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Man Charged After Text Message Escape
JEFFREY COLLINS
18 Sep 2006 3:27 am
A man suspected of kidnapping a 14-year-old girl and keeping her in an underground bunker was charged Sunday with raping the teen, Kershaw County Sheriff Steve McCaskill said.
Kershaw County Sheriff Steve McCaskill said Vinson Filyaw had eluded police with an elaborate system of hideouts and bunkers since November 2005 when he was charged with criminal sexual conduct on a 12-year-old girl.
Investigators arrested Filyaw in neighboring Richland County about 24 hours after rescuing the girl, who sent a text message to her mother on Filyaw's phone while he was a sleep Wednesday, McCaskill said. The sheriff said Filyaw woke up and the girl still had the phone, but she told him she was simply playing with the phone.
Investigators used cell towers to determine a general location of the phone and deputies began searching for Filyaw on Friday night. McCaskill said the girl cried out as searchers approached the bunker.
"This little lady getting that message out was really the break in the case," the sheriff said. "She helped herself as much as we helped her."
The girl was found Saturday about a mile from her home, hidden in a booby-trapped, 15-foot-deep hole carved out of the side of a hill and covered with plywood. The bunker had a hand-dug privy with toilet paper, a camp stove and shelves made with cut branches and canvas.
This is the second South Carolina case this year involving an abducted teenage girl taken to an underground hideout.
Kenneth Hinson of Hartsville is charged with kidnapping two 17-year- old girls March 14 and taking them to a closet-sized dungeon behind his home. Authorities said the girls freed themselves and walked to safety. Hinson was captured after a four-day manhunt.
Internet predator sentence faulted
SCHUYLER KROPF
16 Sep 2006 12:00 am
Attorney General Henry McMaster is criticizing what he said is a lenient sentence given to a Charleston Internet predator that did not include jail time.
Elliot A. Kohn, 26, was given five years of probation and 150 hours of community service Wednesday by Circuit Judge Markley Dennis after he pleaded guilty to three charges associated with soliciting sex from minors.
By comparison, the lightest jail sentence given in eight Internet predator cases prosecuted by the Attorney General's office that resulted in guilty pleas has been 90 days, McMaster said. Other defendants received sentences of several years, McMaster said.
Kohn was spared jail time after a forensic psychiatrist said he suffered various disorders but was not a pedophile. As a result of the sentence, Kohn must register as a sex offender and his movements around the community are limited. He cannot have contact with persons under 18, other than family.
Authorities say Kohn used explicit language in trying to set up meetings for sex with teenage girls, although no physical contact was made.
One of the girls was a city of Charleston police officer working undercover whom Kohn traveled to meet at an undisclosed location. The other was a 15-year-old girl from Clinton who opted not to appear at Kohn's sentencing to testify.
McMaster said he is concerned Kohn's sentence might affect sentences handed down in other Internet solicitation cases. At least 29 other such cases are awaiting prosecution, his office said.
McMaster wants to end parole
MEG KINNARD
07 Sep 2006 12:00 am
South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster told lawmakers Thursday that his plan to help reform the state's criminal justice system involves abolishing parole.
"There's a certain amount of people that there's not much you can do" to rehabilitate, McMaster told lawmakers attending the first meeting of the Criminal Justice System Task Force.
The panel, chaired by state Sen. Gerald Malloy, D-Hartsville, was appointed by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Glenn McConnell to identify problems within the state's criminal justice system. McConnell asked members of the committee to make legislative recommendations by December so he could bring those issues to the full committee in the new legislative session next year.
In 1995, then-Gov. David Beasley signed a bill into law abolishing parole for most serious crimes in South Carolina. The law, which took effect in January 1996, required that criminals convicted of felonies with at least a 20-year sentence must serve at least 85 percent of that sentence.
It's some of the other crimes not covered under that law that McMaster says he wants to tackle, like attempting a lewd act on a minor younger than 16 or the abuse and neglect of a vulnerable adult.
Prosecutors Seek Death Penalty Against Stanko
Jason Reynolds
13 Aug 2006 2:28 am
A jury has found Stephen Stanko guilty of killing his live-in girlfriend and raping a teenager last year.
Jurors deliberated just over two hours before finding the 38-year-old guilty on all counts, including murder, kidnapping and criminal sexual conduct.
The same jury will begin to hear testimony in the penalty phase on Monday.
Let's not shut eyes to cruelty
JOE DEPRIEST
11 Aug 2006 12:00 am
They're the invisible.
Living on the margins of society.
Mostly poor women and children, who don't speak English, forced to work in such places as fields, factories or brothels.
Victims of human trafficking are subjected to force, fraud or coercion, for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor, according to a federal government definition.
Earlier this year, in an effort to curb human trafficking in the Charlotte region, the FBI created a toll-free telephone number for the public to report human trafficking concerns.
The Observer has reported that FBI and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department investigators have said hundreds of Hispanic women are brought in and out of Charlotte every week. They work at more than a dozen brothels connected to sex-trafficking rings along the East Coast.
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services: Administration for Children and Families to Rescue & Restore Victims of Human Trafficking Web site is www.acf.hhs.gov/trafficking.
The FBI's 24-hour toll-free number to report human trafficking activities is 866-252-6850.
Sex Offender Charged With New Crime
Associated Press
01 Aug 2006 10:41 am
A registered sex offender arrested in Florida while traveling with five teens has been charged with a sex crime in Marion County.
Sheriff Mark Richardson says 18-year-old Allen Biddix will face one count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor when he is returned to South Carolina.
Mom denied new trial in son's death
Toya Graham
13 Jun 2006 1:05 am
Circuit Judge John C. Hayes denied Sharron Blaskey Jarrell's request for a new trial.
Jim Boyd, Jarrell's attorney, disagreed and plans to seek an appeal within 10 days of receiving a certified copy of Hayes' order.
During Jarrell's 1999 trial, several inmates testified that Jarrell helped molest her son and plotted to kill him. A pathologist also testified that scar tissue on the child's buttocks showed he had been sexually abused for several months and within 12 hours of his death.
Donald Jarrell Sr. pleaded guilty but mentally ill to sexually abusing and suffocating his son. Jarrell is serving two life sentences.
During Sharron Jarrell's hearing last month, several witnesses -- including inmates and a former inmate -- testified that several of the original prison inmate witnesses plotted to scheme against Jarrell in pursuit of reduced sentences.
Jury finds Wal-Mart not responsible for girl fondled in store
RICK BRUNDRETT
02 May 2006 12:00 am
Wal-Mart will continue to check for convicted sex offenders working in its stores, a company spokesman said Tuesday after the retail giant was vindicated in a related Richland County, S.C., civil case.
A jury found ruled Tuesday that Wal-Mart was not negligent in hiring and retaining Bobby Devon Randall, a registered sex offender who twice fondled a 10-year-old girl in a Supercenter in 2000.
"Mr. Randall's act was indecent," Steve Morrison of Columbia, one of Wal-Mart's lawyers, said after the verdict. "It's just that it was a situation where Wal-Mart didn't do anything to cause that to happen in that store."
Randall had three prior convictions for indecent exposure when he fondled the 10-year-old at the Forest Drive store the night of Sept. 25, 2000. He pleaded guilty in 2002 to the crime and later died in prison.
The girl's lawyer, David Massey of Columbia, told jurors they should consider awarding his client more than $5 million for long-term emotional distress.
The girl's mother, who filed the lawsuit in 2001, was visibly shaken after the verdict.
"They don't care about kids," she said, fighting back tears. "We need more people to stand up for what's right."
Massey said he would appeal.
"I'm absolutely shocked," he said. "I felt we met our burden under the law."
Need resources, laws to punish abusers
M. Elizabeth Ralston
29 Apr 2006 6:59 am
The Dee Norton Lowcountry Children's Center (DNLCC) has launched an "I Believe" campaign based on the position that child abuse is an adult problem.
With the help of many wonderful individuals, businesses and organizations, we are raising awareness about the issue of child abuse and the services available in our community. Together we are working to make our community a safer place for children.
Business expert calls Wal-Mart "irresponsible" in hiring sex offender
Jack Kuenzie
27 Apr 2006 9:02 pm
Bobby Randall's job application was described in court, "Under rate of pay expected, it's blank. Under the date you can start work it's blank. Under are you 18 years of age or older, nothing is checked."
But Wal-Mart hired Randall anyway, putting him to work at the store on Forest Drive in Columbia.
Business management expert William Anthony says that was the first in a series of Wal-Mart mistakes, "Well, the hiring process did not conform to Wal-Mart's policies. It was very sloppy and irresponsible, the way in which they hired him."
Several years later, Wal-Mart's failure to gather more information on Randall would come back to haunt the retailer. Randall followed a 10-year-old girl through the store, fondling her and himself.
In court, the attorney asked Dr. Anthony, "What should have been done with that application?"
Anthony responded, "It should have been rejected. It's quite clear in their policies. And if would have been rejected, we wouldn't be here today. Because he wouldn't have been hired."
The plaintiffs say Wal-Mart could have discovered Randall was a repeat sex offender. He had three convictions for exposing himself, one while he was an employee.
Uncle Kenny's dungeon inspires crackdown
Neighborhood teenagers called him Uncle Kenny, the wiry man whose trailer sat on a junk-strewn lot behind thick pines and a "No Trespassing" sign where the paved road turns to dirt.
Kenneth Glenn Hinson, 47, had no children but seemed to treat his neighbors' kids as if they were his own. He would pile them into his pickup truck for weekend outings at Johnson Lake and roast marshmallows with them during sleepovers at his home.
"My kids stayed down there, camped down there with him and cooked down there with him," said Donna McGee, who knew Hinson for four years. "Nobody ever suspected anything."
They didn't know that Hinson had spent nine years in prison for raping a 12-year-old girl in 1991. Or that 15 years later, he would be charged with another crime so outrageous that South Carolina lawmakers would test the constitutional limits of the death penalty by proposing the execution of repeat child rapists.
Greenville County Adds Charges Against Teacher Accused of Sexual Abuse
02 Mar 2006 6:02 am
New information tonight about shocking accusations against a local teacher. A second city is adding criminal charges onto previous sex abuse charges against a Laurens County woman.
SC debate over sex offenders touches on emotions
South Carolina could soon be the nation's second state to make some sex offenders eligible for the death penalty, but some opponents say there could be some dire consequences if the proposal passes.
Family worries as sex offender will move nearby
Jimmy Lee Bessant, who was sentenced to a year in prison after admitting he committed a lewd act on a child younger than 16, was released from prison Friday, the state Corrections Department said.
Bessant has told Corrections Department officials he plans to live on Jack Circle Road in North Myrtle Beach.
That is the same area where his victim, now 11 years old, lives. "I want it to be known that the victims of sex offenders should not have to go through this," the girl's mother told The (Myrtle Beach) Sun News. "He terrorized my daughter. She is going to counseling, and her grades went down."
Execution Proposed for Sex Offenders
Sex offenders who strike twice may want to think twice about their next attack. A proposed law would sentence them to death.
Judge Rationalizes Freeing Convicted Child Rapist, Against Recommendation of Review Committee
After serving nine years of a twenty year sentence for raping a twelve year old girl, Hinson was let loose, in spite of a review committee recommending he be confined indefinitely. Had Circuit Judge Edward Cottingham follwed this recommendation, Hinson would not have been able to kidnap, imprison and rape two teen girls this month.
Justifying his decision with hindsight, Judge Cottingham told reporters,
"I can't control what comes before me as a judge. Obviously I regret that these young children were raped by this man."
Suspect denied bail in dungeon rapes case
A magistrate denied bail Saturday for a convicted rapist charged with abducting two teenage girls and assaulting them in a hidden underground room behind his home.
... In 1991, Hinson had been convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl. Just before his release from prison in 2000, a review committee recommended he be committed indefinitely to a Department of Mental Health facility for treatment. But Circuit Judge Edward Cottingham rejected the recommendation, saying prosecutors failed to show that Hinson would likely offend again.
