SURVENT

I noticed another link on the WXYZ Channel 7 website and followed it. Reporter Heather Castallo provides even more information on what the police found in Raar's latest home. Check out this link to the full article. It was mentioned before that a strange room was found in his basement, but this description sounds kinda creepy.

When police raided Raar’s current home on Progress Avenue in Lincoln Park, they started to worry when they found another secure door.

Action News got exclusive access inside Raar’s basement to show you the metal door and the room behind it. The room appeared to be a storage closet, filled with old picture albums, knick-knacks, files, and jars.

Police told Action News, according to witnesses, there have been secure basement rooms in the last 3 houses Raar has lived in.

Near Ypsilanti, the current owners of one home said police have examined the extensive crawl space and said when they moved in there was a secure area, complete with walls and door, in a corner of the basement.

So now detectives want to know if those secure rooms were used to hide Raar’s pornography or were they used for something much worse.

He was questioned years ago when the Oakland children were killered but was not linked to the case. Now they are finding these horrible photos, videos and creepy rooms. It sure sounds like things are adding up to his being at least involved in the Oakland case. However, as WXYZ points out:

To date, Raar is not a suspect in that case, but police still want to know if Raar held children captive in those secure rooms because it’s long been believed that the child killer held his victims for several days in his home before killing them.

Can you feel the heat, Randall? Man it must be hot......

What is the most horrible thing about this case to me is that 1) Raar has been out there doing these terrible things for decades and 2) there are other people like him out there that have not been caught yet. Scary world and only getting scarier.

Posted by Lucent at 05:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (22)

There sure seems to be some growing interest in the Randall Raar case lately. I have been getting hits from people all over the world looking for info on Randall Raar and the Oakland County child killer case from the 1970's. This fan of child porn has been in court a few times lately related to charges for having said material, however, the fact that he may be a possible link to the 1970's Oakland child killer case has boosted interest in Raar.

It looks like Raar was in court again yesterday and some new charges were brought against him for "sexually assaulting a child." Check out the latest article written up at WXYZ Channel 7 News out of Southfield, MI. They have done great covering the court hearings, which is nice as people over here in West Michigan don't even hear about this story.

From their article:

A man who was once questioned in the Oakland County Child Killer case is now charged with sexually assaulting a child. Insiders in the case said they feel they’ve just scratched the surface and fear the latest sexual assault charge won’t be the last.

Randall Raar was back in front of a magistrate, Thursday, facing new accusations of sickening crimes. The Attorney General charged the 59-year-old with first degree criminal sexual conduct for assaulting a four-year-old girl years ago.

Thursday, Raar was also arraigned on a felony firearm charge.

The new charges are based on the statements from the woman who was in court at his last arraignment, April Shipley. At that time, Shipley told reporters that he "is the same man who forced himself onto her back in the early 1980’s, when the now 37-year-old was a teenager. [WXYZ]" See my post on this by following this link.

If you were a victim of Randall Raar's or know someone who was, please come forward or convince the victim to come forward. Any help authorities can get to support the case against him the better. Also, the more people the talk to that Raar has victimized, the more likely it may be for them to find a possible link to him and the 1970's killings.

I simply hope he is found guilty of all charges and sentenced to a lifetime stay in our warm and cozy prison system for the child porn and molestation of the 4 year old girl years ago alone. If found guilty of having molested Shipley and any other victims who hopefully come forward, I would say the death penalty would be fine, too. This man is evil and he needs to go. At least he is off the streets now........

Thanks again Channel 7 for following this case!

Posted by Lucent at 04:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A little while back I wrote a post about a woman who killed her baby by accidental suffocation when she passed out on the child due to being drunk. This story about a Corona, California woman ranks right up there on the ignorance scale.

A judge declared a mistrial Thursday in the case of a woman accused of killing her baby by nursing with methamphetamine-contaminated breast milk, a district attorney's spokeswoman said.

The jury deadlocked 6-6 in the case against the baby's mother, Amy Leanne Prien, said Ingrid Wyatt, spokeswoman for the Riverside County district attorney's office.

A woman on meth that was breastfeeding her child and the child died - I would think it would be an easy case of negligent manslaughter. Oh, there was a legal technicallity involved......

Prien said she woke up and found her son dead on January 19, 2002. Prosecutors argued that Prien, who had smoked meth for several years, had breast-fed the child after smoking even though she knew it could damage him.

Blood tests after her arrest showed the methamphetamine level in her blood within a potentially lethal range.

Her attorney, Joe Reichmann, however, argued that the charges were based on "make believe science" because authorities never tested her breast milk.

Someone should have tested her breastmilk when she was arrested. This is poor work on behalf of the arresting officers. Now, this woman will most likely be released from jail and go on to smoke more meth and kill another child. And given our sue-happy society and money-happy lawyers, Amy Leanne Prien will probably sue the system for keeping her detained for 3 years as she will not be found guilty. The sad part is that she will probably win.

According to the article:

The district attorney's office has until July 11 to decide whether to try the case again.

I doubt that they will based on this ruling overturn. Here's to hoping for justice to prevail somehow.......

Posted by Lucent at 01:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

MySpace announced last week that it will implement new security measures this week in an effort to protect children using the site from online predators. These new measures came under scrutiny and criticism even before the official announcement was made last week, as seen in this article on CNN. The article states:

Just this week, a 14-year-old girl who says she was sexually assaulted by a 19-year-old user sued MySpace and News Corp., seeking $30 million in damages. And earlier this month, a 16-year-old girl who tricked her parents into getting her a passport flew to the Mideast to be with a 20-year-old man she met through MySpace. U.S. officials in Jordan persuaded the teen to turn around and go home.

MySpace officials say the new restrictions have been long planned and are unrelated to recent events.

I think it is great that MySpace is trying to help stop online predators from reaching our children even though they do not have to. Is it part of their responsibility to society and their users to make these changes? Yes. But do they have to make these types of changes? No. Even though the new measures may not stop predators completely yet, they do make things more difficult for them. I am sure that MySpace will eventually be able to make it extremely difficult for predators to make it to our children, but for now, every bit of effort helps.

Following is an excerpt from one of multiple articles that was written last week by various sources after the MySpace changes were announced. They were again quick to point out the shortcomings of the new plans, but nowhere do I see anyone provide any productive solutions to the shortcomings.

MySpace users who are 18 or over could no longer request to be on a 14- or 15-year-old's friends' list unless they already know either the youth's e-mail address or full name. That means they won't have access to personal information on their profiles.

"They're going to lie about their ages," said Monique Nelson, executive vice president of online safety advocate Web Wise Kids. "There's no way to check age verification. In that respect, I don't think that's going to be very effective." [CNN]

Monique Nelson points out the obvious, but I do not see a suggestion from her as to how to implement changes that would thwart their lying.

Is making MySpace an adult only site in the future? I doubt it only because the teens that are being targeted by predators are also being targeted by advertisers and it is big money. The younger generation is a large marketing target as they spend more money than the typical adult. If MySpace were to deny them service, another site would pop up catering to them specifically. Protecting children on their site is a tough issue, but MySpace is trying to deal with it as they also want to protect their target market.

MySpace security director Hemanshu Nigam said Wednesday that the site, owned by News Corp., is committed to increasing online safety, particularly among 14 and 15 year olds.

"MySpace remains dedicated to a multi-pronged approach that also involves education and collaboration with law enforcement, teachers, parents and members," he said in a statement. [CNN]

As for cases such as the one mentioned above, where people are suing companies for their poor choices, I cannot believe that they are even be accepted by courts. This is a prime example of how America is becoming a country of people who lack of personal responsibility and continue to be sue happy. MySpace and News Corp (who purchased MySpace) are successful entities and the target of people looking to make a quick buck. My question is what normal parent agrees to obtain a passport for a 14 year old? I don't care if they say the girl tricked them. Why would you get your daughter a passport if you were not specifically planning a trip with her? And it then becomes the fault of these two successful companies that they were tricked and the girl left the country - how's that?

The fact of the matter is that the parents were obviously out of touch, with their daughter and the world in which she lives. In the end, the responsibility falls on the parents of these kids to ask the 5 W's that we all learned back in elementary school - Who, what, why, when and where. They need to be watching their children and know where they are going - online and off - and who they are associating with. If you are a parent and do not understand the Internet and the new world in which our children are living, then you need to ask someone who does to help explain it to you. Getting informed is the best way to protect your children from the world in which we all live.

Anyway, kudos to MySpace for at least trying to make a positive change. And as for those who prefer to criticize rather than offer productive solutions....shut the hell up. It is always easy to criticize, but the real challenge is to be productive and help develop solutions to strengthen existing weaknesses. Let's all keep up the efforts to protect our children as they need us now more than ever.

What are other bloggers saying? Click below to see:

Medialoper: My thoughts exactly!

InstaBLOKE: Are you a Communist, Bloke?

Slashdot

RealTechNews: Again, criticism with no suggestions.

Tea Leaves: Asks the question, "Are we ready for social networking?" Good question.

Posted by Lucent at 11:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)