Posted 3:45 am Saturday, April 19, 2008
Man Wages War Against Sex Offenders
By CASEY KNAUPP
Staff Writer
Mark Lunsford has waged war against sex offenders and wants you to join him.
Staff Writer
Mark Lunsford has waged war against sex offenders and wants you to join him.
On Friday, he told the tragic story of how his 9-year-old daughter was kidnapped by a sex offender, raped and killed.
At 2 a.m. on Feb. 24, 2005, Jessica "vanished into thin air" while sleeping in her bedroom.
Early the next morning, he heard his daughter's alarm clock ringing. She was always the first to get up, he said.
He found his daughter's sheets pulled back but her school clothes were still lying out.
Lunsford searched the house hoping to find her hiding from him. When he couldn't find her, he told his parents to call 911. When a child is missing, everyone has to go through a cycle, he said, until authorities can narrow it and find who took the little girl. Officers searched Florida, North Carolina - where they moved from about a month before - and Ohio, where Jessica's mother had lived.
Officers felt Lunsford's father was hiding something because they said he showed no remorse. They made Lunsford, who was angry, confused and broken-hearted, ask his dad what he had done with Jessica, but his father replied that he didn't know where she was.
On national television, officers said Lunsford's mother raised red flags when she took a polygraph test. Lunsford was also forced to take a polygraph after he hadn't slept or eaten in four days.
VICTIMS’ RIGHTS: Mark Tedder, a training officer with Smith County Sheriff’s Department, speaks about Cyber Stalking/Text Stalking at the Victims Rights Conference at Green Acres Baptist Church on Friday.
Lunsford said he couldn't understand that when polygraphs aren't admissible in court, how they could be used in the court of public opinion to humiliate people who had never before been in trouble.
He said it seemed like authorities were focusing on his father, but his family was only one out of five investigations the police were conducting.
After three weeks of frantically searching for his daughter, police found John Couey, who confessed to the killing and told them where they could find her body.
He had raped Jessica, tied her up with speaker wire and kept her in a closet for three days before putting her in a trash bag and burying her alive in his backyard. Lunsford is sure his daughter was crying for him as she was being buried and he said he still hears her cries.
Jessica was found 150 yards from her bedroom. Her window faced Couey's bedroom window from across the street.
At 46 years old, Couey, a registered sex offender, had been arrested 23 times.
Jessica's "death is the result of a system that failed all of us," Lunsford said.
Couey is the only one to blame for her murder and he now sits on death row in Florida.
But, Lunsford said, Couey's probation officer didn't even know he was a sex offender. He had a monitoring device and followed all the rules until he served out his probation and the device was removed in November 2004. He was never seen again until he killed Jessica, he said.
The day Jessica disappeared, law enforcement went to the house where Couey lived with several relatives. As a sex offender, he had been registered at another address seven miles away and hadn't updated his registration, he said.
Officers asked his relatives if they had seen Couey. They said no, even though they had bought him a bus ticket to Georgia, he said. During three visits in the first two days, Couey's family members acted suspiciously and nervous. Five people were arrested for Jessica's murder, but only one was prosecuted because it is not a crime to lie to law enforcement in Florida and those who testified against Couey couldn't be charged, he said.
Lunsford said sitting through Couey's three-week trial was the hardest thing he ever did because he wanted to kill him. He knew if he did that he would throw away everything he had done to try and make a difference.
No family should have to go through what Lunsford and his family went through, he said, adding that his daughter's death changed everything in his life.
His job now is to wage war on sex offenders and he asked everyone to join him.
Jessica's Law was passed in Florida, toughening punishment for sex offenders. Since then, 34 states have passed variations of Jessica's Law, including Texas, which allows for the death penalty for repeat offenders who prey on children.
Lunsford talked about the important ance of the Adam Walsh Act, which provides funding for programs designed to help child victims.
He also talked about the importance of victim advocates. He asked people to donate to the children's advocacy centers in their area because "the child you save could be your own."
Lunsford continues to work with state and national lawmakers to change the system.
Crying throughout most of the speech, Lunsford swore that for the rest of his life, he would make every sex offender's life as miserable as he possibly could. But, he said, he can't do it by himself.
The Smith County District Attorney's Office hosted the two-day Crime Victims Rights Conference, themed "Justice for Victims, Justice for All" to correlate with National Crime Victims' Rights Week.
