offender registration laws. It is named after 7-year-old Megan Kanka who was kidnapped from her front yard, raped and brutally murdered by a recidivist sex offending neighbor in 1994.
Community notification assists law enforcement in investigations; establishes legal grounds to hold known offenders; deters sex offenders from committing new offenses; and offers citizens information they can use to protect children from victimization.
In California convicted sex offenders are required to register annually with local law enforcement. As part of the process they are required to reveal certain personal and identifying information. Internet identifiers such as email addresses and IM handles are not required simply because the Internet was not a factor in the mid-90’s when sex offender registration and community notification laws were written. CAL E-STOP would have dragged Megan’s Law into the 21st Century by adding a new form field to the Megan’s Law registration form that will compel them to provide Internet identifiers, so that that information can be used to protect children from victimization and exploitation.
Support for CAL E-STOP was as impressive as it was expansive. California law enforcement associations, victim’s rights groups, and child advocacy organizations among others stood solidly behind the proposed legislation. Facebook, which had never before taken a stand, publicly favored CAL E-STOP because they want to provide a safe environment for their vast community. We even had a letter from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Chief of Staff endorsing the intent of CAL E-STOP, which was modeled after a law in New York that has successfully removed more than 11,000 registered sex offenders from Facebook and MySpace since 2009.
Opposition included: Legal Services for Prisoners with Children; California Coalition for Women Prisoners; California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, and the ACLU.
With their 4 – 3 vote against CAL E-STOP, the California Public Safety Committee has failed to close the door on tens of thousands of registered sex offenders and sexual predators who will use social networking sites to prey on California’s children. We now know that they have blood on their hands. What we don’t know is just how much.
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Creating Order out of Chaos!

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The two guiding principles that drive missing person cases are chaos and order. Chaos rules the family. Their precepts of normalcy are obliterated, and their faith is oftentimes challenged, as they are thrust into a foreign environment that defies logic and experience. Law enforcement, especially if the jurisdictional agency has limited experience investigating missing child cases, is also subject to chaos. Chaos reigns in the community as rumor and innuendo inevitably insert themselves and anonymous bloggers level outrageous theories or point accusatory fingers at family members. Finally, chaos is multiplied as the second wave of predators inserts themselves into ongoing investigations.
I can speak from experience that there is nothing to prepare a family for the disappearance of a child. Whether they are missing for ten minutes in a department store, or months during a lingering investigation, panic and fear quickly dominate our emotions. But, because of our experience, professionalism and issue knowledge the KlaasKids Foundation can be a stabilizing force after a family invites to search for their missing child.
One hopes that order dominates official efforts to investigate and solve the case. Fortunately, many if not most law enforcement agencies have missing child investigative templates or protocols to guide their efforts. Unfortunately, most law enforcement agencies have little to no experience in missing child investigations, and their best efforts can be chaotic at best. However, as State and Federal resources are drawn into investigations protocols, templates, and experience usually, but not always, increase exponentially.
Media is a wild card. In the rush to be first many media outlets throw caution to the wind and report rumor as fact. Or, they offer speculation and opinion as hard knowledge. When Polly was missing certain television reporters would breathlessly report that her remains had been found every time a dog bone was turned over. However, there are also media outlets that take a much more rational, cautious and deliberate approach to these troubling cases. Again, the approach is dependent upon experience, attitude, and a desire to be first as opposed to do the right thing. Personally, I believe that newspapers demonstrate the most restraint and usually provide the best overall service. That is because viable newspaper stories historically have depth based in knowledge. Conversely, the most damage can unusually be found on the blogosphere. After all, blogging requires zero experience, many bloggers exist under the cloak of anonymity, and they are not burdened by standards or ethics.
Then there is the world of non-profit agencies. We are the gray area between government and the private sector. Most non-profit child locator services exist to help the family. Although many NPO’s in our sub-category are founded with the best of intentions, not many survive long enough to pursue long term goals or intentions. Those unable to survive, and those numbers have increased these past few years, dissolve because of dissent from within, they are unable to achieve sustainable funding, or do not have the leadership and vision necessary to get beyond adrenalin driven emotional response to tragedy.

For more than 17-years the KlaasKids Foundation has worked very hard to bring order to our approach. We attempt to respond to all aspects of the missing child issue with professional standards and reason. We adhere to proven protocols, some of which we have developed and others that we have adopted from other agencies. We represent families as we seek the cooperation of law enforcement, community and media. In other words, we try to bring order and provide hope to families that are frozen in fear as they try not to seek salvation beyond hope.
Our most critical, difficult and sensitive work is always in the immediate aftermath of tragedy. We talk with families, offer counsel and resources and when necessary intervene with search and rescue resources. We must demonstrate to law enforcement that our participation will enhance their efforts, will remove responsibility from their overburdened shoulders, and that we can be trusted with a seat at the table. This kind of trust will never be assumed, but must be earned every time that we show up at the scene of the crime. Unfortunately, resistance has not decreased as our portfolio has increased. Therefore, we must continue to pursue the dual goals of bringing order to chaos, and assisting in the recovery of missing persons.
Posted in family, KlaasKids Foundation, law enforcement, NPO | Tagged | %

Assembly Bill 755: Online Safety Legislation in California

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In her continuing efforts to protect children from sexual predators online, Assemblymember Cathleen Galgiani, in conjunction with the KlaasKids Foundation for Children and former Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly, introduced on Friday Assembly Bill 755 (AB 755), the California’s Electronic Securing and Targeting of Online Predators Act (E-STOP) legislation.

AB 755 will require convicted sex offenders to register their email addresses and online identifiers and service providers with the California Department of Justice. That information is then made available to social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook to assist them in removing sexual predators from their sites.

“I understand that MySpace and Facebook have long had policies banning sex offenders on their websites and they have routinely used state registries in the past to block thousands of convicts from joining.” stated Galgiani, “AB 755 will help with this labor-intensive process for social networking sites. I look forward to working with KlaasKids and Mr. Kelly on this important child protection legislation.”

“As a leader in child safety legislation, the KlaasKids Foundation realizes that few safeguards exist to protect children who use the Internet.” said Marc Klaas in a statement on Friday, “That is why we are proud to serve as a Sponsor of this bill authored by Assemblymember Cathleen Galgiani that provides protection to California’s children who use Social Networking websites. By bringing a framework to California that has proven successful in New York, we can contribute to the safety of this dynamic virtual playground that has so greatly impacted society.”

 At the end of 2010, New York State Attorney General Cuomo announced that Facebook and MySpace have removed approximately 11,721 profiles associated with 4,336 dangerous sexual predators registered in New York since the law was implemented in 2008.

First proposed by then-Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly in 2006, the E-STOP framework allows more effective policing and removal of sex offenders from online sites where minors may congregate.

“E-STOP’s implementation in New York and the use of sex offender registries by Facebook, MySpace, and other sites have helped build a safer Internet by removing tens of thousands of convicted sex offenders from social networks. We need to upgrade our protection systems here in California. At Facebook, we led the way in supporting E-STOP and I’m excited to stand with Assemblymember Galgiani as we put the right framework in place to build a safer California for kids and adults alike” said former Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly.
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A Modest Proposal

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Psychics don’t solve missing person cases, yet they insist upon injecting themselves whenever a missing person report reaches the media. Psychic saturation in a given case is dependent upon how widespread it has been reported, the amount of reward offered, and the location from which the person was reported missing. In other words, a case reported in suburban San Francisco will receive more psychic chatter than a case reported out of Western Texas. At best psychic involvement constitutes a distraction, at worst it diverts resources and delays resolution.

Psychics exploit family member’s fears and a desperate desire to know what happened. Psychics don’t have special insight; in fact their predictions tend to veer widely off the mark. They are either impossible to prove, or they tend to be so generic as to be useless. They may say that the missing person is dead and at the bottom of a body of water, or they may say that they see rolling green hills, a highway off ramp, and hear a babbling brook. Well you can’t check at the bottom of every body of water and the geographic description includes all of Northern California and beyond.

The temporary hope delivered by psychic predictions is dashed by the realization that they are inevitably wrong. Any other profession with a zero success rate would be acknowledged utter and hopeless failure, but psychics deny their reality and move onto the next case. Peer review doesn’t exist, but if it did, the baseline for judging and evaluating performance would be a continuum of total failure.

Psychic involvement could be curtailed if there was a consequence for inaccurate predictions, thereby allowing investigative resources to continue pursuing viable leads. One logical way to achieve this goal is to charge psychics for resources wasted when diverted to their unfounded predictions.

Obviously, families are not in a position to charge for this information because they are desperate for information, regardless of the source. And psychics can be very convincing through a combination of lies and fear. However, law enforcement is another matter all together. If the jurisdictional law enforcement agency secured a written promise from psychics that any resources diverted to their involvement in a case would be charged to them should the investigation prove fruitless, you wouldn’t find a psychic in America willing to sign on the dotted line.

The trickledown effect of this action might conceivably impact so-called psychic credibility. Once it became known that psychics are unwilling to put their money where their predictions are, they would be exposed for the frauds that they are. All of the relevant parties would be better served. Families wouldn’t hang false hope on mindless guesses and law enforcement wouldn’t have to distract attention away from a viable investigation.

If you don’t believe me just ask Shawn Hornbeck’s parents. In 2003, Browne claimed that eleven year old Shawn Hornbeck had been abducted by a very tall man with long black dreadlocks and a blue sedan, and that his body could be found near two large, jagged boulders in a wooded area about 20 miles southwest of Richwoods, MO. Shawn Hornbeck was found alive 4-years later. Sylvia Brown has never apologized for the agony that she put Shawn’s parents through.
Posted in Fraud, psychic | Tagged | 4 Comments on A Modest Proposal

Psychic Detectives & Other Nonsense

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Psychic detectives are the vanguard of a second wave of predators that also includes tabloid journalists, cheesy defense lawyers and photo-op politicians.  They use tabloid newspapers and talk shows to boast about their accomplishments and predict success.  They materialize whenever children are kidnapped and circle the cases like vultures on a fresh carcass.

They scan the media for the haunting eyes of desperate parents willing to do anything to recover their children and then they show up on your doorstep, literally or figuratively, to make the pitch.  They claim to be on the cutting edge of communications, able to predict future events and reach into heaven and hell with their mind.  They hold your hand, massage your psyche and convince you that the only thing separating you from their extraordinary gift is your money.  However, some simply require airfare and living expenses, what we call a vacation.  They seem to answer the prayer that ends the nightmare, but only if you can afford the ticket.

Frantic parents will do anything and they offer something, which is better than nothing.  Few of us posses the resources to underwrite crisis, let alone psychic detectives so they should be reminded that a substantial reward awaits whoever solves the case and returns the stolen child.

Although that strategy eliminates most psychics, some maintain a foothold by appealing to superstitiously vulnerable family members.  They make provocative predictions.  In California, rolling hills, a road or highway, perhaps a building or a bubbling brook.  In Arizona, sand dunes replace rolling hills and cactus substitutes the bubbling brook: In other words, they describe ninety-five percent of the geography of the western United States.

Psychic detectives do not posses supernatural insight, they do not converse with the missing or the dead, they never bring children home.  However, their rambling predictions may have filled in enough gaps to pad their resumes and claim the reward.

A few months after Polly was recovered a psychic claimed that she solved Polly’s case on the television program Hard Copy.  Not only was she using my daughter’s death to promote herself, but she also dismissed all of the wonderful people: police, media, and volunteers who worked so hard and tirelessly to locate my child. 

In truth, that psychic detectives contribution to the case was counter productive.  As always seems to be the case with psychic predictions, her interference created distraction.  Law enforcement resources are diverted toward useless endeavors as phantom leads disappear into thin air.  One cold and dark November evening many of us were lurking around somebody’s property because the psychic said that it held the key to my daughter’s disappearance.  With the heightened sense of paranoia that already existed in the community that property owner would have been well within his rights to blow us away on the spot for trespassing.  We were very fortunate that night, because although he did angrily confront us, he had absolutely nothing to do with the crime we were investigating. 

In the end, and despite their protests, there is not even one case of a psychic truly assisting or solving a missing child case.  It’s just smoke and mirrors.  Their references do not support their claims and law enforcement cannot acknowledge their existence.  Instead, their wishful thinking collides with your desperate hope and leaves you diminished. 

Unfortunately, the next time a little child is kidnapped and mom and dad reach the end of their emotional string the vague, empty promises of the psychic detective will rebound off the stark walls of the missing child’s bedroom and a photo or toy will be palmed as the negotiations are engaged.  It is inevitable: I predict it.
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Fifty in Fifty

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Last week I was invited to participate in an interim HLN series that is scheduled for a daily, 10-week run. Nancy Grace: America’s Missing, proposes to feature 50 missing person cases on weekday evenings during primetime in an effort to generate the leads that might return the missing to their families. I thought it was a terrific idea and immediately agreed to participate. For years missing child advocates, the families of the missing and other concerned citizens have been hoping for a television program focused on this singular issue. Imagine my disappointment then when the vast majority of comments linked to a story about the program were scurrilous, petty and mean spirited.

I have been providing television commentary on missing children since October 1, 1993, the day my twelve year old daughter Polly was kidnapped from a slumber party in her bedroom. Although i totally appreciate these opportunities they have been ad hoc and have occurred in numerous formats, from local morning shows, to network newsmagazines, to staged reenactments. There has never been a program that dealt with this issue on a regular ongoing schedule. The episodic drama Without A Trace was popular for a few years. John Walsh has always featured missing kids on America’s Most Wanted and Larry King Live often highlited missing child cases. Unfortunately, Larry retired from television about a month ago. Nancy Grace has been the most passionate high profile missing persons advocate and she has featured hundreds of missing person cases on her program since it began running on HLN in February 2005.

There is no question that Nancy’s advocacy has had positive results. Last December a viewer in San Francisco recognized a missing twelve year old girl that had been featured on Nancy Grace and called the police. The case was solved and the girl returned to her family.

Strong advocacy raises the profile of any issue informs the public, and promotes solutions. Just look at the progress that has been made as it relates to the missing. In 1993, we didn’t have sex offender registration or community notification, now Megan’s Law has been adopted throughout our country. Back in the day, law enforcement didn’t have any protocols to deal with missing person investigations, now there are national, regional, and local protocols, not to mention the Amber Alert. When Polly was kidnapped, America had a turnstile system of justice that regurgitated the same high profile offenders again and again, who systematically committed crimes of ever escalating violence. Now we have truth-in-sentencing and three-strikes-and-you’re-out. Crime is down, violence is reduced and more missing persons are being recovered.

By the time the second episode of Nancy Grace: America’s Missing aired on Jan. 18, it became obvious that the show had struck a chord. Two of the missing children profiled in the first program had been recovered and a real time tip was phoned in as the show profiled Lindsey Baum, who has been missing since June 26, 2009. On the third show we learned that the maltreatment of children with disabilities is 1.5-to-10 times higher than of children without disabilities, and that immediate family members perpetrate the majority of neglect, physical abuse, and emotional abuse.

The Associated Press story, reprinted in the Huffington Post, dealt with the substance of the new venture, but the comments it generated were inspired by anger and jealousy. The vast majority of the commentary completely ignored the issue or the fact that this limited series provides a long sought breakthrough for those invested in the plight of the missing. They paid no attention to the broken hearts, lost souls or desperate families who are pinning their hopes on the prospect of having a previously dead case profiled in primetime. They chose to ignore the fact that for many people this is an important issue and for some it is the most important issue. Instead they seemed to mock tragedy, advocacy, and hope. The people who read and comment on the Huffington Post consider themselves sophisticated, intelligent, socially and politically aware. However, at least in this forum, and there is nothing else upon which to judge them, are mean spirited, small minded, and cynical.

I used to think of my heart as a walnut, because for some years I lost the ability to cry. If that is true, then the anonymous posters on the Huffington Post must have hearts the size and consistency of a pomegranate seed: small and bitter with a hard core.
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