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Police: Sex offender on school trip
Elizabeth Dinan
23 Sep 2006 12:00 am
An adult chaperone who accompanied school children on a field trip to Portsmouth this spring was court-ordered to stay away from children following his 1995 conviction for sexually assaulting a minor, according to state police.
Based on that allegation, Dennis Pratte, 49, of 81 Dame Road, Newmarket, was arrested by state police on a charge of prohibitions of child care services.
A former Newmarket police officer, Pratte was also arrested on charges of felonious sexual assault on a minor and for being a felon in possession of a weapon. Mitchell said a victim came to the state police Troop A barracks and alleged she was sexually assaulted by Pratte in 2003 while a minor. Pratte was arrested on the weapons charge, said Mitchell, for having a hunting bow and arrow in his home, while a convicted felon.
According to the state's sex offender registry, Pratte was convicted Jan. 4, 1995 on a charge of aggravated felonious sexual assault on a victim under the age of 13.
An April 3, 2001 state Appeals Court decision, on an unrelated matter, reveals Pratte's '95 conviction was for sexually assaulting a minor female, related to him by marriage.
Mitchell said he asked Pratte to turn himself at the Rockingham County House of Corrections Sept. 1, where he was arrested, then released on personal recognizance bail.
Web vigilantes nab suspect
LAUREN R. DORGAN
02 Sep 2006 8:00 am
An online vigilante group helped the police net a 23-year-old Loudon man who traveled to Belmont yesterday planning to have sex with a 13-year-old girl he met online, the police said.
A group called Perverted Justice, best-known for partnering with Dateline NBC for a series called "To Catch a Predator," aided in the investigation, Belmont Police Chief Vinnie Baiocchetti said.
Founder Xavier Von Erck said that Perverted Justice volunteers don't initiate chat sessions and don't usually do much to get would-be predators to take the conversation in a sexual direction.
"Usually, we don't have to do much, except say, 'Hey I'm 13 and I'm female and I'll talk to you,' and they'll lead the dance," Von Erck said.
In this case, the chatting started in July and started to get "heavy" about Aug. 20, with near-daily correspondence, Von Erck said. Perverted Justice took its transcripts to the Belmont Police Department a little more than a week ago, and the set-up plan went from there.
The group's stings have led to 73 convictions to date; 260 more arrests are awaiting trial, Von Erck said.
"We want parents to be aware of who their kids are chatting with,"Baiocchetti said. "We want kids to understand that who they think they might be chatting with may not be who they say they are."
10 to 20 years for rapist
RUSS CHOMA
24 Aug 2006 12:00 am
John Martel, 37, of 237 Riverdale Ave., was found guilty during an April jury trial. The charge stems from what prosecutors called a "pattern of activity" throughout 1994 and 1995, involving a girl who was 14 and 15 at the time.
Yesterday morning, prosecutors described how Martel began a relationship with the victim after she ran away from the foster home she had been placed in after her step-father sexually abused her. Rockingham County Assistant County Attorney Patricia Conway said Martel provided the girl with alcohol, took advantage of her, and then emotionally manipulated her throughout a multi-year relationship.
"When they met, she was 14, he was 26," Conway said.
Immediately after receiving his sentence, Martel began screaming obscenities at the victim. His words were audible even after he was pulled from the courtroom by sheriff's deputies.
"He's angry - they made him this angry," Sen. Martel said loudly, after his son was led away.
During the hearing, Conway detailed several particularly brutal sexual acts prosecutors believe were part of a "pattern of activity" on the part of John Martel.
"The defendant used the foster care system to commit a crime - that is just inexcusable," she said. "He is a predator."
Rockingham County Superior Court Judge Tina Nadeau accepted the state's recommendation for 10 to 20 years in state prison after rejecting attempts to portray Martel in a positive light - including testimony from his current girlfriend, his aunt, who is a nun, and his father.
"You abused her and you manipulated her," Nadeau said. "You engaged in acts that are absolutely not normal and distorted this woman's childhood."
The activity Martel was being sentenced for yesterday occurred when he and the victim lived in Derry. However, Martel also faces eight other felonious sexual assault charges - including seven aggravated - in Hillsborough County Superior Court for activity that occurred in Manchester. Three of those charges stem from an incident or pattern of activity involving one other victim, a teenager whom Martel allegedly had sex with while she slept. According to Rockingham County prosecutors, Martel has filed a notice of intent to plead guilty to those charges, and is scheduled for a plea and sentencing hearing on Sept. 20 in Hillsborough District Court.
Justice finally served in 20-year-old murder
22 Aug 2006 8:00 am
With his guilty plea yesterday, Windhurst, of Hopkinton, admitted that as a 17-year-old he went to Hooksett, took aim from a distance and, as Paquette worked in his yard, fired the single gunshot that killed him. Windhurst had denied his involvement at the time and for 20 years lived with the secret of what had happened.
Also living with the secret was Paquette's then-15-year-old stepdaughter, Melanie. Only two years ago, she recanted her previous claim that she and Windhurst had been elsewhere at the time of the shooting, disclosing that she was with Windhurst when he fired the shot. She has agreed to plead guilty to a felony charge of misleading authorities and may face several years in prison herself.
How many others shared the secret is one of the questions unlikely to be answered now that Windhurst will not go to trial.
In preparing for a trial, Windhurst's lawyers asserted that Paquette had sexually abused his stepdaughter, suggesting that Windhurst had acted to protect her. Judge Lynn was not inclined to allow Windhurst to make a formal claim of self-defense, but that's not to say some jurors wouldn't have come to view Windhurst's action as justifiable.
More troubling was an 11th-hour claim by those prosecutors that Windhurst was driven by a history of sexual abuse in his own family. This claim was not only untested in court, but indeed too old to be tested because of a statute of limitations. That Windhurst's plea quickly followed, though not surprising, doesn't trivialize the decision to make public an allegation that will now just linger, neither substantiated nor refuted.
Twenty-one years later, even Windhurst may not know what tortured thoughts and horrible illogic swirled inside his head the day he decided to kill a man he had never met. At this point it really doesn't matter. What he did was wrong, and no longer will he escape the consequence.
Brother wants answers
LAUREN R. DORGAN
01 Aug 2006 8:00 am
Thirty-five years have passed since 13-year-old Kathy Lynn Gloddy was brutally raped, killed and left nearly naked on a dirt road in West Franklin. No one has ever been arrested for the crime. Numerous theories have come and gone over the years, but her older brother said he's sure of two things.
"I know that there was more than one person involved," said Roger Gloddy, 56, now a businessman in Colorado. "I know that there was a cover-up. . . . They weren't stupid, they weren't ignorant, they were just evil."
In an interview, he also remembered his sister as a sweet-natured but tough tomboy who would have fought hard against any attackers.
Last week, investigators exhumed Kathy Lynn Gloddy's body from St. John's Cemetery in Tilton, hoping that new forensic evidence would solve the crime. The state's chief medical examiner and a forensic anthropologist from Maine have examined the body for clues, but DNA tests could take several weeks to complete.
An unexpected break in the case came this March, when a Florida sex offender walked into his local jail and told sheriff's deputies that he was with Gloddy when she died, according to a police report.
Vadney plea means at least 45 years in prison
NICHOLAS COATES
19 Jul 2006 12:00 am
Shane Vadney, accused of sexually assaulting 12 children while he worked as a teacher’s aide at a city day care center, pleaded guilty yesterday and will spend at least the next 45 years in state prison.
According to Hillsborough County Attorney Marguerite Wageling, the deal came after weeks of discussions between her office and Vadney’s attorney, Adam Bernstein of Nashua.
"You get to a fork in the road where you have to decide if you are going forward with a trial or are going toward a deal," said Wageling. "When the number of motions were filed a few weeks ago, it spurred on conversations about which path we were going down."
"Mr. Vadney decided what he wanted was some closure and the deal allowed him to have that,” said Bernstein. “This is a 22-year-old man with no criminal past. In no way am I minimizing the allegations, the convictions now, certainly they are egregious, but it took a lot for him to accept responsibility for his actions and bring this to a close.”
Sex-offender registry should remain public
29 Apr 2006 12:00 am
Legislatures across the country have established online sex offender registries based on the high rate of recidivism within this criminal class and because most of these crimes are committed against the most vulnerable members of our society – our children.
There were those who fought the enactment of these registries, focusing on the civil rights of the convicted perpetrators and the fear that posting the names, addresses and photos of these offenders could lead to vigilantism.
However, state lawmakers recognized that the threat to society these criminals posed far outweighed the damage to their privacy or the possibility of retribution, and they passed these laws.
And despite what happened in Maine recently, we believe those lawmakers made the right decision.
Undercover civilians luring potential child predators online
Ken Maguire
28 Apr 2006 12:00 am
This was Stacey DeLuca's plan: Chat online with child predators while pretending to be a young girl. Just a few hours.
House committee supports strengthening sex predator laws
A panel of legislators has given initial approval to a bill that would strengthen New Hampshire's laws dealing with child-sex offenders.
But legislators got rid of a section forbidding sex offenders from living near schools, day-care centers and parks. They also removed a provision allowing prosecutors the option of seeking a 25-year sentence for a first offense, which Gov. John Lynch and Attorney General Kelly Ayotte supported.
It's time to get tough with child molesters
Too often these predators get off much too lightly with sentences that allow them to roam the streets of our towns and cities in search of other innocent victims.
