I wish all paedophiles were this stupid

Alton man faces child porn charges after library staff finds images on his flash drive

The images were found by a library worker while verifying that the man was, indeed, the owner of a flash drive left behind at the library. Once the images were found, he denied ownership of the drive, and then went to a computer at the library, whereupon police were summoned, so I don't know how the case will play out. He could just deny it's his, but surely he must have indicated it was his prior to the images being found, since the police did go ahead and arrest him rather than just question him about it.

As a side note, the news service the link belongs to also published his address along with his name. Since the jury of public opinion doesn't involve 'innocent until proven guilty', that opens him up to a lot of harassment. 'Course, if he is guilty, I hope he's put away for a long time.

Thanks to Blake from LISNews for the story.

Good (riddance)

Man gets 120 years in child porn case: Ex-girlfriend is already in prison for filming man's attempted rape of infant

They don't mention the possibility of parole, something I hope he never gets. He had over a million child pornography images on his computer and molested who knows how many children. More than one girlfriend helped him in this. The man is sick and deserves to be put away far from children for the rest of his life. Kudos to the young woman who came forward as a teenager and who is now a 21-year-old wife and expectant mother. She approached authorities after seeing an episode of Law & Order regarding child sexual abuse.

My hope is that the children and their families are able to get the counseling they need to soften the effects of the abuse (I don't know if you ever really overcome it, to be honest, but you can come close).

An update

Remember Brenda Biesterfeld, the library aide who was supposedly fired for tipping police to a paedophile looking at pornographic images of children in the library? This is the Tulare County (California) Library's side:

'Ms. Biesterfeld received an evaluation following three months of her employment and received an overall rating of 5 on a scale of 10. Goals for improvement included the proper completion of the cash report, proper documentation of the collection of fines, the importance of seeking clarification of policies and procedures, developing clerical skills, working on assigned tasks and keeping her supervisors informed of all problems and community complaints. Ms. Biesterfeld failed to improve...'

'Regarding the specific incident... Ms. Biesterfeld did not tell her supervisors that the patron was accessing child pornography, and thereafter she neglected to notify anyone in management of the events which transpired, including the suspect's arrest until after they had occurred and failed to advise that the library's computer had been seized... There were additional performance deficiencies and policy violations that were discovered which led to her release.'

Thanks to Birdie from LISNews for the quotes and links.

Stories discussing the updated details of the firing can be seen at KMPH and the Fresno Bee.

Although it sounds like there was just cause for her termination, what she did in tipping off the police was still the right thing to do.

I was listening to

'Never Too Late' by Three Days Grace, which has been in my head of late. (I can't embed the video.) The video is about a woman who was molested as a child and has to conquer her inner daemons to be free at last. They did a good job with it. My favourite part is the handprints all over the room, symbolising the molestation. It has been pretty controversial due to its theme.

That got me thinking of a video YKWIA showed me, an educational video on not talking to strangers. I'd say it's from the 1950s or early 1960s. This messed-up town is full of paedophiles, but the twins avoid them at every turn:



Unfortunately, it's not always strangers that pose a danger to children. I know that from my own experiences. I just hope someday I can conquer my daemons, too.

I can't say I oppose it, but

shouldn't the number one thing that is done is parents accompany and watch their own children, regardless of who they're trick-or-treating from? Because there's lots of people out there who haven't ever been convicted who can be a danger to a child. My kids (if I had any) wouldn't be going alone, that's for sure--and I wouldn't necessarily trust my kids with anyone I barely knew accompanying them, either. I'd rather go myself.


Sex offenders locked down, in the dark for Halloween