Repeat offenders on the run

While States are debating how to fund the “Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Protection Act of 2006″, a couple of high profile fugitives remain on the run.

In Washington, U.S. Marshal’s are hunting for Eric Eugene Hartwell a convicted Level III sex offender. A repeat offender living in a halfway house, he cut off his GPS monitoring device, left and has not been seen since.

In Indiana in August of 2006, Joseph Mark McCormick, 44, who served three years in prison after pleading guilty in 2003 to molesting Peggy Sue Altes, failed a drug test as part of his probation and cannot be located. A warrant for his arrest was issued in March in Hancock County and he remains at large.

In Ohio, Esme Kenney was murdered allegedly by Anthony Kirkland, a previously convicted killer and sex offender. He was kicked out of his halfway house Could her death have been prevented?

Questions in Esme Kenney’s killing

Esme’s body was found in nearby woods the next day. Anthony Kirkland, a previously convicted killer and sex offender, has been charged in her death. Her family questioned why the police did not immediately issue an Amber Alert or send officers to search the area as soon as the parents called to report her missing. The police response does not seem unreasonable, given what they knew at the time. But officers should be flexible and not bound by rigid timelines when responding to such reports.

Of greater concern was the way police reacted a week earlier when they responded to the Volunteers of America halfway house in Over-the-Rhine where Kirkland was then living. Staff members had called police because they said Kirkland had hit another resident. When officers arrived, the other resident refused to press charges, but the Volunteers of America wanted to evict Kirkland. So the police escorted him from the building at 11:15 p.m., and turned him loose on the street.

The halfway house specializes in sex offenders, and Kirkland had been there since being released from prison a few months earlier after serving a year for importuning a 13-year-old. He was not on parole, but living in the halfway house was a condition of his post-release supervision. Also in Kirkland’s background was 16 years in prison for killing and burning another woman.

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Searching for a Level III sex offender

According to the Washington State Sex Offender Information Center, a Level III sex offender is probably not your innocent, “framed”, run of the mill offender.

These offenders pose a potential high risk to the community and are a threat to re-offend if provided the opportunity. Most have prior sex crime convictions as well as other criminal convictions. Their lifestyles and choices place them in this classification. Some have predatory characteristics and may seek out victims. They may have refused or failed to complete approved treatment programs.

 
Search on for missing Level 3 sex offender

Snohomish County deputies are asking for the public’s help locating a level-3 sex offender who is likely to reoffend.

Deputies said Eric E. Hartwell left his home in the 18800 block of Smokey Point Boulevard in Arlington on Friday after removing his electronic monitoring device.

Harwell, 41, had until 5 p.m. Monday to register with the sheriff’s office, but failed to do so. As a result, a warrant has been issued for his arrest.

Hartwell pleaded guilty to first-degree child rape in 1991. Five years later, he attempted to sexually assault a 17-year-old girl while she was hiking. The teen was able to flee.

Search the Washington Offender site and he isn’t listed as an offender nor is he at the Marysville Department of Corrections site.

There is a community notification at SNOHOMISH COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE

There is however, an Eric Eugene Hartwell listed at the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offerender Registry with a last known address in Lawson, Colorado who shares the same birthday and offences.

If, as this article points out, he has done this many times before, how can the use of a GPS monitor be justified versus confinement? Isn’t this the type offender that the “Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Protection Act of 2006″ was to protect us from?

Eric Eugene Hartwell, who was convicted of raping his neighbor’s 6-year-old daughter and attempting to rape a pregnant teen, has an extensive history of traveling from state to state to avoid arrest and registering as a sex offender, officials say.

Related Post:

 Washington State Sex Offender Captured

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Silver Alert Bill Passes House

WASHINGTON — Representative Candice Miller says passage of the Silver Alert Program in the U.S. House is a great step forward in the care of senior citizens.

“With the aging population that we have today, I just think that this is something that makes perfect sense,” says Miller. “It’s a common sense approach, and it’s of low cost to the taxpayers because we already have the Amber Alert in place.”

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