Chelsea King, 17, Missing 2-25-2010 Rancho Bernadino CA (BODY FOUND)

[klaasend]

Foxnews national just said that the sheriff will be on in just over an hour 12:30 est - no presser scheduled today as of yet

Then that would be in about 20 minutes from now California time if true. 

[klaasend]

May not have any connection but....

http://www.10news.com/news/22713518/detail.html

Body Found Floating In Pond In East Village

POSTED: 5:00 am PST March 2, 2010
SAN DIEGO -- San Diego police Tuesday investigated the death of someone whose body was found floating in a small body of water in the East Village.

The body was found in a drainage pond near San Diego Bay in the 1200 block of Imperial Avenue around 11:10 p.m. Monday, said San Diego police Officer Dino Delimitros.

No other details about the body were immediately released.

Oh no 

Not very close to the search area so likely not related though.

Thank-you. Someone's loved one has been found dead, just tragic.

Turns out it was a man:

"The body was that of a man who appeared to between 40 and 50, according to the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office. "

[no rose colored glasses]

Thank-you Klaas, my prayers to this man's family and friends 

[Cappuccino]

Foxnews national just said that the sheriff will be on in just over an hour 12:30 est - no presser scheduled today as of yet

Then that would be in about 20 minutes from now California time if true. 

It was announced by John Scoot on Happening now Klass, so yes true       Right now its being said that police are now using sonar & dive teams, blood hounds, piece of Chelsie's clothes found (which we knew)   Sheriff WIlliam Gore on RIGHT NOW

[klaasend]

Not hearing anything more than we already know.

[Cappuccino]

Sheriff William Gore just said on Fox that they are led to believe she is in the water, now discussing John Albert Gardners history....exactly my point as to why these SO's should not be getting lenient sentences, if released at all ever again.   WAKE UP PEOPLE!   (general statement)

[SunnyinTX]

Not hearing anything more than we already know.

thanks Klaas.............I hope they find her............her family and friends need to know...

[Tracygirl]

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local-beat/Family-Believes-Missing-Teens-Are-Linked-85951827.html



Family Believes Missing Teens Are Linked
John Albert Gardner III has "an unnatural interest in very young girls," according to one prosecutor
By R. STICKNEY, PAUL KRUEGER and MARI PAYTON
Updated 7:10 AM PST, Tue, Mar 2, 2010


Registered sex offender John Albert Gardner III is in custody on suspicion of murder and rape in the case of missing Poway teen Chelsea King.

King was last seen Thursday, Feb. 25 before she headed out for a run after school near Lake Hodges. An article of her clothing found near the lake matched Gardner's DNA, according to law enforcement sources.

But now, family members of another missing North County girl are seeing similarities in the Chelsea King case and their own daughter's disappearance.

Amber Dubois was last seen Feb. 13, 2009 while walking to Escondido High School.

 

[SunnyinTX]

May not have any connection but....

http://www.10news.com/news/22713518/detail.html

Body Found Floating In Pond In East Village

POSTED: 5:00 am PST March 2, 2010
SAN DIEGO -- San Diego police Tuesday investigated the death of someone whose body was found floating in a small body of water in the East Village.

The body was found in a drainage pond near San Diego Bay in the 1200 block of Imperial Avenue around 11:10 p.m. Monday, said San Diego police Officer Dino Delimitros.

No other details about the body were immediately released.

Oh no 

Not very close to the search area so likely not related though.

Thank-you. Someone's loved one has been found dead, just tragic.

Turns out it was a man:

"The body was that of a man who appeared to between 40 and 50, according to the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office. "

hopefully this will allow some family to start to heal....RIP

[klaasend]

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/poway/article_5c8d2100-e967-5388-9dc2-0927a627a675.html

POWAY: Search for Chelsea explodes online

Facebook, Twitter users tune in to case of missing teen

By TERI FIGUEROA - tfigueroa@nctimes.com | Posted: Monday, March 1, 2010 10:27 pm

Within hours of Thursday's disappearance of 17-year-old Chelsea King, pleas for help to find her exploded on Internet social networking Web sites.

One Facebook page dedicated to sharing information about Chelsea had more than 52,000 fans inside of five days. Another site ---- the official Facebook page created on behalf of the King family ---- had upward of 7,300 fans within 24 hours of its creation.

Social networking Web sites can reach a vast audience at the click of a mouse.

"It's mind-blowing how quickly people respond," said Susan Wintersteen, who created the King family's official Facebook page

News of Chelsea's disappearance ---- the Poway High School senior went for a run near Lake Hodges outside of Rancho Bernardo and failed to come home ---- also mushroomed on the micro-blogging Web site Twitter: Approximately 4,250 tweets, or posts, with the words "Chelsea King" have been sent since Feb. 25.

Tweets about the search for Chelsea also have been forwarded by more than a dozen young celebrities, including musicians Alicia Keys, Lady Gaga, Fred Durst and Michelle Branch and actresses Alyssa Milano, Holly Marie Combs and Ashley Tisdale.

The speed with which the world learned of Chelsea's disappearance was "remarkable" to Wintersteen, who credits postings on Facebook and other sites with drawing more than 1,000 volunteers for the Saturday morning search for Chelsea.

Wintersteen said she joined the efforts to find Chelsea through a friend who was already part of the volunteer search team. It was the same way she became part of the search efforts for Danielle Van Dam, 7, who disappeared eight years ago.

A neighbor abducted Danielle from her Sabre Springs home on Feb. 1, 2002. Her body was found nearly four weeks later ---- the day after prosecutors charged the neighbor with murder.

Wintersteen said that during the search for Danielle, volunteer searchers communicated with others primarily by phone ---- a dinosaur compared with the power of the Web.

"We used donated phones, there was no texting and it was a delay in response," Wintersteen said of the 2002 search. "I can get an immediate response now."

And it's a worldwide response, too, with well wishes coming in from strangers as far away as Japan and Australia.

The Facebook page Wintersteen created is the official site for Chelsea's parents, Kelly and Brent King, who post messages to volunteers and others, she said. And the postings from other people are monitored by a handful of administrators who remove inappropriate remarks, she said.

"We are trying to be a site focused only to bring Chelsea home," she said. "We are not interested in talking about the predator. ... This is a place where Kelly and Brent can have their voices heard."

Within hours of the news of Chelsea's disappearance, Wintersteen said, "well-intentioned" strangers who wanted to help the King family created their own Facebook pages ---- at least one of which attracted more than 51,000 fans inside of four days

As of Monday night, Chelsea had not been found. A day earlier, authorities arrested registered sex offender John Albert Gardner III, 30, on suspicion of rape and murder in connection with Chelsea's disappearance.

Call staff writer Teri Figueroa at 760-740-5442.

[Missiontoconvict]

Thank you for all the updates everyone - this is such a tragedy and to think it can be remedied through more stringent laws and indefinite prison sentences. 

I worked for a group of urologists once and one of the doctors had done extensive studies on sexual misconduct, rape etc. he is active on several committees here locally about this issue.  He told us that chemical and/or surgical sterilization would not be an effective means in dealing with these sorts - it may curb an urge but it does nothing to stop them from wanting to hurt or kill someone - if they can't use their "man part" they will find another way. They have a sickness about power and control.

If they are dangerous enough to require sterilization/castration then they are dangerous enough to be put in prison for the rest of their pathetic lives, the risk it just to great to even try and deal with them IMO 

[Anna]

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local-beat/Family-Believes-Missing-Teens-Are-Linked-85951827.html



Family Believes Missing Teens Are Linked
John Albert Gardner III has "an unnatural interest in very young girls," according to one prosecutor
By R. STICKNEY, PAUL KRUEGER and MARI PAYTON
Updated 7:10 AM PST, Tue, Mar 2, 2010


Registered sex offender John Albert Gardner III is in custody on suspicion of murder and rape in the case of missing Poway teen Chelsea King.

King was last seen Thursday, Feb. 25 before she headed out for a run after school near Lake Hodges. An article of her clothing found near the lake matched Gardner's DNA, according to law enforcement sources.

But now, family members of another missing North County girl are seeing similarities in the Chelsea King case and their own daughter's disappearance.

Amber Dubois was last seen Feb. 13, 2009 while walking to Escondido High School.

 


I have not heard about this before.  Just gets worse and worse.     I was hoping for Amber to be another case of kidnapping but being kept alive.

[klaasend]

Sheriff William Gore just said on Fox that they are led to believe she is in the water, now discussing John Albert Gardners history....exactly my point as to why these SO's should not be getting lenient sentences, if released at all ever again.   WAKE UP PEOPLE!   (general statement)

Makes me crazy too Capps.  These people cannot be cured.

[Northern Rose]

Suspect in King case linked to assault at park
Officials revisiting ’09 case; divers search Lake Hodges

The investigation into a sex offender suspected of abducting Poway teenager Chelsea King widened yesterday as authorities linked him to a December assault and probed whether he had a role in last year’s disappearance of Escondido teenager Amber Dubois.

Chelsea, a 17-year-old Poway High School student, remains missing despite a massive four-day search that is now focused on a 4-square-mile area near Lake Hodges. Divers from the FBI’s Los Angeles office searched the lake yesterday while volunteers and law enforcement officials combed the shoreline for clues.

John Albert Gardner III, 30, a registered sex offender from Lake Elsinore, was arrested Sunday and is being held in the downtown Central Jail on suspicion of rape and murder in Chelsea’s disappearance. Gardner spent five years in prison after he was convicted 10 years ago of molesting a 13-year-old neighbor girl in his mother’s Rancho Bernardo townhouse.

Authorities late yesterday refused to call the search for Chelsea a recovery mission and vowed to continue looking for her. Meanwhile, family, friends and students held out hope that Chelsea is alive.

“They’ve put this, uh, I won’t even call him a person, in custody,” Brent King, Chelsea’s father, said yesterday.

“They feel they have enough evidence to keep him there and it is helping, I think, lead us to our daughter. And that’s really important to us.”

Chelsea has been missing since Thursday night when she failed to come home from an after-school run at the Rancho Bernardo Community Park, where her locked car was found.

Gardner’s possible involvement in the case of Amber Dubois, a 14-year-old who disappeared while walking to Escondido High School on Feb. 13, 2009, also is under investigation.

Gardner’s mother and stepfather live in a townhouse on Matinal Road in the Westwood neighborhood of Rancho Bernardo, near the park. Gardner registered as a sex offender at an Escondido address as recently as November 2009.

“We see the similarities between the victims, Chelsea and Amber,” Escondido Police Lt. Bob Benton said. “Since Day One, we’ve always been looking for a key piece of information, and something out of this may make that happen.”

Benton would not comment on whether Escondido detectives have tried to question Gardner since his arrest or whether Gardner had been a suspect in the case before Sunday.

Moe Dubois, Amber’s father, said news of Gardner’s arrest sickened him and his ex-wife.

“The reality of it really hit home. It really hit us hard,” he said. “Everyone in the family is in complete denial that Gardner has anything to do with Amber. But in the back of all our heads, we’re all wondering.”

Gardner also has been positively linked to a Dec. 27 attack on a jogger at the same park where Chelsea disappeared, San Diego Police Capt. Jim Collins said.

Collins declined to say how the link was made, citing the ongoing sheriff’s investigation, but said local authorities are working with police in Colorado Springs, Colo., where the 22-year-old victim lives.

San Diego police are revisiting the case to see what evidence was recovered after the attack and to determine whether it can yield further clues.

Collins said the woman was visiting family in the area when she went for a morning jog alone in the park. She was approached by a man who tackled her and demanded money, police said. She hit him in the face with her elbow and got away. Collins said the victim left town before she could work with police on a composite sketch of the assailant.

The victim’s sister has said police took a swab for DNA testing after the attack.

In 2000, Gardner was convicted of a forcible lewd act on a child and false imprisonment after a 13-year-old neighbor girl accused him of repeatedly punching her in the face and touching her private parts. He was sentenced to six years in prison and served five years before he was released in September 2005. He completed probation in 2008.

Court records show that the psychiatrist who interviewed Gardner in that case said the man’s callous attitude and lack of remorse made him “an extremely poor candidate for any sexual offender treatment.”

“It is my opinion that (the defendant) would be a continued danger to underage girls in the community,” said Dr. Matthew Carroll.

Carroll recommended the maximum sentence of 30 years, but a sentencing memorandum from the District Attorney’s Office said prosecutors asked for a six-year sentence to resolve the case without a trial and spare the victim from testifying.

Gardner’s arrest Sunday afternoon occurred outside a Mexican restaurant and bar called Hernandez Hide-A-Way in the small community of Del Dios on the west shore of Lake Hodges near Escondido.

At Poway High School yesterday, a somber mood fell over the campus as students and staff reacted to news of the arrest. Most wore blue shirts to represent the color of Chelsea’s eyes and tied blue ribbons around light poles on campus.

“We’re still hoping for the best, but we’re fearing the worst,” said school counselor Traci Barker-Ball.

Principal Scott Fisher said it had been a “very difficult and emotional weekend” but thanked students for helping in search efforts.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever been so proud of the school,” he said, his voice cracking at times. “Students have just been out there caring for one another, and that’s major during a difficult time.”

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/mar/02/suspect-is-linked-to-assault-at-park/

[Northern Rose]

Psychiatrist urged long sentence in sex offender’s case

When 20-year-old John Albert Gardner III molested a 13-year-old girl in his mother’s Rancho Bernardo townhouse 10 years ago, a psychiatrist said he should be locked away for a long time because he “would be a continued danger to underage girls in the community.”

Gardner served five years of a six-year prison sentence.

Now the Lake Elsinore man is being questioned in the disappearance of Poway teenager Chelsea King. She went missing Thursday at a park just down the road from Gardner’s mother’s home, and Gardner is in custody on suspicion of rape and murder.

A decade-old San Diego Superior Court file documents why he was required to register as a sex offender.

On March 16, 2000, Gardner offered two teenage girls a ride to middle school when he saw them waiting for a bus. He dropped one off but brought the 13-year-old back to the townhouse to watch movies. They began watching “Patch Adams” alone, and he started giving her a massage. That led to him touching her sexually over her protestations.

He hit the girl repeatedly in the head and had partly undressed her before she ran out the door “with only one shoe on, holding her pants because she had not yet had a chance to zip them up, and ran to a neighbor’s house.”

That neighbor on Matinal Road, Sue Jones, recalled yesterday how the girl was sobbing hysterically and in shock. Jones said she held the girl until she left in an ambulance.

An 11-page sentencing memo from the District Attorney’s Office summarizes the girl’s devastation.

“Her fear is so great that she had to move, and to change schools,” it reads. “She has lost all of her ability to trust people, and is in need of significant counseling. This ugly incident will undoubtedly affect her for the rest of her life.”

Gardner pleaded guilty on May 31, 2000, to two counts of a lewd act on a child and one count of false imprisonment. Under the terms of Gardner’s plea agreement, the maximum punishment he could have faced was 10 years and eight months in prison. The District Attorney’s Office opted to seek a six-year term because his prior criminal record included only one conviction — for disturbing the peace in San Bernardino County.

Soon after, Dr. Matthew Carroll said Gardner “takes no responsibility whatsoever for his actions” and recommended he “be given the maximum sentence allowed by law.”

Yesterday, Carroll, a Mission Valley psychiatrist, said he doesn’t remember Gardner.

He said he handles six cases a week for the county, including sex offense cases.

“I give neutral, objective recommendations on my viewpoint, and after that, it’s out of my hands,” Carroll said.

David Hendren, chief of the sex crimes and stalking division at the District Attorney’s Office, handled Gardner’s 2000 prosecution.

Hendren declined to comment on Gardner yesterday, saying he wouldn’t talk about a “pending case.”

He also declined to comment on Carroll’s recommendation in 2000 that Gardner be given the maximum sentence allowed by law or the decision to seek a six-year term.

Prosecutors initially charged Gardner with more-violent sex crimes that could have resulted in a sentence of more than 30 years because the terms would have been served consecutively. His plea saved him from significant prison time by allowing him to serve the sentences concurrently.

A California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman said Gardner was in prison five years and on parole three years, until September 2008.
William Halsey, Gardner’s attorney in the 2000 case, said yesterday it was “a struggle” to persuade Gardner to take the plea. Halsey said he remembered that someone had referred Gardner’s mother to him at the time, and she paid his legal bills.
Halsey couldn’t recall all the details of the case after 10 years but said of Gardner, “Basically, he had a version of the facts that were not against her will, wasn’t assaultive, he didn’t know why she ran out of the house.”

Then-District Attorney Paul Pfingst said yesterday that he didn’t recall the 2000 prosecution and that typically, that type of deal would have been arranged without him by a division chief.

He said that in general, people without prior records like Gardner avoid maximum sentences “because that’s what the court rules say. That’s how the judges are instructed.”

The sentencing memo from the District Attorney’s Office notes that sometime during 1999, when Gardner was 19 or 20, he “fondled the breasts of a 14-year-old girl and rubbed her vaginal area over her clothes,” but that it was consensual.

The memo says that girl was a friend of the girl he brought back to his house and molested in 2000.

The last page of the memo notes that prosecutors wanted to resolve the 2000 case short of a trial and “spare the victim the trauma of testifying.”

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/mar/02/psychiatrist-urged-long-sentence-in-sex-offenders/

[Adam In California]

As an update -

California has a Chemical Castration law on the books.  It applies to those who have abused children under 13, and comes into effect only after the second conviction.

Here is how the California State Senate described the law change at the time:

AB 3339 (Hoge): Chapter 596: Chemical Castration. (Repeals and adds Penal Code Section 645.)

Existing law specifies the punishment for sex offenses where the victim is a child, and provides that the court may direct an operation to be performed upon the offender for the prevention of procreation where the victim is a female under the age of 10 years.

This bill repeals the latter provision and provides instead that any person guilty of a first conviction of specified sex offenses, where the victim is under 13 years of age, may be punished by medroxyprogesterone acetate treatment, upon parole, in addition to any other punishment prescribed by law. The bill requires this punishment upon a second conviction.

http://www.sen.ca.gov/ftp/SEN/COMMITTEE/STANDING/PUBLICSAFETY/bills/_6bill12.htm

This law change eliminated surgical castration from the books.

My own opinion is that if a violent Sex Offender is determined by the court appointed psychologist to be a poor candidate for Sex Offender treatment (as was Gardner who was described as "un-remorseful") then they should get Chemical Castration for the term of Parole and then continued for as long as they reside in the state.

I know some want a return to surgical castration, but incremental change is more likely to work.

[Northern Rose]

Family holds out hope for Chelsea King's return

Authorities have resumed the search for 17-year-old Chelsea King in Southern California.

King's father, Brent King, told "The Early Show" on CBS Tuesday that he will keep hoping for her safe return.

The girl vanished after visiting a San Diego County running trail on Thursday.

More than 1,000 volunteers and law enforcement officials aided by an FBI dive team searched a lake and nearby park Monday.

Convicted sex offender John Gardner III is being held for investigation of her rape and murder. Charges have yet to be filed.



SAN DIEGO (AP) — Chelsea King is a straight-A student who plays French horn for the San Diego Youth Symphony, runs on the school cross-country team and actively volunteers in a peer counseling program.

At Poway High School, photos adorn the walls with the caption, "Last seen 2-25 at RB Community Park wearing running clothes."

The 17-year-old's family and authorities are holding out hope she will return safely. Thousands of volunteers have helped search for the teen since she disappeared Thursday, and her father, Brent King, told CBS' "The Early Show" Tuesday, "Until I hear differently, I believe she's alive."

But as optimistic searchers spread out over the popular area for trail runners, police were determining whether to charge a registered sex offender who was arrested Sunday for investigation of the teen's murder and rape.

John Gardner III, 30, remained in custody without bail after his arrest outside a Mexican restaurant in suburban Escondido on Sunday. Steve Walker, a spokesman for the San Diego County district attorney's office, said a decision would be made by Wednesday about filing charges.

Gardner, of Lake Elsinore, pleaded guilty in May 2000 to molesting a 13-year-old female neighbor and was sentenced to six years in prison. Prosecutors say he lured the victim to his home with an offer to watch "Patch Adams," a 1998 movie starring Robin Williams.

Sheriff Bill Gore told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Monday that the questioning of Gardner hadn't produced any leads. Sheriff's spokeswoman Jan Caldwell declined to say if searches of Gardner's home and his mother's San Diego home yielded evidence.

Brent King pleaded for anyone with information about Gardner to come forward. Investigators suspect Gardner could be tied to a Dec. 27 assault on a female jogger from Colorado who fended off her attacker in the same park.

"Anybody who knows anything about the person they have in custody — whatever you want to call him, I can't even put a word to it — please let us know," he said.

In an interview Monday, the Kings, who also have a 13-year-old son, recounted their daughter's disappearance.

Brent, 47, returned from the gym around 5:30 p.m. Thursday, the same time his wife, Kelly, 48, came home with groceries. Their daughter, who always kept them abreast of her whereabouts, wasn't home.

First, they called her cell phone, then her friends. A friend's mother suggested an AT&T Web site, which led them to her cell phone that was left inside her 1994 BMW parked near the tennis courts at the park.

"Because it was so out of character for Chelsea not to tell us or call us and say I'm going to be late ... we just had that feeling," Brent King said.

Kelly called 911 as her husband drove to the park. Brent looked first at the tennis courts, then saw a trail headed into the woods.

"I took off and ran down the trail as far as I could run, calling out for my daughter at the top of my voice in every direction," he said.

Chelsea was born in Poway, a well-to-do suburb of homes and office parks northeast of San Diego. The family followed Brent King's job in mortgage banking to the San Francisco Bay area and to the Chicago area before returning to San Diego. Their home was badly damaged in 2007 wildfires that ravaged Southern California.

Chelsea is taking four Advanced Placement courses and applied to 11 colleges, with an eye toward a career that would combine her interests in writing and environmental protection. She has been accepted to two schools, University of Washington and University of British Columbia.

"She is one of the most driven, personable, caring people that you could ever meet," Brent King said. "Her goal in life is to brighten everyone's day. That's what she does, and when she walks into the room, you know she's there."

She often stays up studying past midnight, working so hard that her parents urge her to ease off and spend more time with friends. Long-distance running was her escape.

"That was her outlet when she was stressed about a test or needed to just clear her head," Kelly King said.

http://www.cbs8.com/Global/story.asp?S=12048619

[no rose colored glasses]

From Northern's article.   William Halsey, Gardner’s attorney in the 2000 case, said yesterday it was “a struggle” to persuade Gardner to take the plea. Halsey said he remembered that someone had referred Gardner’s mother to him at the time, and she paid his legal bills.  And mark my words this mother will defend this creature and pay for all his bills. I'm so upset over all this that I can't even see straight. 

[Missiontoconvict]

Northern Rose, nice to see you I haven't seen you in a while.  Thank you for the articles.   

[Northern Rose]

From Northern's article.   William Halsey, Gardner’s attorney in the 2000 case, said yesterday it was “a struggle” to persuade Gardner to take the plea. Halsey said he remembered that someone had referred Gardner’s mother to him at the time, and she paid his legal bills.  And mark my words this mother will defend this creature and pay for all his bills. I'm so upset over all this that I can't even see straight. 

He also "molested a 13-year-old girl in his mother’s Rancho Bernardo townhouse", she found him an attorney, she paid for the attorney, she still lives in said townhouse ...not saying more about how I feel about his mother right now