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Testimony won't undo assault case plea deal
JEFF ECKHOFF
23 Sep 2006 12:00 am
The girl with the attitude problem took the witness stand calmly, then released a torrent of words and tears that were intended, she said, only to get the judge to understand.
The girl, now 15, said she wanted District Judge Michael Huppert to know "what it was like to be a lonely 13-year-old who is looking for someone and something to hold onto" and instead to find only a 42-year-old man seeking to "prey on your youth and trust" for sex.
The girl said she still has nightmares about Walt Bevel, a former Des Moines police officer who has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of child endangerment and assault with intent to commit sexual abuse. She still feels "dirty and tainted," still is convinced "that boys who know about this think I'm easy."
"Only two years ago he was a staff member who was supposedly there to help me deal with my issues. In reality my issues now are 10 times bigger because of him," she said.
Bevel, who met the girl in 2004 while working nights as an aide at the Polk County Youth Shelter, has acknowledged that he engaged in dangerously inappropriate contact with a troubled youth he was supposed to help.
By the girl's account, their relationship involved repeated instances of intimate conversations, hugging, kissing and sexual touching. Bevel called her, wrote her letters, and once stole a pair of her underwear for sexual purposes, the girl said.
After months thinking she was in love, the girl said Friday that she wanted Bevel put behind bars.
She failed.
"Nobody in their right mind should be OK with this," the girl said in court. "If you put this man in prison, where he belongs, then I can start to heal. I can start to believe that maybe there is justice in the world and that I matter. If he gets probation, then I am just a poor kid from the wrong side of town who doesn't count because she wasn't going anywhere anyway."
Instead, under a plea agreement worked out in July, Bevel was given a four-year suspended sentence and two years' probation. The deal means Bevel, who retired from the police department due to an injury disability in 2001, will register as a sex offender and wear an electronic ankle bracelet for at least two years. He also must perform 100 hours of community service and will be barred from living within 2,000 feet of schools and child-care centers.
Mom Sent Photo of Son Missing Since 1982
JAMES BELTRAN
01 Sep 2006 12:00 am
The mother of a boy abducted 24 years ago said she's bewildered by two photographs left at her front door, apparently showing her son and two other children bound and gagged.
The old photos appear to show 12-year-old Johnny Gosch with his mouth gagged and his hands and feet tied. The boy is wearing the same sweatpants Johnny was wearing when he disappeared while delivering newspapers on the morning of Sept. 5, 1982, his mother said.
"It's like reliving it," Noreen Gosch told The Associated Press on Thursday night. "But the bigger picture is, 'Why are they doing this?'
"Whoever had these photos had them for 24 years. I don't understand why they would do this now. It must be some kind of message."
"We are in the process of researching where they came from and whether they've been doctored up," West Des Moines police Lt. Jeff Miller told the Des Moines Register.
Johnny's disappearance triggered nationwide fears of child abductions. He was one of the first faces of missing or abducted children to appear on milk cartons across the country.
Iowa tried to cage suspect as a sex predator
JEFF ECKHOFF
28 Aug 2006 12:00 am
A Des Moines man who told police he raped and murdered a prostitute earlier this month was released from prison about three years earlier, records show, after Iowa authorities dropped efforts to confine him indefinitely as a dangerous sexual predator.
Keith Owens Parker, 48, remains jailed on a charge of first-degree murder in connection with the death of Georgina Kimble, 37.
"That outrages me," said Sandra Moreland, Kimble's mother. "I believe in rehabilitation. But there's a difference between rehabilitating them and knowing you can't rehabilitate them. ... The laws in this state are messed up."
Iowa records show Parker was arrested in 1997 on a sex-related battery charge in Florida and was jailed twice in Iowa for sex-related assaults in the 1980s. Parker's criminal history prompted Iowa authorities in 2003, when Parker was on the verge of being released from prison, to attempt to confine him indefinitely for treatment as a dangerous sex offender.
But authorities dropped that effort in February 2004, saying Parker's interview with a state-paid psychologist had convinced lawyers that they no longer had enough evidence to keep Parker confined.
Doctor on Sex Offender Registry
08 Aug 2006 12:00 am
A central Iowa Doctor will now have to register as a sex offender. Warren county prosectors struck a plea deal with Dr. Dan miller. Miller was charged with sexual exploitation by a counselor after he allegedly had relationships with at least three patients while serving as a physician at a Mercy Clinic in Indianola.
Court records show on at least one occasion Miller would send inappropriate Emails, send love letters, even take trips with a female patient. The Board of Medical Examiners temporiarly suspended Miller for the same charges last year.
Woman copes with daughters' tragedies
TOM ALEX
08 Aug 2006 12:00 am
How much heartache can Sandra Moreland endure? That's what people might ask.
Moreland lost a daughter to a homicide over the weekend in Des Moines. Another daughter went missing four years ago, and a third daughter is in jail.
"At least I will have some closure with Georgina," Moreland said of her slain daughter, Georgina Kimble. "I know where she is. I wish I could say the same for Missy."
Kimble, 37, was stabbed to death in a basement apartment at Capitol Heights Apartments, in Des Moines. Early Sunday morning, Keith Parker, 48, a convicted sex offender, walked into the Polk County Jail and told employees that he had killed someone at his apartment. Parker was charged with first-degree murder.
The case was all but closed. But the pain at the Moreland house was just beginning.
Sex offender residency laws pushing some to campgrounds
25 Jul 2006 12:00 am
Iowa's laws restricting where sex offenders can live are causing some of them to reside at campgrounds around the state.
"Its not uncommon," Linn County Sheriff Don Zeller said. "We've had them in all of the county parks and some of the state parks."
Information about sex offenders at campgrounds has been forwarded to the Iowa State Association of Counties for consideration as a legislative priority.
Linn County Supervisor Linda Langston said a more specific sex offender classification system would help them re-enter society.
She said that a clearer system would distinguish between "true pedophiles" and young men who made a mistake with a younger girlfriend.
Man faces charges for fondling girl
Mike McWilliams
01 May 2006
Terry William Embree, 43, of 2254 S. Riverside Drive No. 55, was arrested Thursday for indecent contact with a child, an aggravated misdemeanor punishable by up to two years in prison and a $5,000 fine upon conviction.
Online court records show Embree received a suspended prison sentence, two years probation and a $500 fine last Thursday for an assault with intent to commit sexual abuse conviction in Iowa County.
Vet found to be sex offender; VA fires volunteer
Rachel Gallegos
29 Apr 2006 12:00 am
After receiving seven medals Wednesday for service during the Vietnam War, Melvin Tomas was fired from his volunteer position at the VA Iowa City Health Care System after information surfaced that he is a convicted sex offender.
"He was terminated" as of Friday afternoon after hospital officials "found out what was going on," VA hospital spokesman Kirt Sickels said.
Tomas was convicted May 6, 2004, for lascivious acts with a child. According to the Iowa Sex Offender Registry, the child was a female 13 years old or younger.
Legislature struggles with child-sex laws
Iowa lawmakers are making an 11th-hour bid to reach a compromise on measures to combat sex crimes against children.
Many legislators want to move forward with tougher penalties for certain first-time sex offenders. At the same time, county prosecutors have raised objections to the proposed mandatory minimum prison terms, as well as a controversial state law barring offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or child care center.
"We have to have some discretion in how we deal with these things. It just can't be a one-size-fits-all approach," said Polk County Attorney John Sarcone.
Iowa Sex Offender Arrested For Not Living Where Registered
Hahn was jailed on a bond of $6,500 and posted 10 percent on Thursday and was released.
An In-Depth Look at the Sex Offender Registry
Iowa and other states across the country restrict where sex offenders can live and work. But are we really worrying about the right group of criminals? There's a fear out there that sex offenders prey on random children. But, studies show about ninety-three percent of child sex abuse victims know their attacker.
Supreme Court says man must stay in sex treatment
The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled a man who suffers from a brain disorder that makes him "act out" sexually should stay in a state facility for sexual predators.
Judge Says “No” to Mental Evaluation
A central Iowa man accused of sexually exploiting his stepdaughters lost a court battle.
