Prosecutor wants death penalty for boy's slaying
March 21 , 2007
Adapted from CNN.com
A convicted child molester and his parents were indicted on charges they molested and then murdered a 6-year-old neighbor boy, whose body was found last week in a trash bag dumped by a roadside.
The county district attorney said he will seek the death penalty against the 32-year-old, who has a prior child molestation conviction from 1997, and his parents.
A friend of the accused family was indicted on charges of concealing a body and tampering with evidence.
The boy was missing for a week before police found his body in a black trash bag dumped near a roadside about three miles from his home.
"They deserve the worst, for them to torture my son like that, every last one of them," said the boy’s father.
Authorities have not released many details about the case, including how the child was killed or how long his abductors might have kept him alive. Other charges against the perpetrators include false imprisonment, cruelty to children and enticing a child for indecent purposes.
Police have described the 32-year-old as mentally slow but not retarded and capable of understanding right from wrong.
He had to register as a sex offender in the state where he lived. He and his parents lived across the street from the boy's grandmother and less than 600 feet from where the kindergartner met his school bus.
A state law passed last year prohibits registered sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school bus stop. That would have barred the 32-year-old from living so close, but a pending lawsuit prompted a federal judge last year to block that provision from taking effect.
The 32-year-old pleaded guilty in 1997 to molesting two boys, ages 7 and 9. Prosecutors said he rubbed his clothed body "in a sexual manner" against the boys, who also were fully dressed. He was sentenced then to 10 years on probation.
His father pleaded guilty to incest in 1994. He was accused of having sex with an adult relative; the relative was not his son.
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