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Windwhisper


Cloud Element Leader, Flaimewolf

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Sad news
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Here is the news section where you may post sad and tragic news.

Missing girl: Divers conduct search in lake

By Wilson Ring The Associated Press June 28, 2008


BROOKFIELD The search for a missing 12-year-old girl broadened Friday as the FBI joined in and police investigators turned to officials at MySpace.com, the online social networking site through which she had been communicating with an unknown person before her disappearance.

A day after her disappearance triggered Vermonts first Amber Alert, investigators focused on someone Brooke Bennett might have met online, the head of the Vermont State Police said.

This case is about a MySpace visitation, Col. James Baker said. Our focus is on the communications Brooke may have had via that media.

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Police are asking for help from the public. Anyone who was in Randolph on Wednesday morning is asked to call the state police, even if they dont think they saw anything significant, Baker said. Theyre especially interested in talking with people in a convenience store at the same time Brooke and her uncle were there.

Brooke, of Braintree, vanished Wednesday after being dropped off at about 9 a.m. at the Cumberland Farms store in Randolph, where she was supposedly going to meet a friend and then go to a hospital to visit a relative of the friend.

She was seen in Randolph as late as 9:45 and possibly later, Baker said.

Police believe Brooke was not planning to meet a friend and that she might have been going to meet someone shed been communicating with online. Video from an interior surveillance camera at the store released Friday showed the girl and her uncle walk into the store and then leave, each going in separate directions, with Brooke walking away by herself.

She was seen about 45 minutes later inside the Randolph Village Laundromat, police said.

Baker wouldnt say whether she was alone at that point, nor would he say whether police suspect foul play.

We dont know if Brooke left with someone voluntarily. We dont know if Brooke is in another state camping and has no idea that this whole thing is going on, Baker said. Were not ready to say that she was kidnapped, but we made the decision yesterday to put that Amber Alert out, take a very liberal interpretation of what kidnap meant.

Brooke was reported missing about 9 p.m. Wednesday, and an Amber Alert was issued Thursday.

Friday, state police dive teams searched Sunset Lake, near where items belonging to Brooke were found Thursday by a family member. Baker said the divers found nothing.

Meanwhile, investigators from the Vermont State Police, FBI and other agencies were trying to track Brookes movements after she was dropped off by her uncle and cousin.

During the day Friday, the FBI brought in agents from New England and experts in behavioral science from Quantico, Va.

A major focus of the investigation was centered on her online activities.

As we all know, warnings have gone out countless times, in this world that we live in today, there are folks that visit places, social networking spaces such as MySpace, whose intentions are not good. And they come from far away, Baker said.

Baker said the Amber Alert wasnt issued sooner because investigators had to determine whethe her disappearance met the criteria for one. Officials didnt decide to issue the alert until they knew the MySpace activity could be related to it, he said.

Baker said MySpace officials who posted the Amber Alert on their Web site were being helpful.

MySpace takes the safety of our users very seriously, its chief security officer, Hemanshu Nigam, said in a statement released by the company. We are assisting the Vermont State Police Department and cannot comment any further as it is an ongoing investigation.

Associated Press writer John Curran in Montpelier contributed to this report.

Keeping kids safe online

By Joel Banner Baird
Free Press Staff Writer



Networked online, few keystrokes separate strangers. In a matter of seconds, the easy intimacy of acronyms can bring together lonely hearts or a sexual predator closer to prey.

Whats to keep LOL (laughing out loud) from progressing to KPC (keeping parents clueless)? Or TDTM (talk dirty to me) into LMIRL (lets meet in real life)?

Police investigators have struggled to piece together the online correspondence that prompted Brooke Bennett, 12, of Braintree to arrange a meeting Wednesday with an apparent stranger.

Among the strategies to prevent such meetings, the most useful ones are decidedly low-tech, says Gary Kessler, who teaches digital forensics at Champlain College.

You show an interest in kids lives, and you communicate those interests, he said Friday. It comes down to what kind of relationship you have with your kids. As outreach coordinator for the Vermont Internet Crimes Task Force, Kessler explores with communities how best to guide virtual encounters.

He speaks from personal experience.

Ive never been an advocate for logging where my kids go or filtering what they see because ultimately, theyll just leave the house and use another computer, he said. I keep a computer where we can watch what theyre looking at. When they reach a certain age, we can discuss what the risks are.

Youre not monitoring them, he continued. Youre just trying to be their parent. When a kid is ready to drive, we dont just hand them the keys, do we?

Kessler said young people, often more trusting and impulsive than adults, are vulnerable to quick invitations of intimacy. And they can be cavalier with personal information.

We warn kids to be careful around strangers, but we dont always define what a stranger is, he said. Anyone you meet online is a stranger.

Anonymity emboldens the timid, said Burlington Police Chief Michael Schirling, whose department coordinates statewide efforts to solve and prevent Internet crimes against children.

Its an inherent hazard on the Web, and works both ways, Schirling said. The youth population enjoys playing at different personas because its fun or cool. Offenders leverage anonymity and lie about their own identities.

Its a dangerous combination, he continued. People say things to each other without having to overcome the fear of getting to know them. The Internet shouldnt be the social surrogate of society.

Experts on missing children say the Internet can be a dangerous place.

The reality is that the Internet is the predators new playground. They dont have to lurk in bushes anymore; they can lurk in cyberspace, said Marc Klaas, founder of the Klaaskids Foundation of Sausalito, Calif.

It enables them to create any kind of a fantasy or fake life they want so they can use their well-honed manipulative skills to get close to the particularly vulnerable, said Klaas, whose 12-year-old daughter, Polly Klaas, was abducted from a slumber party in 1993 and later found slain.

Bob Hoever, associate director of training for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said child abductions related to the Internet are on the rise.

The publics help can be key in solving them.

When a child disappears, its like trying to find a needle in a haystack, he said.

The more eyes and ears we have out there looking, the smaller that haystack becomes. Thanks to public help, 400 children have been safely rescued and returned to their families specifically because of the Amber Alert program and the publics help.

Parents should learn more about online networking ideally from their children so they can discuss links between virtual and live behavior, Kessler said.

People have met on the Internet and theyve developed good relationships, he said. Theyve gotten married, theyve made great friends. It happens, but it doesnt happen every time.

Its not the same as being introduced to strangers by a trusted third party, he added. And its not a reason to travel to where they are, certainly not alone.


The Associated Press contributed to his report. Contact Joel Banner Baird at 660-1843 or joelbaird@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com. A more complete and more explicit glossary of online acronyms can be found at www.NetLingo.com.		 

photo

TOBY TALBOT, The Associated Press

Searchers hug each other Friday as they look for missing 12-year-old Brooke Bennett of Braintree along a road in Brookfield. Verīmont State Police divers searched Sunset Lake on Friday, where a family member found items belonging to the girl Thursday.

Social safety

Three prevention strategies for steering kids into safer social surfing:

EXPLORE online social networking the etiquette and the technology; its an opportunity to learn together.
EXAMINE the truth (and the opportunities for deception) behind online claims.
DISCUSS the very real risks of releasing personal information to strangers. Source: American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry: www.aacap.org

More News headlines

Latest headlines



-- Edited by Starlight at 23:29, 2008-07-03

-- Edited by Starlight at 23:30, 2008-07-03

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Starlight


Cloud Element Deputy, Flaimewolf

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Police have discovered the body of Brooke Bennett near a sugarhouse off a country road in Randolph.



BROOKE'S BODY FOUND



By Sam Hemingway Free Press Staff Writer July 2, 2008

The affidavit was released today prior to an initial appearance for Raymond A. Gagnon, Brookes former stepfather, on federal charges of obstruction of justice on allegations of destroying evidence in the investigation into Brookes disappearance.

Juvenile 1 told authorities that the she and Brooke returned with Jacques to his home on East Bethel Road in Randolph, where the girls watched TV. Juvenile 1 said she understood that Bennett would be taken into the Breckenridge program that day, and that she would have sex with adult males, Rachek wrote.

Jacques eventually asked Bennett to go upstairs in the house with him. Juvenile 1 did not see Bennett again. She soon left the home at Jacques direction.

According to the affidavit, a posting to Brookes page on the Internet social networking site MySpace was made from Jacques laptop computer at 11:40 p.m. June 24 nearly 10 hours before Brooke was seen at the convenience store. The post was edited from the same computer 15 minutes later and again 10:36 p.m. June 25 about 90 minutes after her family reporter her missing.

During this last log in, the time of the posting was manually changed to June 25, 2008, at 7:46 a.m., Rachek wrote. The post using common Internet vernacular suggested Brooke intended to meet an unnamed person for the purpose of a sexual liaison and that she planned to run away to Texas. My mom will kill me, but then Im going 2 Texas and she will get over it, the post said, as quoted in the affidavit.

Law enforcement believes that this posting was made to make it appear that Bennett was abducted by someone she met on the internet or communicated with on the internet.

The MySpace page was again accessed at 11:18 p.m. and 11:25 p.m. June 25 from a computer at the home Gagnon, 40, rents in San Antonio. The blog was edited from this location, Rachek wrote. Gagnon later told police that Jacques gave him the user name and password June 25 and that Gagnon logged in and changed the user name and password.

He denied changing any blog posting information, the affidavit said.

Gagnons actions prompted the federal obstruction of justice charge. He is being held pending a detention hearing in federal court Tuesday.

Federal prosecutors said in court papers they plan to bring additional charges against Gagnon based on his statements to investigators, including:

Gagnon told law enforcement that in June 2007 he and Jacques engaged in sex with Juvenile 1. Gagnon said Jacques sent him digital photos of Juvenile 1 and her boyfriend engaged in sexual acts and that Gagnon stored those photos in a safe. Gagnon admitted he has downloaded a vast amount of child pornography from the Internet, including images of children as young as 5 and that he stores the images on his laptop computer and on hard drives in his safe. The affidavit said Gagnon called his landlord in San Antonio at 3 a.m. Monday with instructions to dispose of the safe. The landlord, Kevin Grosenheider, said he did not know what the safe contained but that he presumed it was child pornography. Grosenheider told police he threw the safe into a Dumpster at an apartment complex in San Antonio. Police were unable to retrieve the safe.



This was one Screwed up Sick Joke! (i don't consider screwed a bad word )


Comment and tell me what you think about these two articles (This includes Missing, and Found.)

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