Welcome to the Jungle: US Military Psychological Operations

youtube.com/

 

"Interesting background on how US Psychological Operations are used domestically. Covers Rumsfeld's Information Operations Roadmap and current Pentagon plans to create a digital 'parallel universe/' to test PSYOP." 

American Beauty Epilogue

We started this article with a description of the fascism that underlies contemporary foreign policy in America. Underlying so much of neo-conservative antics is the foundation of “Christian” fundamentalism which is currently spiked with a toxic rabble of “End Timers” and Christian Zionists. Their task is to usher in Armageddon for the Second Coming of Christ and thus, as they see it, their inevitable “Rapture.” Israel is seen as the holy battleground and the New Crusade that will see a New Temple arise from the inaugurated flames.

The backbone of Christian “rearmament” has been steadily fusing with the neo-conservative Nazi roots and Cheney-esque material opportunism. Yet another Club which has grown into a comprehensive cabal is “The Fellowship” which had its beginnings in the 1930s care of spellbinding Norwegian immigrant and Methodist minister, Abraham Verified.  According to journalist Wayne Madsen: “The Fellowship has been around under various names since 1935. Its stealth existence has been perpetuated by its organization into small cells, a pyramid organization of ‘correspondents,’ ‘associates,’ ‘friends,’ ‘members,’ and ‘core members,’ tax-exempt status for its foundations, and its protection by the highest echelons of our own government and those abroad.”

Now thought to straddle the Bush administration and Congress, it is the new militant Army that exerts near total control over the United States executive, its legislature and several state governments. The federal judiciary and the U.S. Supreme Court are sure to follow, while its influence in high-level international affairs continues to expand.

Many top level members of the military are in its thrall appealing to the spellbinders and psychopaths that fancy a bit of messianic deliverance upon their enemy. Some of these members include those for whom sexual abuse and torture are part of God’s will for the New American Israel, such as former Joint Chiefs Chairman General David Jones, former Marine Corps Commandant and current NATO commander General James L. Jones, Lt. Gen. Bruce Fister, the former head of the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command, Iran-contra figure Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, current Joint Chiefs chairman General Richard Myers, and Army Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin, the military head of Defence Secretary Rumsfeld’s intelligence branch who went on to create the torture and sexual molestation of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay.  

The Fellowship is another strand in the ponerization of government and nation. It seeks to present itself as a religious fraternity when it is nothing more than cult of political control working in tandem with other factions for totalitarian government. It is another tool for the Pathocracy that wears the mask of fundamentalist doctrine to advance its cause. Like other nested military-intelligence cults Fellowship members believe that the New World Government should consist of the Christian elect that will rise from the ashes of the coming conflagration and established God’s dominion on Earth. Like the Nazism that thrived in Germany on the tinder of economic strife and same predilection to fantasy and wishful-thinking so present in contemporary America we have a profound infection deep in the heart of the once proud republic. 

The only way to stop the pathways of such mass pathology from further infection is to become informed and use our voices. The same heritage from which the Fellowship draws its succour is a call to everyone one of us be we Christian or atheist, democrat or republican professional or student to read the Signs of the Times and to hear the alarms bells ringing all around us. History, given half the chance, will repeat itself if the collective memory is short and more importantly if it is lulled into a false sense of security by the very same forces who have everything to gain from such compliance.

Hitler planned for a “Thousand Year Reich” over the planet. It is not a coincidence that  the so-called Christian dominionists/reconstructionists now contemplate a thousand year reign. The Christian dominionists are the political heirs of Hitler, the Norwegians Vereide and Quisling, Buchman, Opus Dei founder and fascist patron saint Josemaria Escriva and their political and religious cohorts . 

American Beauty Part VI

The Franklin Cover-Up

Originally filmed as a documentary about the Franklin Cover-Up for the U.K.’s Yorkshire television, Conspiracy of Silence was pulled prior to airing due to immense pressure from the US government. All recordings were thought to be destroyed. Luckily, some bright spark saved a copy on U-matic tape format which eventually found its way to the internet. The quality is poor and some brief frames are missing but the story stands as a powerful piece of documentary film-making.

The raiding of the Franklin Community Credit Union in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1989, led to a series of investigations which led to much more than the revelation of money-laundering. The probe culminated in a scandal involving the systematic abuse of young girls and boys by officials in government, entertainment and the media and right up to the Whitehouse and Bush Sr.’s Oval door.

Washington D.C. and other cities were connected to Omaha and which acted as the clearinghouse for the massive numbers of children involved in the high-level abuse. Children were used as “drug mules” in order to sexually compromise politicians and other prominent and powerful people around the country. In other words, it was another example of sexpionage - the American way.

The Franklin Cover-Up, 1  now in its second edition, was written by John De Camp a former Nebraska State senator and ex-Vietnam veteran. Decamp recounts his continuing fight to defend two victims of the paedophile sex ring: Paul Bonacci and Alicia Owen, the only ones left to speak up about the abuse. (Bonacci also claims to have been involved in the kidnapping of Johnny Gosch/Guckert/Gannon which we will explore presently). All other victims have been either murdered, suicided or silenced with threats and intimidation. Other victims have not contemplated coming forward due to the nature of the abuse and the shame and guilt it induces. Understandably, they did not have the courage or strength. With 15-30 recorded suspicious deaths linked to the case it is hardly surprising.

One particular death which had the calling card of the CIA was that of Gary Caridori who was killed the night before he was about to testify. A careful and meticulous pilot, he was flying back from Chicago when his private plane blew up in mid-air, killing his little boy with him. No cause has been determined. As so many cases with distinct governmental connections suspicious deaths seem to be mandatory when so-called investigations ensue.  A list of some of the known deaths connected to the Franklin case follows:

(1.) BILL BAKER. He was a restaurant owner in Omaha, and a partner of Larry King in homosexual pornography operations. He was found shot in the back of the head.

(2.) SHAWN BONER. Brother of victim-witness Troy Boner, he died of a gunshot wound from 'Russian Roulette.'

(3.) GARY CARADORI. Chief investigator for he legislative Franklin Committee, Caradori told associates days before his death that he had information that would 'blow this case wide open.' He died when his plane crashed on July 11, 1990.

(4.) ANDREW 'A.J.' CARADORI. Died at the age of 8, in the plane crash with his father.

(5.) NEWT COPPLE. A confidential informant for Caradori and his investigative firm, Copple was a key behind-the-scenes activist fighting the cover-up of the Franklin case. Son of Commonwealth Savings owner S.E. Copple, businessman in his own right, an ex-champion wrestler with no prior health problems and parents who lived into their late eighties and nineties, Copple suddenly 'died in his sleep' in March 1991, at the age of 70." (Ibid.; p. 250.)

(6.) CLARE HOWARD. The former secretary of Alan Baer, who arranged Baer's paedophile trysts, Howard 'died in her sleep' in 1991.

(7.) MIKE LEWIS. A former caregiver for victim-witness Loretta Smith. He died of a 'severe diabetic reaction' at the age of 32.

(8.) JOE MALEK, associate of Larry King and owner of Peony Park, where homosexual galas were held. His death from gunshot was ruled a suicide.

(9.) AARON OWEN, the brother of victim-witness Alisha Owen. He was found hanged in his cell in Lincoln, Nebraska, hours before one of his sister's court appearances.

(10.) CHARLIE ROGERS. A reputed homosexual partner of Larry King, Rogers said that he feared for his life, in the days before his death. His head was blown off with a shotgun, in what was ruled a suicide.

(11.)   DAN RYAN, an associate of Larry King. He was found strangled or suffocated in a car.

(12.) BILL SKOLESKI. An officer in the Omaha Police Department who was believed to be keeping a file on Larry King, he died of a heart attack.

(13.)  KATHLEEN SORENSON. The foster parent for Nelly and Kimberly Webb after they fled the home of Larry King's relatives, Jarrett and Barbara Webb, she was an outspoken activist against Satanism.

(14.)  CURTIS TUCKER. An associate of Larry King, he fell or jumped out of the window of the Holiday Inn in Omaha.

(15.)  HARMON TUCKER. A school superintendent in Nebraska and Iowa, a reputed homosexual, his death had signs of satanic ritual murder. He was found dead in Georgia, near the plantation which Harold Andersen and Nebraska-Iowa FBI chief Nicholas O'Hara used for hunting."  

(16.)  BILL COLBY. One time director of the CIA and according to De Camp, the "heart and soul of the Franklin Case" 2

 After the full extent of financial corruption Franklin Community Credit Union became clear, further probing revealed that the recently released from prison GOP operative Lawrence E. “Larry” King Jr. allegedly hired photographers to capture legislators and high officials in acts of child rape and molestation. King had not only participated in financial fraud but supervised the running of these paedophile operations in which hundreds of children were systematically abused. According to De Camp:

At the Dallas [GOP] convention in 1984, King threw his splashy party at Southfork Ranch, remembered by me and many other delegates as an unparalleled extravaganza. According to several victim-witnesses, he also arranged some private events during the convention. They recall being flown to Dallas, to be sexually used by convention-goers. Gary Caradori mapped the recollections of the Webb foster children in his notes of February 1990:

 ‘During this visit [the children’s aunt] Marcy informed [social worker] Joanie that [the youngest Patterson Webb sister] Kendra had told her she had been transported around the country several times, she thought to Texas and Louisiana. Marcy remembered Texas in particular, and a Republican Convention because one of the children, possibly Kendra, had a book of matches from Texas and that is how the children had known where they were at. Joanie stated she remembered that the children had been exploited sexually in Texas, and she indicated that it was [the] feeling this activity had been occurring for several years.’ […]

I was later to learn from Paul Bonacci, that he was also at the famed Southfork party. He described it for me in exact detail, some seven years after the party took place. He had been here for the purpose of providing sexual favors for people Larry King wanted to accommodate, satisfy, or compromise. Paul said he was one of a troop of teenaged boys and girls, whom King had shipped to Dallas for his purposes. 3

Alicia Owen is a particularly tragic symbol of modern day America’s wholly corrupt justice system. Before Decamp became her attorney, a court case was held and which resulted in Ms. Owen refusing to recant and being charged with perjury and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Of course, it represented yet another whitewash. Ms. Owen’s testimony concerning forced sexual activities with highly placed officials from law enforcement to government did not go down well.

Having been abused for most of her life, Alicia Owen was now branded a criminal for telling the truth. In Decamp’s words: “This girl never went out looking for somebody to tell her story to. Somebody got her name and went to see her and offered her immunity. Alicia was told that if she didn’t tell what happened that she would really be in deep trouble. So she told it all and the next thing she knew, she was the one being charged.”

What further compounds the misery of all the victims and the freedom of the abusers is that “King went to prison for embezzlement, conspiracy and making false financial record entries...there was no trial on any other charges, and the evidence of child prostitution and abuse perpetrated by King was never presented in any court.”4

On February 5, 1999, in U.S. District Court in Lincoln, Nebraska, Paul Bonacci’s civil action was successful. He was awarded $1,000. 000 dollars in damages in a US court of law. Judge Warren K. Urbom ordered Lawrence King - who was then serving his sentence in Federal prison - to pay the $1 million in damages in what amounted to a clear vindication of the evidence presented. Alicia Owen was released from prison but, according to Noreen Gosch she “…is keeping a very low profile. She’s terribly scared since her brother was murdered as a warning to her to keep her mouth shut. She does not do any interviews. Her parents will not do interviews. They live in fear.”

This brings us back to James Gannon, aka James Guckert or perhaps Johnny Gosch, a paperboy who disappeared on Sept. 5, 1982, in West Des Moines, Iowa. Mrs. Gosch can’t be certain that Guckert is one and the same, but she would understandably like to know. 5

After being ignored by the local police, the FBI and Department of Criminal Investigation in Iowa she decided to hire private investigators that provided her with some interesting tit-bits of information. However it was to be the press conference she held back in 1982, way before the heat from the Franklin affair was to hit the headlines, albeit in muted fashion. She received her first death threat which confirmed to her that she was tapping into the same Franklin cover-up from a different direction to DeCamp. She was told: “Stop making waves or you are going to die.” In 1997 she believes Johnny Gosh then 24 years-old, paid her a visit:

There was a knock at my door at about 2:30 a.m. I went to the door and I could see through the peephole that there was a young man outside. I said, “Who’s there?” He said, “It’s me, mom. It’s Johnny.” I could see that there was someone with him, but I let them in. I don’t know who the other young man was. I asked, but he declined to tell me. Johnny would have been about 24 years old at this point.

What did he tell you?

It was very emotional. I asked if I could call someone to come and help us, thinking that he was home to stay. But Johnny was so terrified. He said, “You don’t understand. You can’t call anyone. No one can know that I’ve been here. If you do, my life is in danger and yours might be, too. They will kill me for what I know.’

Instead of pushing this issue, I said to myself, ‘No, I’m going to let him talk and tell me what’s happened.’ So, during our hour-and-a-half time that we had together. I learned a lot. I asked him names of people. I asked him how they did their organization. What type of things did they do? What methods did they use to traffic in children?

He was here in 1997, but I kept silent for two years and didn’t tell anyone about his visit until 1999 when I was on the witness stand testifying for Paul Bonacci in his civil case. But what I had done in the meantime was to make an appointment with the county attorney. I went in and told him that I had information from an informant. I gave the county attorney the names of the people involved and how the organization worked and asked him to begin an investigation. I did not tell him that the informant was my son.

Did the county attorney investigate?

No, he said that he would not. The only reason he gave was that I would have to somehow convince my informant to turn himself in and be a part of the witness protection program and that they “might” be able to give my informant (Johnny) immunity for any crimes he may have committed during his captivity.

I looked at the county attorney and said, ‘They ‘might’ be able to give him immunity? That doesn’t work for me.’ He responded, ‘Well, you’re going to have to turn over the boy.’ I said, ‘I don’t have the boy.’ I didn’t tell him that it was Johnny, but I did tell him that ‘the informant” had told me that Johnny was still alive.

I said to the county attorney: ‘I came here to share information with you as I always have. This way I can never be charged with withholding information. If you choose not to investigate, that’s up to you. I will continue my investigation as I always have.’ 6

The self-professed CIA agent Paul Bishop who miraculously appeared on the scene in 1984 to “assist” Noreen Gosch during the period of his disappearance, himself disappeared from the Gosch’s lives in 1985 without a word. He reappeared under arrest in February 4th, two weeks before Gannongate. He was reportedly charged with possessing obscene material.

The CIA asset may have been assigned to monitor the situation while genuinely wanting to help the Gosch family. The latter is unlikely however. Whether he was warned off initially and set-up once again is anyone’s guess. To have such a flurry of events taking place around the subject of child prostitution and exploitation all in one month suggests that someone, somewhere was trying to put out a fire.

Meanwhile, Gosch has self-published a book Why Johnny can’t come home which details the events surrounding her son’s disappearance. She also spoke in court in support of Bonacci singling out in particular U.S. Army Lt. Col. Michael Aquino (ret) as a primary mover in the paedophile ring that abducted her son, Johnny Gosch. She established a clear link that the military was involved which was mirrored in the high profile Presidio Affair several years previously.

Returning to De Camp’s book (while the second edition is said to have some factual inaccuracies) the consistent, on the ground confirmation of the victims’ testimonies is compelling. De Camp illustrates the nature of King’s parties and how many of the dignitaries and officials were a mixture of the complicit and the clueless. It seems homosexual blackmailing operations were part of a tag team between Craig Spence and Larry King who were also previous business partners. De Camp also includes suggestions that King was involved with arms shipments and procurements. Arms and slavery seem always seem to merge somewhere down the line:

When Craig Spence turned up dead—a suicide, police were quick to say—in a Boston hotel room, in November 1989, it was the latest in the long string of deaths of persons linked to Iran-Contra covert operations and funding. There is evidence that Larry King had Washington business in that area as well. ‘In the 6 ½ months since federal authorities closed Franklin, rumors have persisted that money from the credit union somehow found its way to the Nicaraguan contra rebels,’ said a World-Herald article on May 21, 1989. 8

What must have perplexed the authorities who were unaware of the scale and depth of the operations was the re-occurring name of George Bush Senior, long since said to have had a predilection for boys and young men. The child sex, homosexual and pornography ring run out of Nebraska by Larry King went all the way up to the White House. This was not due to any particular rumour or hearsay but documented testimonials and facts which would never find there way to court. A Nebraska state police report, Nebraska Foster Care Review Board letter to the Attorney General, Nebraska Senate’s Franklin committee investigative report, and a 50-page report by Omaha’s Boys Town welfare case officer Mrs. Julie Walters, were all ignored. Victims of the paedophiles/pederasts were Kimberly and Nelly Webb who described their abuse in the report:

Nelly said at these trip parties hosted by Larry King, she sat naked ‘looking pretty and innocent’ and guests could engage in any sexual activity they wanted, but penetration was not allowed...Nelly said she first met V. P. George Bush at the Republican Convention where King sang the national anthem, and saw Bush again at a Washington, DC party Larry hosted...Last year she met V.P. Bush and saw him at one of the parties Larry gave while on a Washington, DC trip. At some of the parties there are just men (as was the case at the party George Bush attended)...Nelly said she has seen sodomy committed at those parties.[…]

On December 19, 1988, Nelly was contacted and voluntarily came to the FBI offices on December 30, 1988. She was interviewed by Brady, Tucker and Phillips...in September or October, 1984 when Lisa was 14 she went to Chicago with Larry King and 15-20 boys from Omaha...She indicates she attended a party in Chicago with King and the male youths. She indicated George Bush was present...she sat at a table at the party wearing nothing but a negligee. She stated George Bush saw her on the table. She stated she saw George Bush pay King money and Bush left the party with a nineteen year old black boy named Brent. Lisa said the party Bush attended was in Chicago in September or October 1984. The Chicago Tribune of October 31, 1984 said Bush was in Illinois campaigning for congressional candidates at the end of October. 9

Both Kimberly and Nelly brought up the name of George Bush on other occasions most frequently in “in Lowe’s May, 1989 review of reports by Thomas Vlahoulis from the state attorney general’s office suggesting that they had not only seen Bush, but had met him in person. DeCamp continues:

In spite of four polygraph tests administered by a Nebraska state trooper who said he was convinced Nelly was telling the truth, a Washington country, Nebraska judge in December, 1990 ignored Julie Walter’s 50-page report, numerous debriefings of the girls by foster care officials and youth workers stating the sisters told the truth - specifically about George Bush Sr., and dismissed all charges against their foster parents Jarrett and Barbara Webb, who Nelly and Kimberly said had allowed them to be abused. 10

The testimonies of the two girls and other victims who had the courage to come forward were continually discredited. According to One report from World-Herald in July 1989 “attributed the mention of Bush to a person ‘under psychiatric care,’…In reality, the report was from Nelly Patterson Webb.” 11

The Bush family Empire has a monopoly in the corporate predator stakes which extends to children and young adults alike. This is why an almost impenetrable net of protection and security allows the “Elite” of America and Europe to continue their crimes far from public scrutiny. If persons get too close or those in the same exploitative business become a liability, they are “surplus to requirements” and added to the growing list of those who have been “suicided,” a fate, some believe was visited upon the beat generation writer, Hunter Thompson.

It was more than a little suspicious that the writer supposedly killed himself with a gun no more than a few hours after the Jeff Gannon scandal hit the internet news. If the allegations that Thompson was involved in the production of “snuff” films is true, and with persistent claims and testimonies from abused children to support those allegations, then his apparent suicide becomes even less tenable. There is also the possibility that he killed himself due to guilt from his underground role as a “snuff” movie film-maker. However, keeping in mind the links between the White House call service, Gannongate and the general all pervading stench of paedophilia within governments generally, we would be foolish to think that this is simply a case of timely regret. More likely is that Thompson – who was becoming more and more outspoken against the present administration - was deemed a loose end that was sufficiently removed from the central nexus of abuse to be removed.

This conclusion is further supported by the fact that Paul Bonacci, one of the main witnesses in the Franklin case gave detailed accounts of his abuse in Nevada and recalled specifically Hunter Thompson as the man who filmed the crimes which included forced necrophilia and murder. He was also able to provide a compelling testimony to the presiding judge regarding the descriptions of the ritual meeting ground where some of the snuff films were allegedly carried out. It was none other than Bohemian Grove, located in forested area outside Sacramento, Calif., a ridiculous place where the rich and powerful play at being neo-pagans with much pomp and ceremony. This includes enacting all kinds of silly rituals in front of a statue of an Owl called Moloch and getting excited about “human sacrifices.” 12

The site is heavily guarded and extremely secure. A video of what goes on at the Grove was secretly filmed last year and gives an insight as to the kinds of activates our would-be leaders get up to on their days off. Taking into account the fact Bonacci would have been a child at the time of his abuse; he was able to describe his surroundings in sufficient detail - including the Owl - for the court to rule that this was indeed Bohemian Grove. As such, there may be a much more sinister side to the pantomime that perhaps even some of the participants are not aware of.

Other events during Gannongate suggest damage limitation. According to De Camp's book, a photographer called Rusty Nelson was allegedly involved in recording a great deal of the child rape for Larry King’s blackmail purposes, accompanying him on his lavish parties in order to take the photos of high-profile individuals in compromising positions with young boys and girls. Nelson said he was once offered $50,000 by Hunter Thompson to help film one of his snuff movies, which he declined.

With a somewhat chequered past regarding the boundaries of his photography and with a history revealing a past interest in photographing underage girls, Nelson nevertheless vehemently denied involvement in child prostitution and pornography. It is highly likely that Nelson knows a great deal more than he admitted to in court, yet he confirmed Bonacci’s testimony to Judge Urbom:

Q: Children on the airplane?

A: Yes.

Q: How young?

A: There was one situation went back to Washington, DC...he had probably 10, 12 years old...

Q: Boys, girls?

A: Both...

Q: Who attended the parties?

A: Prominent business people, very prominent high-ranking officials, politicians. The younger people. What would transpire was they would have a party and then a party after the party...after the party was more of a sex-type deal...That’s what Larry [King] would....

Q: These old politicians were having sex with each other?

A: Or people Larry would bring...some younger people

Q: Did you take pictures of the parties?

A: I took pictures at some of the parties, yes...” 13

 Two days after Thompson’s death, Nelson was arrested, for failing to register as a sex offender in a county of which he was no longer a resident. Many believed this to be a warning.

In February of 2005 when James Guckert /Johnny Gosch bombshell was dropped it caused serious concern to those engaged in the crimes on the lower levels. “Suicides” plugged the holes and papered over gargantuan cracks in the Whitehouse edifice. With most of the media ignoring a potentially explosive story, with orders from on high to the respective editors, it is unlikely that the initial window of opportunity will be reopened. It will be consigned to the self-perpetuating bubble of speculation, rumour and five second attention spans so favoured in the American press.

Notes


1 The Franklin Cover-Up: Child Abuse, Satanism, and Murder in Nebraska (1992)  by John W. Decamp, published by AWT. ISBN: 0963215809.
2  Ibid.pp.250-251. [for more information see: The Franklin Cover-Up: Paedophile Conspiracy Update by John Decamp] Kay Griggs also spoke to William Colby two weeks before he was found dead in a lake. She also believes he was murdered.
3  Ibid.;p.167.
4 Ibid; p.224
5  There is evidence that James Guckert may well be Johnny Gosch. From John DeCamp: “Bonacci told me the same thing [that Jeff Gannon is Johnny Gosch].” And this bombshell from Noreen: “...the birthmark on Johnny’s chest is very similar to a mark seen on Gannon's chest in at least one photo. Gannon has a spot on his right cheek in the same place as Johnny.” – ‘Noreen Gosch Speaks About Jeff Gannon,
Johnny Gosch And The Attempted Theft Of Her Book ‘Why Johnny
Can't Come Home’ By Charlene Fassa
6  Transcript of radio interview with Noreen Gosch, Radio Free America, a weekly call-in talk forum sponsored by American Free Press, August 19, 2003. Noreen Gosch’s website can be found at this address: www.johnnygosch.com.
7  Ibid; p.169
8  Mrs. J. Walter’s Nebraska Dept. of Social Services report March 25 1986.
9  Ibid.; p. 175.
10  Ibid. 
11  ‘Bless the Beasts and the Children’ - Photographer for White House child sex ring arrested after Thompson suicide, Tom Flocco, March 13, 2005.
12  U.S. District Court testimony, 2-5-1999, pp. 89-91.
13 ‘Expose: The “Christian” Mafia - Where Those Who Now Run the U.S. Government Came From and Where They Are Taking Us’ By Wayne Madsen, May 2005. www.waynemadsenreport.com/

American Beauty Part III

Slavery: covert to overt

Women and children are the new commodity in the 21st century. With the disappearance of boarder controls in Europe and with each new country keen to join the European Union there is effectively very little preventing the trade in people.  Women desperate to leave their homelands due to high unemployment and poverty the American Dream quickly becomes an alluring prospect. However, this Hollywood-fuelled fantasy becomes a literal death trap for those for whom sexual exploitation is merely something that happens to others. At the same time, this is not restricted to those without income or struggling to survive, where “the grass is always greener.” Author Victor Malarek described it in the following terms:

Crime syndicates use a variety of methods to capture young women. A girl walking down a road in Moldova is forced into a car. An overflowing Romanian orphanage receives a visit from ‘social workers’ offering ‘apprentice programs’ for adolescent girls. A young Ukrainian woman desperate to help her starving parents responds to a newspaper advertisement for au pairs to work in Germany. An ambitious young graduate signs up with what appears to be a legitimate foreign corporation at a job fair at a Russian university. 1

While  steadfastly ignored by the selective trafficking reports of the US state Department the origins of much of the paedophilia sex rings and their links to blackmail, organized crime and the arms trade, are to be found within the boarders of the USA. The effects of a multi-billion dollar industry of human trafficking will soon eclipse even narcotics as the no.1 source of criminal funding. As such the new industry is interlaced with virtually all forms of high level criminal activity.

A March 2001 report from The Coalition against Trafficking in Women found that trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation is a national problem, and one that is increasing in scope and magnitude. The U.S. government estimates that 50,000 women and children are trafficked each year into the United States, primarily from “Latin America, countries of the former Soviet Union and Southeast Asia.” Their report was the first of its kind drawn from international and national data along with interviews with prostitutes themselves. However, NGO’s and charities put the total number of women and children trafficked into the US as 100,000. This is probably a conservative estimate.

Human rights groups, immigration attorneys and former workers, have shown that thousands of domestic servants are being brought into the United States from impoverished countries and severely exploited by foreign employers, many of whom work for embassies and international organizations in the Washington area. 2 In a July report from the same year the US State Department got their act together enough to confirm that most of the victims of human trafficking were women and children, no less than 700,000 people a year according to the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act Conference of 2000. These figures are also likely to be very conservative.

The disappearance on May 30th in of high society, blue-eyed, blonde American socialite Natalie Holloway and may also have had much more to do with a global trafficking trade than at first expected, though this is far from substantiated. The similar possible abduction of 23 year-old Amy Lynn Bradley’s in 1998 shows that Congress and the US State Department is rather uninterested in the rise in global sex-trafficking of vacationing females taken from cruise ships, island hotels and bars for sale to South American brothels as sex slaves.

Mexico and South America as a whole has historically been a place of exploitation for North America. With sex trafficking businesses burgeoning in Colombia and Venezuela and with Curacao or Aruba within sight of the Caribbean Islands “Spotters,” can be paid to watch for women on vacation as potential sex slaves. Guiding them into situations which leave them drugged and transported to a waiting car and boat for transportation to mainland or island brothels is a relatively easy enterprise. Yet this is simply mirroring the developing trade within the US itself.

Back in 1997 one San Francisco resident, 36 year-old Catalina Suarez, testified before the United Nations about her ordeal as a sex slave. She  told the San Francisco Examiner how she was 9 years old when “…a grandfatherly neighbour lured her with a gift, kidnapped her and kept her chained her to a bed in a rural Puerto Rico shack, forcing the child to have brutal sex with a succession of men.” There are hundreds of similar accounts. Federal and State officials told the San Francisco Examiner that: “The multimillion-dollar sex-slave trafficking stretches from Thailand to San Francisco, from Russia to New York City. The U.S. Justice Department in Washington, D.C., is conducting a nationwide investigation of the prostitution slavery of Thai women and girls.” 3 

This report is over ten years old and since that time, the market has exploded into a billion dollar business.

There have been a number of prosecutions involving the trafficking and/or forced prostitution of children in 2001 and 2002, including two defendants in Maryland who brought a 14-year-old girl from Cameroon and, with threats and sexual and physical assaults, forced her to be their domestic servant. A businessman in California trafficked numerous young girls into the United States to work in prostitution and a group of defendants recruited approximately 40 girls aged 12-17 from Georgia for prostitution, threatening them with violence if they tried to leave. These cases have resulted in jail sentences for the defendants and orders that restitution be paid to the victims. A wealthy landlord from Berkley, California was charged with buying two teenage girls in India and bringing them to the United States for forced labour. A couple in eastern New York State has pleaded guilty to a variety of charges related to smuggling Peruvians into the United States with the same intention.

Washington State is reported to be a hotbed of trafficking in brides, sex workers, domestic workers and children. The director of the US State Department, John Miller, told how he was forced to confront the issue that slavery was “still alive”:

‘I'm reading about how they lured these girls from Asian nations, promised them restaurant jobs, modelling jobs, ... seized their passports, beat them, raped them, moved them from brothel to brothel,’ he said. This was not happening in some distant Third World nation, however. ‘There it was in civil Seattle,..’ 4

The US government would have us believe that forced prostitution and trafficking is predominantly an external problem. In fact, the international trade in women and children is fast becoming more prevalent in the US than many other destination and transit countries. Jody Raphael, of the Women and Girls Prostitution Project at the Center for Impact Policy Research, based in Chicago, believes that this control extends across all levels of the industry:

 ‘For example, police who pick women up from the ‘stroll’ on Halsted and North/Clybourn (west of downtown Chicago) say a lot of the girls are from Milwaukee or Tennessee. They're being moved around. It helps them avoid detection and gives the customers a variety of new girls. From our grassroots studies, I'm learning to no longer make such a distinction between local and international trafficking.’ […]
‘Men will go to recruit girls at shopping malls, places like that, they'll find girls who have run away from home,’ explains Raphael. ‘They'll say you can earn a lot of money, it will be really glamorous, they'll tell a girl she's beautiful and does she want to be in a movie or make a music video. Then they'll drive her to Chicago and not let her leave. She'll be watched day and night by these goons. This happens with more frequency than people want to admit.’ 5

Women and children within the United States of America and abroad who are locked into poverty are far more likely to become victims of exploitation, most particularly trafficking. This inevitably  leads to a catch-22 of long-lasting physical and psychological trauma; disease (including HIV/AIDS), violence/abuse; drug addiction; unwanted pregnancy; malnutrition; social ostracism; and in many cases, death. All this is exacerbated and prolonged by the growing market in sex tourism from both the United States and Europe. 6 
Perhaps one of the most shocking stories to finally receive some public attention in recent years are the Child Rape Camps of San Diego County, California, involving hundreds of Mexican girls between 7 and 18 being kidnapped or subjected to false romantic entrapment by organized criminal sex trafficking gangs.  

According to libertadlatina.org who have tried to campaign for this information to be given a mainstream hearing, the victims: “…were brought to San Diego County, California. Over a 10 year period these girls were raped by hundreds of men per day in more than 2 dozen home based and agricultural camp based brothels.” 7 The girls were sold to farm workers - between 100 and 300 at a time - in small “caves” made of reeds in the fields. Many of the girls had babies, who were used as hostages with death threats against them, so their mothers would not try to escape. It was only in January of 2003 when the Mexican paper El Universal published a three part series on the trafficking and brothel camps that interest began to take place further afield.

The cover-up was evident not just in the fact zero coverage in the mainstream media but for another reason: a Latina medical doctor employed by a U.S. federal agency provided condoms to the victims for years, and was told by her supervisors not to speak out and organize efforts to rescue the victims. This doctor was ordered under threat of legal action to keep quiet about the mass victimization of children in “rape camps.”
 
Numbers of murdered immigrant teen girls are still being found in San Diego, possibly linked to trafficking rings. Despite a programme filmed by a local T.V. station and occasional arrests of supposed ring leaders who only receive minor jail terms - the camps continue to exist as of 2005.

With crime networks emerging as the channels for the new and strengthened forms of trafficking, narcotics and arms we can see parallel increase in the commercial sector – the seemingly “presentable” face of exploitation. In the United States research has revealed that between 244,000 and 325,000 American children are at risk of being victimized by commercial sexual exploitation each year.

Dr. Melissa Farley of Prostitution Research and Education, and Dr. Richard Estes of the University of Pennsylvania have provided the American public with a snapshot of the commercial sex trade in the US. Dr. Farley's interviews with 130 people working as prostitutes in the San Francisco area revealed that:

• 83% have been threatened with a weapon;
• 82% have been physically assaulted
• 68% have been raped (59% of these have been raped four or more times)
• 84% reported past or current homelessness.
• 49% reported that pornography was made of them in prostitution
• 75% have a drug abuse problem
• 50% now have a physical health problem
• 88% want to leave prostitution
• 57% were sexually abused as children. 8

 This latter figure confirms a correlation with sexual abuse in society and its connections to other forms of non-familial systems of exploitation.

If Bush’s “ownership society” is allowed to continue, where the richest 1 percent of households already owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined; one out of six Americans has no health insurance and one out of eight Americans live below the official poverty line, then exploitation can only increase still further. We should not be surprised that The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services program Rescue & Restore Victims of Human Trafficking, remains terminally under funded. 9 Indeed, the President’s feckless attempts to prove his credentials regarding the slave trade went the way of most of his legislative promises by waiving any financial sanctions on Saudi Arabia. We might remember that the Saudi government has consistently failed to do enough to stop the modern-day slave trade in prostitutes, child sex workers and forced laborers. 10

Notes

1 The Natashas: The New Global Sex Trade by Victor Malarek, Arcade Publishing (2004) ISBN: 1904132545. 
2 Hidden Slaves: Forced Labour in the United States. A 2004 report from the Human Rights Center at University of California - Berkeley and the Free the Slaves organization, concerning contemporary trafficking and slavery in the United States.
3  ‘Global Sex Slavery’ by Seth Rosenreid, San Francisco Examiner, 6 April 1997.
4  ‘The Abolitionist’ by Anne Morse, World Magazine, October 2004.
5  ‘Women and Children First: The Economics of Sex Trafficking’ by Kari Lydersen, April 15, 2002.

6  One can see just how prevalent this tourism is and how a largely Western influx of men are fuelling the demand from one Sex tourist website: Extract: “This web site is an interactive discussion and archive database dedicated to providing information about prostitution, escort services and sex tourism. Here you will find articles both past and present providing information about escorts throughout the world. This is not a porno site that boasts millions of "hardcore" images. Rather, it is a place where fellow hobbyists gather to share information with one another through real time discussion boards on a variety of topics that deal with prostitution, escort services and sex tourism.” Upon viewing some of the topics and “exploits” I found the first hand accounts detail how and where to pick up often underage prostitutes by city and country."
7  Latino Women and Children at risk: ‘The San Diego Child Sex Trafficking Scandal’ updated article: November 2005 by libertadlatina.org
8  Statement of Joseph Mettimano Child Protection Policy Advisor, World Vision Before the Subcommittee on the Constitutional, Civil Rights and Property Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary United States Senate July 7, 2004.
9  ‘Anti-Sex-Slave Trafficking Program Underfunded’ newsday.com, January 2006.

10  Bush Waives Saudi Trafficking Sanctions, Associated Press.September 21, 2005.  

American Beauty Part II

The Missing

The Convention on the Rights of the Child ratified in 1990 and was designed to enshrine the principles of protection from economic and sexual exploitation. On October 25th, 1980, the signing of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction was similarly created to promote international cooperation on child rights and abduction cases. Although the objectives are well defined, corruption and cross boarder bureaucracy has ensured that inconsistency, limited funding and deference to underworld imperatives continue to thwart lasting progress. The United States and Somalia are the only countries still to do so.

It may come as a surprise for most of us to learn that procedures and protocols for missing persons are either absent or woefully inadequate from the majority of local and state governments. The Doe Network, an American, internet-based resource was set up by an amateur group of concerned individuals in response to the serious lack of law enforcement record keeping. Unsolved homicides, runaways, abductions and death from natural causes are some of the primary reasons for disappearances of children and adults every day. The daily drum roll of missing persons is a silent crisis of global proportions with causes that are both multifaceted and highly complex.

 

Accurate statistics on the level of missing children are difficult to come by. This is partly due to the fact that investigations are given a low priority due to the sheer magnitude of the problem as well as trenchant bureaucracy and its slow updating of information systems. The net result is that studies become rather misleading and outdated, as is the case today.

The FBI’s National Crime Information Centre (NCIC) is the only mandatory reporting system in the United States. Although it is federal law that all children reported missing or abducted must be entered into NCIC at the time a police report is taken, there is more than enough evidence to suggest that this is not taking place, quite apart from the lack of reporting itself.  It is also apparent that child agencies, advocates and non-profit charities and organizations are not receiving this information in order to provide a partially accurate picture of the problem. In fact, missing person experts estimate that the bodies of 40,000 to 50,000 unidentified men, women and children have been found by police in the US during the past 50 years. 1 Once again, this could be a very conservative estimate judging from the scale of the problem and the accompanying lack of resources devoted to it.

According to a Scripps Howard News Service study of confidential FBI records, the vast majority of unidentified bodies go unreported to state or federal authorities due to a lack of requirement from local authorities to register cases to outside agencies. With weak powers afforded to state coroners and widespread under-funding this significantly increases the depth of the problem.  A random sample of global listings provides an overview:

Alan John Westerfield aged 5

Missing since September 12, 1964 from North Carolina.

Classification: Endangered Missing

Jie Zhao Li aged 12

Missing since February 11, 1988 from Honolulu, Hawaii.

Classification: Endangered Missing

David Michael Borer aged 8

Missing since April 26, 1989 from Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska.

Classification: Non Family Abduction

Christine Green aged 16

Missing since April 23, 1985 from Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania. Classification: Endangered Missing

Tania Marie Murrell aged 6

Missing since January 20, 1983 from Edmonton, Alberta Canada

Classification: Non-Family Abduction

Tanja Afra Maria Groen aged 18

Missing since August 31, 1993 from Maastricht, Netherlands

Classification: Missing

Ana Maria Luviano Cabrera aged 17

Missing since August 16, 1996 from Izcalli Piramides, Tlalnepantla, Mexico

Classification: Missing

Beatriz A. Cervantes Barrera aged 7

Missing since February 23, 1992 from Mexico.

Classification: Endangered Missing

Jonathan Ivan Esquivel Negrete aged one month

Missing since July 4, 1995 from Colonia Loma Linda, Naucalpan, Estado de Mexico, Mexico Classification: Endangered Missing

Revelle Balmain  aged 24

Missing since November 5, 1994 from Kingsford, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.  Classification: Endangered Missing

Melissa Ann Schmidt aged 15

Missing since September 5, 1995 from Lincoln, Lancaster County, Nebraska

Classification: Endangered Miss

Missing since February 2, 1996 from Ko ing

Anna Grabarz aged 11lonia Kijany, Poland

Classification: Endangered Missing

Monika Malinauskaite aged 15

Missing since June 16, 1994 from Klaipeda, Republic of Lithuania

Classification: Endangered Missing

Camille Lafond aged 6

Missing since January 29, 1996 from France. Classification: Missing

Looking at the photos of these children - and adults alike - is a poignant experience. There seems to be an everyday underworld of the forgotten. Once beyond the media radar they are quite literally, out of sight and out of mind. As most of the reported missing are murders, one would think it behoves national, state and local governments to place such a crisis at the top of their budget proposals. This is not the case and the back-log of homicides continue to rise.

In conjunction with the rise in murders and rapes in the US it is a disturbing parallel to the ever present shadow of missing children. Although nationwide crime was said to be decreasing  (until 2006) rape is still on the increase with the frequency of related murders rising. Even though Europe is a more dangerous and violent place than a generation ago (between 1975 and 2000, crime rose 97 percent in France, 145 percent in England, 410 percent in Spain) while crime overall is falling.

Missing persons are by far the most extensive in the US. The Interstate Association for Stolen Children (IASC) in Sacramento, California has one of the highest rates of missing children in America and believes that drugs, pornography, prostitution comprise the typical trio of pursuits of crime organizations. IASC Executive Director Greg Mengell described a case in which “three small drug cartels were competing for business in the same area. After one ring burned down the headquarters of another, a child was kidnapped in retaliation. In this case, one of the cartels also had connections to a pornography ring and a “Satanic cult.”  The sheer scale of complexity goes to the heart of our societies and may stem from more than just bureaucratic red tape.

Although over 2000 - 3,600 children go missing in the country everyday 2 (which includes an estimate of unreported cases) law enforcement officials say the sector of missing persons is hugely under-reported as a whole, where the actual number could be more than four to five times higher. As it stands, the statistics from 1997-1999 within the USA alone has estimated 797,500 children reported missing which equates to an average of 91 children disappearing every hour. With 58,200 children abducted by non-family, where children are taken by force or threat of bodily harm, the total works out to more than 159 per day at 6 children per hour.

In percentage terms, the study concluded that nearly 50 percent were assaulted by their abductor. When the child is told to leave home or leaves home without permission, otherwise called “runaway or thrown-away” children these cases totalled more than 682, 900 equating to 1870 per day. 115 children were the victims of the most serious, long-term non-family abductions called “stereotypical kidnappings,” and where court orders were violated resulting in the victims of family abductions, the number reached 203,900. 3

By the year 2000 the NCIC recorded a significant rise to 876,213, where 85 percent – 90 percent were listed as juveniles reported missing. 152,265 of the persons reported missing in 2000 was categorized as either endangered or involuntary. The number of missing persons reported to law enforcement has increased from 154, 341 in 1982 to 876,213 in 2000. That is an increase of 468 percent. 4 Not exactly the proudest moment for democracy, when children are literally dropping off the radar in droves. If we are to believe the FBI, 99 percent of the nearly 800,000 reports of missing persons each year are solved, leaving a manageable 8,000 – to 10,000. (Far be it for me to level scurrilous accusations of statistical bias here, but it seems to be a slightly excessive success rate).

The vast majority of abuse cases are perpetrated by people the victim know, or that could be seen as acquaintances. However, when we look at the ratio of children who are abducted and murdered then the story changes dramatically: 57 percent of these murders are committed by someone unknown to the victim, where family involvement drops to 9 percent. 5  Psychiatric disability, diminished mental capacity, a physical disability, a need for medication, issues with substance abuse, domestic violence, financial difficulties and many other factors can contribute to disappearances which are often much more complex than may first appear.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health an estimated 22.1 percent of Americans ages 18 and older - 1 in 5 adults – suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year. This figure translates to 44.3 million people. 6

There is a high probability that depressive disorders are appearing earlier in life from people born in recent decades compared to the past. The figure of 20 percent attributed to children in the US estimated to have mental disorders with at least mild functional impairment, may be another major factor that places children in vulnerable situations attracting abductions and other criminal cross-overs. 7

 Though the suicide rate amongst children has declined since 1992 it remains the third leading cause of death among young people ages 15 to 24. In 2001, 3,971 suicides were reported in this group. 8

The average victim of abduction and murder is an 11-year-old girl with a stable family relationship. First contact with her abductor usually occurs within a quarter-mile of her own home. 9 Parental kidnapping can no longer be viewed as a domestic issue to be buried under the cultural carpet. Statistics show that there are many children taken from their spouse and once beyond national boarders are unlikely to be seen again. This is a common problem in the USA and Europe, and connected in particular, to the Middle East where interracial and or arranged marriages go sour. Children are on the run, in a cultural limbo and the roots that they may have had established in their formative years have been lost leading to a greater propensity for maladjustment and psychological damage in later life.

There is also a clear pattern between male and female victims. The murder by strangers of young/infant male victims from the 1-5 age groups, teenage males 13-15 years and 16-17 years are all roughly around 60 – 64 percent. 10 While the young/infant females are usually killed by friends and acquaintances while the older females in the 16-17 age bracket are murdered by strangers both at 64percent. 11 Yet after a decline in murder rates in 2004 by 5.7 percent, the first time in five years there had been a decrease in the nationwide murder rate, it however rose again in 2005 by 2.1 percent and has continued to climb. Murder by those unknown clearly comes out on top. So, who are these “unknowns”?

 “If it bleeds it leads” is one crude maxim from the media which most of us heard at one time or another. In the same vain, it could also be said that “if she’s white, blond and sexy then she’s on the front page.” Kym Pasqualini, President for The National Center for Missing Adults, based in Phoenix said the media tends to focus on “damsels in distress”—typically, affluent young white women and teenagers. “We’d like to see a little more diversity in reporting because we have cases that never make the front page of the local newspaper, let alone the national media,”… “All parents are going through the same thing, no matter how much attention their case gets.” 12 Hispanic, black and mixed race kids are way down on the list of media coverage.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children reported 1,159 African American children Missing in 2000 the highest figures ever recorded for the organization. Although figures dropped by 2002 this had little to do with an upturn in media awareness of black children. More recently, in June of 2005 a disturbing report surfaced of boys from Africa being murdered in England’s London Churches with cultural links to West Africa where “aggressive” forms of exorcism are practiced. Scotland Yard “traced only two of 300 black boys aged four to seven reported missing from London schools in a three month period. The true figure for missing boys and girls is feared to be several thousand a year.” The report revealed that:

…there is a wide gulf between these [ethnic] communities and social services and protection agencies with many people in ethnic communities scared to speak out. The report concludes police face a ‘wall of silence’ when dealing with such cases. Experts differ on the merits of the Scotland Yard report. [...] ‘It is people in positions of power and money that are manipulating poor people.’ 13

No change there. Though there is clearly merit and truth in the report it will also provide more fuel for those who see this as an immigration problem. One wonders why thousands of ethnic children go missing and where “cultural links” have no connection whatsoever.

Even media advocacy that may take up the reins of an apathetic police force can have repercussions as Brian Maitland discovered, whose daughter Brianna disappeared in March 2004, near Montgomery, Vermont: ‘As the parents, we receive many tips that we forward to police,’ Maitland wrote. ‘Are they acted on? Who knows? Police tell you nothing about what they are doing with your case and tips, but we know the results. NOTHING.’

It seems the Maitlands, like so many others, have good reason to gripe about their treatment on top of already unbearable pain that is not allowed to turn to grieving.

The National Crime Information Center itself is under serious strain with 17 separate databases under its umbrella. Over 94, 000 law enforcement agencies have access with more than 39 million records. Critics call it a deeply flawed system where: ‘…a lack of knowledge, indifference or poor training, police officers in Washington state -  and around the nation - routinely fail to take even the most obvious steps, conduct routine follow-ups or comply with the law when handling missing-persons cases,…” 14

Moreover, it has been dawning on several child advocate agencies and families desperate for news of their missing loved ones, that it is not only bureaucracy and police apathy that is causing frustration - but the FBI itself. The bureau obsessively protects a wall of confidentiality over NCIC data, arguing that the database is the private property of local police departments. Then it is the police that steps up to increase the misery by preventing the public’s right to accountability regarding whether or not local police departments and medical examiners are doing their jobs. 

Seattle Police ignored a law that required them to follow up on reports, which in this case, resulted in the rape and murder of a 14 year-old girl. This routine procedure “would have identified her remains nearly 17 months sooner” and “I'm sure police would've caught him, or at least found some clues or evidence, if they would've linked this up sooner,” said Michelle's mother, Tish Curry. “They didn't really seem to care that much. My daughter was just another runaway to them.”

According to the same extensive report by the Seattle Post Intelligencer they found that police routinely mishandled and lost cases, ignored the law, failed to use tracking systems and closed cases with little or no investigation.

If sexual predators do indeed commit crimes against children 50-60 times more before they get caught, it is doubly frustrating for families of victims to learn how easily psychopaths use the system against itself. They naturally prey on those from dysfunctional families, with a prior record of running away or petty crime. Police are even less likely to follow up on such cases:

Criminologist Steven Egger calls the victims of serial killers ‘the less dead’ because they are usually people who have been marginalized -- prostitutes, drug users, homosexuals, farm workers, hospital patients and the elderly.

‘We don’t spend a lot of time dealing with missing people who aren’t particularly important; who don't have a lot of prestige,’ said Egger, a University of Houston-Clear Lake professor and former police officer. It's a public failing as well as a police failing, a common belief being that such people take big risks and get what they deserve. 15

With such a societal pathology it is no wonder we are failing children and adults worldwide. The defining characteristic that all these missing children and adults have in common is that they are largely forgotten by media and the world in general. While society becomes evermore devalued and artificial, the majority of “defective” goods that are children are literally thrown away, nothing more than the ubiquitous cycle of “used goods” that has come to characterise the unsustainable nature of our urban lives.

Notes

1  ‘Americas forgotten dead: Unidentified bodies go unreported’  by Thomas Hargrove - Scripps Howard News Service October 4, 2005. Alaska SitNews.

2  National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMC) www.ncmec.org
3  National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART-2) US Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Released 2002.

4  http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cjisd/ncic.htm
5 National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART-2) US Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Released 2002.
6  Source: National Institute of Mental Health NIH Publication No. 01-4584 Updated: January 1, 2001
7  National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) factsheets.
8  National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) factsheets (quoting from Anderson and Smith 2003).
9  ‘Missing Children Myths’ Connect For Kids by: Daniel D. Broughton Published: September 18, 2000.
10  Ibid

11  Ibid
12 Quoted in ‘America’s Missing’ 2005, The Crime Library, Typical Crimes and Methods http://www.crimelibrary.com/

13  ‘Child sacrifices in London’ By Richard Edwards Crime Reporter, Evening Standard 16 June 2005.
14  A Seattle Post-Intelligencer special report on how police here and around the nation fumble missing-person reports, originally published in 10 parts. Monday, February 17, 2003 Part 1: People go missing, killers go free 'I still worry. I guess I always will' By Lewis Kamb.

15  Ibid.