Families Let Sex Offenders Into Homes

April 20, 2005 -- -- The Florida woman whose ex-boyfriend allegedly strangled her 13-year-old daughter didn't know anything about the man's history as a sex offender, other than what he told her. And she wasn't the only one.

Many people in the rural community of Ruskin do not have Internet connections, and thus do not have easy access to the state's sex offender registry. So they may have been unaware of David Onstott's history.

Kelly May Lunde had previously dated Onstott. In his confession, he said he had gone to her trailer home looking for her and ended up killing her daughter, Sarah, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's office.

"So she knew he had a criminal history, she knew it was involving what he had described to her as date rape, and beyond that, I don't think she had a lot of information," Sheriff David Gee said, referring to Lunde.

Sarah's slaying, coming weeks after another Florida girl, 9-year-old Jennifer Lunsford, and a 10-year-old Iowa girl, Jetseta Gage, were allegedly abducted and killed by sex offenders, has raised the call for reform of the sex offender registries.

In each case, critics have pointed to what they say are problems with the registries or how the laws on tracking registered sex offenders are enforced. Onstott, for example, had been arrested for failing to register just weeks earlier, but then had been released.

All 50 states have some form of sex offender registry, in line with guidelines established by Congress under the 1994 Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexual Violent Offender Registration Program. In 1996, Megan's Law, named for a New Jersey girl who was sexually abused and murdered by a convicted sex offender, amended the act to set up guidelines for disclosure of the information on the registries to the public.

What information can be disclosed and to whom has been a controversial issue ever since, and states have chosen -- or been forced by the courts -- to deal with the issue in a variety of ways.

Information about the sex offender registry in your state can be obtained by calling the Parents for Megan's Law hot line at 888-ASK-PSML (888-275-7365). The group received a grant from the federal government to set up the hot line.

Information about the registries and about how to keep children safe from sexual predators can also be found at the Web site of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

There is also a national list, the National Sex Offenders Registry, coordinated and maintained by the FBI's Crimes Against Children Unit, which is based on information supplied by the states.

Most states provide statewide Internet access to lists, including names, addresses, photographs and criminal records of at least the so-called Level III, or high-risk, convicted sex offenders.

In some states, such as Washington and Oregon, local law enforcement is directed to alert the community when a Level III offender moves into the neighborhood. Police there put out news releases and meet with neighborhood watch groups and school officials when a Level III offender moves into a community.

In others, though, lists can only be accessed at police stations, and in some counties the registries are only available as postings on bulletin boards in police or sheriff's departments or at post offices.

"Megan's Law, in spirit, guarantees that if a sex offender moves into your neighborhood, you're going to get notification, but it's not playing out that way," said Laura Ahearn, the director of Parents for Megan's Law.

The deaths of Sarah, Jessica and Jetseta have sparked more calls from the public and legislators around the country to try to make changes to the registries and to strengthen the penalties for sex offenders who fail to register than at any time since Megan's Law was passed, said Charles Onley, a research associate with the Center for Sex Offender Management, a program of the U.S. Justice Department.

Trying to Change the Laws

For example, in Florida, the legislature is considering a proposal that would require a person who is convicted of sexually molesting a child younger than 12 to be sentenced to life in prison or to be kept under electronic surveillance if they are ever released.

In Iowa, where Jetseta was allegedly kidnapped and murdered by convicted sex offender and family friend Roger Bentley last month, the House has already passed a bill that would require DNA samples to be taken from all convicted sex offenders and would eliminate early release for sex offenders who refuse treatment.

Jetseta's 7-year-old brother actually saw Bentley driving off with her, but didn't do anything or tell anyone because "he thought that she had permission" because the family had "known him for so long," the girl's mother, Trena Gage, told ABC News affiliate KCRG-TV in Cedar Rapids.

But Iowa's registry law does not require that information be shared from county to county, so it is not clear whether adding DNA samples would help.

In Norfolk County, Mass., the sheriff reportedly plans to start an e-mail alert program, to inform people when registered sex offenders move in or out of their community. Sheriff Michael Bellotti told The Patriot Ledger of Quincy that people could sign up for the e-mails, which would only provide information on Level III offenders, the most serious category.

A loophole in Massachusetts law, however, allows some sex offenders to be released from prison without being listed on the registry, at least for a period of time, because there is no legal requirement for how quickly the state Sex Offender Registry Board classifies offenders when they are set free.

"We cannot give out information on these unclassified individuals, even if the crime they are convicted of may make them Level III offenders," Dracut interim police Chief Kevin Richardson told The Lowell Sun.

On the national level, Sens. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., introduced a bill that would establish a national sex offender database the public could access over the Internet.

The bill is called Dru's Law, in memory of Dru Sjodin, the young North Dakota woman who was abducted from a Grand Forks shopping mall parking lot in November 2003 and found dead six months later in a ditch.

The man arrested for that crime, Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., had served a 23-year prison term as a violent sexual offender in Minnesota and had been released from prison even though he was rated at "high risk" for re-offending. Because he lived across the Minnesota border from Grand Forks, he was not listed on the North Dakota registry.

"Sex offenders don't stop at state lines. Neither should sex offender registries," Dorgan said. "We need to close a dangerous loophole that currently leaves our communities and our children at risk."

Another proposal, the Jessica Lunsford Act, has been put forward in the U.S. House, co-sponsored by Republicans Ginny Brown-Waite, Katherine Harris and Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz, all of Florida, along with Ted Poe, R-Texas.

"Jessica Lunsford's murder is a horrifying example of the need for stricter laws in regulating sex offenders," Brown-Waite said at a news conference with the girl's father and grandfather. "We should not allow them to roam from state to state without anyone knowing,"

According to the proposed bill, states that fail to properly implement sex offender registries and programs would lose 10 percent of the money they get from the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grants, which are given by the federal government to support law enforcement.

The bill would require states to mail address verification forms to sex offenders twice a year at random intervals and include stiff penalties for those who do not return the forms, including using global positioning system devices to track them.

Passing such measures without providing the states with the funding needed to implement them will not do much good, though, Onley said.

Too Close for Comfort

For some of those who live in Ruskin, they found out they had been a lot closer to a sex offender than they imagined.

"He's always been around my kids and he never really done nothing with them. He was like an uncle to my kids," Ruskin resident Vie Fulkinson told ABC News affiliate WFTS-TV in Tampa.

"I thought he was nice, you know. I talked to him and he talked to me. He was just a nice friend," Vie's daughter Amanda said. "I was shocked, I started crying because I thought it could have been me, you know?"

Had they looked on the state's sex offender registry, they could have learned that in 1995, Onstott was convicted of sexual battery for assaulting a female acquaintance inside her home, and he served nearly six years in prison and two years on probation.

They would have learned that in 2003, Onstott violated his probation and was also charged with DUI, and that in March, Onstott failed to register as a sex offender.

Mark Lunsford, whose daughter, Jessica, was allegedly abducted and killed by convicted sex offender John Couey, who like Onstott had moved and failed to register, came to Ruskin to offer support to Sarah's family, and to press his call for tougher punishment for offenders who fail to register their whereabouts.

"Couey and Onstott could have went to prison for one to five years and just maybe both of these children would still be alive today, and I'm telling you it's making me sick," he said. "It's sad that it takes something like this to bring a community together. America needs to wake up. The next child could be yours."

Sheriff Gee echoed Lunsford.

"I don't want to blame any particular judge or attorney, it's just a symptom of what's a broken system," he said Sunday when he announced the charges against Onstott. "I think we all know that and obviously I think there are a lot of efforts to reform the system and I think everyone acknowledges that and let's just hope our legislative bodies and the government steps up to the plate and let's take these people off the street."

Though a few states already had registries before the Wetterling Act, most of the lists were created during a period when state budgets were relatively healthy. The financial problems state and local governments now face have taken a toll on enforcement.

Onley said that seven years ago, a lot of cities had units assigned to keep track of registered sex offenders, but over the years most of those programs were slashed or eliminated. Even if the money was there, the problem of finding people when they aren't where they are supposed to be remains, he said.

"Most jurisdictions have thousands and thousands of warrants," he said. "A lot of jurisdictions at the beginning had retake units to go pick them up. The problem, as with all warrants, is that it's not that simple -- you don't know where he is."

And Onley said he gets a surprising amount of questions from women who know that their boyfriend is a sex offender, and are looking for information about how to make life easier for him and even let him spend time with their children.

"Some things don't make sense," he said. "Just because someone knows, doesn't mean they would take appropriate action."