Vertrees, of Sacramento, Calif., traveled to Rocky Point and climbed into the girl’s bedroom window to spend a few hours with her on Wednesday, Suffolk County police said.

The girl used the window to slip out of her house at 4 a.m. Friday and left with Vertrees in a taxi, investigators said.

Suffolk police said they used phone and computer records to identify a suspect. Investigators said they believed Vertrees was headed back to California with the girl.

John Vertrees  was nabbed on a train bound for California as he lay sleeping in a car with a 13 year old Long Island girl he had met on the Internet.

After the two met in an Internet chat room in January, Vertrees traveled to the teenager’s home last week, police said.

Natalie Flores Found Safe!!!

She was playing outside with her two sisters when a man ran up and kidnapped her. He took a picture of her elder sister and also tried to lower the pants of one of her sisters according to KPHO News.

Witnesses saw the abduction and watched the man put Natalie in his truck. However, they could not stop the abduction in time.

The kidnapping occurred in the Saddleback Mountain apartments at 12430 N. 19th Avenue in Phoenix. Natalie and her sisters reside with an aunt who is her legal guardian. Her parents live in another state.

Description of Natalie Flores:

• Natalie is age 5
• about 4 feet tall
• weighs around 60 pounds
• She has curly red, medium-length hair, freckles
• When last seen, she was wearing blue pants, a pink shirt, and white and pink sneakers.

Description of Suspect:

• suspect is a “white male, between 30 and 40 years old
• with blond or gray hair
• 5-foot-8 or 5-foot-9
• weighs 180 to 190 pounds
• wearing a gray shirt and peach knee-length shorts.”
• The suspect may be driving a brown truck with an Arizona state plate of 3HG-774 or 3HG-377 or GHG-337 or 3HG-774N or other similar numbers. The truck may be visibly damaged as a witness said the truck hit a vehicle as it was fleeing the scene of the kidnapping.

UPDATE I: A Christmas Miracle … 5 Year old Natalie Flores Found Safe, rescused by the police.

Finally, a good outcome to a child abduction story.  5 year old Natalie Flores has been found safe and the suspect is in police custody.

UPDATE II: Phoenix Police Find Abducted 5-Year-Old Girl

A 5-year-old girl abducted by a man as she played outside her Phoenix home Friday was rescued hours later after police chased down the suspect’s pickup and found her “alive and well” inside, officials said.

“She wasn’t in her room,” Lewis said. He said there was no evidence of forced entry to the home where the girls live with their aunt, who is their legal guardian. Leggs is a former boyfriend of the aunt, officials said.

A “juvenile witness” awoke during the night Tuesday and saw Sarah leave the bedroom with “Tommy,” and said he was wearing blue jeans, an orange jacket and white sneakers, the charging document says.

Registered sex offender Thomas Leggs, left – Sarah Haley Foxwell, rt

National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

• Missing Date: Dec 22, 2009
• Sex: Female
• Race: White
• Age: 11
• Height:  4’8″ (142 cm)
• Weight:  78 lbs (35 kg)
• Hair Color: Brown
• Eye Color: Blue 
  

30 year old Thomas J. Leggs, a registered sex offender has been charged with kidnapping and burglary and was in custody.

Thomas J. Leggs, 30, a registered sex offender, has been charged with kidnapping and burglary and was in custody, authorities said. Officials said that he is Sarah’s aunt’s ex-boyfriend and that their relationship ended about a month ago.

Why on earth do these woman date sex offender?Do they think they will actually change? That they won’t be attracted to little girls? Oh wait, they have changed, they have been cured. What are these woman thinking that they would knowingly date a registered sex offender who raped a teenager. In the process they expose all children around them to this animal.

Lewis said interviews with the children in the house, as well as other evidence, convinced investigators that Leggs abducted Sarah. Lewis said that Leggs, who works as a laborer in a wood and counter business, was refusing to cooperate.

Leggs, who authorities said lives in Salisbury in an outbuilding on property his parents own, is registered as a sex offender in Maryland and Delaware.

According to Maryland’s sex offender registry, Leggs has a conviction for a third-degree sex offense. Wicomico officials said the victim in that crime was a young girl.

According to a Delaware Web site, Leggs is a “high-risk” offender who was convicted in 2001 of raping a teenager.

Authorities were asking for information from anyone who might have seen Leggs’s vehicle, a 2003 champagne-colored Dodge Ram pickup, between 11 p.m. Tuesday and 11 a.m. Wednesday. Officials ask that anyone with information about Sarah’s disappearance call the Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office at 410-548-4891.

Police searching for missing girl; registered sex offender in custody

The suspect is known to the girl’s family, according to a police official.

Earlier Wednesday, the search focused on a radius about three miles in either direction of Sarah’s residence, Wilson said.

A police command center was established about noon Wednesday at a church on Zion Road at Zion Church Road, a location that is central to the residences of both the girl and the suspect, Lewis had said.

UPDATE I:  11 Year Old Sarah Haley Foxwell Found Deceased

To discuss the case further, provide your opinion and get updates … go to Scared Monkeys.net Missing Persons: Sarah Haley Foxwell.

cross posted at Scared Monkeys.com

18 years later … Jaycee Lee Dugard is found alive and safe. In a missing persons case of don’t ever give up hope, 29 year old Jaycee Lee Dugard has been reunited with her family.

Sadly, Jaycee Lee Dugard had been held as a sex slave by Phillip Garrido, a previously convicted sex offender and kept Dugard in the back yard of his property. According to Fox40 News, Dugard bore several children for sex offender Phillip Garrido. The El Dorado County Sheriff’s Department stated that the two children were kept in “complete isolation” and had not been to school or a doctor. (Video)

Authorities tell FOX40 News that Dugard bore several children for sex offender Phillip Garrido, who kept her in a backyard device — possibly a shed — as a sex slave for both Garrido and his wife, Nancy Garrido.

Both Phillip and Nancy Garrido were arrested as suspects in the kidnapping case. Authorities say Nancy Garrido was with Phillip Garrido at the time of the abduction and matches the suspect’s description obtained by eyewitnesses in 1991. The Garrido’s Antioch home was searched for evidence Thursday morning.

Authorities with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Division of Adult Parolee Operations report a parolee agent helped crack the 18-year-old kidnapping case while following up on a tip that Garrido was seen with two small children on the campus of UC Berkeley. The diligent questioning of the parolee officer led Garrido to reveal the kidnapping of Dugard. Further questioning revealed Dugard and Garrido were the parents of the two children.

Suspect Admits Abducting Girl Missing For 18 Years

Two suspects are in custody. They were moved Thursday afternoon to the El Dorado County Jail from the Contra Costa County jail where they had been held since their arrest Wednesday.

Chalk another one up for the good guys. Federal authorities and New York State police have arrested eleven people in upstate New York in connection with an investigation into child pornography distributed over the Internet.

The arrests this week followed an investigation that led to 17 federal search warrants, U.S. Attorney Andrew Baxter said Friday. The defendants, ranging in age from 18 to 58, are charged with receipt of child pornography. Some are charged with distribution. All could face at least five years in federal prison, prosecutors said.

Authorities said computer images depicting sex with prepubescent children, including toddlers, were posted and downloaded on an Internet file-sharing server. They declined to discuss other details or explain exactly how they identified the 11 suspects.

U.S. Attorney Andrew Baxter went on to say that every image of child porn and every image downloaded  depicts a crime scene of abuse of a child.

“One of the things I don’t think people necessarily realize is that every image of child pornography depicts a crime scene of abuse of a child,” Baxter said. “Child pornography is created by the abuse of real live people, real live children. So that the demand for those images created by people downloading and trading pornography triggers abuse down the line.”

England, Wales and Scotland has a serious missing persons case on their hands. The problem and the severity is that it is not one missing person, but hundreds. The BBC is reporting that 317 sex offenders were reported as missing or unaccounted for. Since it is common for sex offenders to re-offend, one might think this to be a major issue as to the lack of tracking of sexual predators.

The figures, for three-quarters of the police forces in England, Wales and Scotland, were disclosed to the BBC after a Freedom of Information request.

Data supplied by 38 police forces showed 317 sex offenders were reported as missing or unaccounted for.

In January 2007, a significantly higher number of forces - 49 – reported that 322 sex offenders were missing.

Authorities are investigating a known British pedophile as a possible suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, The London Daily Mail reported Sunday.

The suspect is one of 52 British pedophiles with links to the Portuguese resort where the McCann family was vacationing when 4-year-old Madeleine disappeared from her hotel room while her parents were dining at a nearby restaurant, the Mail reported.

The suspect, whose identity has not been revealed, is the only person on the list of pedophiles who has not been cleared in the case. (Fox News)

British paedophile ‘with links to Portugal’ suspected of abducting Madeleine

A source told Sky: “They (Portuguese police) were given the names of 52 sex offenders and they’ve worked very hard to find them and rule them out as suspects. There is still one man they are concerned about.”

It is not known if the man – whose name has not been revealed – is the same individual alleged to have ‘groomed’ and sexually assaulted a 12- year-old British girl in Praia da Luz two years ago.

The British ex-patriate, 32, vanished after being interviewed by police over the claim and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

He was rumoured to have fled to Britain but could have returned without detection to Praia da Luz, where his parents own a business.

Dozens of paedophiles on the British sex offenders’ register travelled to Portugal in the month before Madeleine’s disappearance in Praia da Luz on May 3.

The list given to Portuguese police was compiled by officers from the London- based Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre.

Madeleine: Sex offender ‘a suspect’

The programme features forensic expert Professor David Barclay, who says it is unusual for children of Madeleine’s age to be abducted by paedophiles.

He said: “There are two options. She (Madeleine) came to harm at the hands of some member of the family or of friends, or that it was some paedophile who happened to be passing by. Both are really, really unlikely but we know she’s gone.

“Abduction for sexual purposes of children is eight, nine, 10-year-olds. It is really, really unusual to want to take a child of three-and-a-half.

It started out as police hunted for a 25 year old teacher and her former student who were last seen on October 35, 2007. The parents of Fernando Rodriguez reported their son missing Saturday after he was last seen late Thursday.

Kelsey Peterson, a 25 year old sixth-grade math teacher and basketball coach at Lexington Middle School, was arrested in Mexico after fleeing  with a 13 year old boy. Kelsey Peterson and the 13 year old boy are suspected of having a sexual relationship. An arrest warrant ad been issued Monday charging Peterson with kidnapping, child abuse, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Following the two being located,  the 13-year-old boy, Fernando Rodriguez, was reported to be in the care of relatives in Mexico.

A female teacher was in FBI custody yesterday as federal and local prosecutors sought to determine how they would handle charges alleging that she ran away with a 13-year-old boy, taking him across the border into Mexico.

Kelsey Peterson, 25, a sixth-grade math teacher and basketball coach at Lexington Middle School, was turned over to the FBI early yesterday after being arrested the night before in the border city of Mexicali.

The story gets even more peculiar as even though 13 year old Fernando Rodriguez was released to family members in Mexico, he may not be allowed to return to the United States. Why? Fernando Rodriguez was an illegal alien in Nebraska attending 8th grade. Once again, your hard earned tax dollars at work.

A 13-year-old student with whom a middle school teacher is accused of fleeing to create a romantic life in the boy’s native Mexico may be required to stay there.

Washington County prosecutor John Rupp said Michael Devlin will plead guilty to all charges there in the 2002 kidnapping of Shawn Hornbeck and will be sentenced Tuesday.

Devlin was arrested in January after police found Shawn and Ben Ownby at Devlin’s apartment in the St. Louis County town of Kirkwood.

Loyd Bailie, Ben’s uncle, told The Associated Press on Friday that the family had been briefed by prosecutors that Devlin will plead guilty next week in all four jurisdictions where he is charged: three Missouri counties and federal court. He said he did not know whether Devlin would plead guilty to all of the more than 80 felony charges against him, several of which carry life sentences. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

The bizarre case of Michel Devlin started in the case of the kidnapping of Ben Ownby only to later learn that Devlin was also responsible for the earlier kidnapping of Shawn Hornbeck. William Ownsby was kidnapped and an AMBER ALERT was issued for the missing 13 year old boy after a witness saw the boy pushed into a white pickup truck.  When the miraculous  news occurred that  William “Ben” Ownby was found safe and alive, no one could have imagined at the time that Shawn Hornbeck, who had been missing since 2002, would be found as well. Michael Devlin had in fact kidnapped both boys and had been charged by police with kidnapping and numerous other sexual molestation charges. The multiple sodomy charges were too numerous to list. The guilty plea will take this heinous individual off the streets and away from our children for life.

Michael Devlin Will Plead Guilty To All Charges Monday

Two teenaged girls from Herndon were kidnapped Monday — and found safely in Atlanta today — and Fairfax County police are investigating whether their abductors planned to sell them to a prostitution ring, authorities said.

Police began looking for the girls Monday evening, and called in help from federal marshals and the FBI when it became apparent that the teens had not run away and were possibly being held against their will. The authorities eventually pinpointed a house in Mableton, Ga., a suburb west of Atlanta, and found the girls and their alleged abductors about 3:30 a.m. today, police Officer Camille Neville said.

The girls knew at least one of the two men charged in the case, said Barry Boright, a supervisor with the U.S. Marshals’ Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force, “and originally they were with them willingly.” (Washington Post)