I'd like to meet:
It was a typical hot summer day. The date was June 29, 2005. I woke up in the morning and got ready for work. My 16 yr old son, Jon, stayed home all day. I dropped my 9 yr old son, Cody, and my 4 yr old daughter, Chylece, (she had just turned 4 six days earlier) off at daycare and headed to work.
After work, I had to rush to pick Cody and Chylece up from daycare and hurry home. When we got home, I learned that Jon was not feeling too good. He was lying on the couch watching TV. While Cody was changing into his baseball uniform, I changed my clothes, got the kids a snack to eat, and got drinks and snacks ready to take with us to the game. Out the door we went, rushing to the fields, a few minutes late as usual. When we got to the fields, we set up our chairs. Finally, a few minutes for me to sit and catch a breath. As we (Chylece and I) were sitting there talking to the other parents watching the boys warm up getting ready to start their game, the dark clouds started to roll in. Then there was lightning. Time to pack up the chairs and get underneath the pavilion before getting soaked. After about 30 minutes of waiting, they decided to call the games. Back home we went.
Jon was still lying on the couch. Cody changed out of his uniform. I started cooking dinner, snake (it is really steak, but Chylece always called it snake), green beans, and potatoes. Of course, as we sat down to eat, we noticed the sun was shining, not a cloud in sight. A few days prior, I had bought me and Jon brand new bicycles, Cody already had one. Cody started bugging me to go for a bike ride when we finished eating. Then the phone rang, it was Jon’s friend Burt, he was also 16.
Burt's parents used to run a daycare, Land of The Little People. When Jon was 9 or 10, and Cody was two or three, they had started going to their daycare. Monty and Dorothy, Burt’s parents, seemed to be very nice people. I trusted them with the care of my children. My boys attended their daycare for about 2 years. Then I got pregnant with my daughter and started looking for a new daycare. For some reason I did not feel comfortable with leaving a 6-week-old baby in their care. However, as fate would have it, for some reason unknown to me, they lost their daycare license. When Chylece was 6 weeks old, she and Cody started a new daycare, For A Child. Jon would keep in touch with Burt and his brothers because they attended the same school.
Burt had called Jon that evening about 8:15 p.m. He had just finished his shift at Wendy's and had wanted Jon to go out cruising with him. Jon told him "no", because he was not feeling good. A few minutes later, Burt showed up at the house. Cody and Chylece were excited to see Burt. They looked to him like another big brother. Burt had stayed the night at our house before and had even gone to Geauga Lake with us. Cody was still bugging me to go on that bike ride, so I asked Jon if he would watch Chylece while I took Cody around a few blocks. He said "yes". As we were getting the bikes out Burt asked if he could play the XBOX. I had the XBOX in my bedroom because Jon would play all night after I would go to sleep and then not want to get up for school. I told Burt "yes". Chylece came outside to watch Cody and me off. Jon could see Chylece on the porch, out the living room window, so I told her she could wait there until we got back.
Cody and me headed down the street, laughing and racing. We rode by the park and started to come back home – but there was a hill. So we turned around and went back the same way we came. When we got home, Chylece was not on the porch. Cody held the front door open so I could take my bike into the house. Jon was still lying on the couch with the TV blaring. As I was putting the kick stand on my bike down Cody took off down the hall to my bedroom to join Burt in playing the XBOX. I started down the hallway to look for Chylece. Cody had opened my bedroom door, quickly shut it, and darted back past me down the hall.
When I made it to the door, I opened it and I think I instantly went into shock. My four-year-old little girl was lying on my bed, naked from the waist down. Burt was kneeling over top of her, his pants were on (he had time to pull them up from Cody opening the door to me opening the door). Burt quickly grabbed the blanket with his left hand and threw it over Chylece, and then I noticed in his right hand, her shorts and panties. He threw them across the bed. He then grabbed the XBOX controller and started playing as if nothing was wrong.
I just stood there. I seen something, but I really saw nothing. I got my daughter dressed, took her hand and walked to the front porch. Our first step onto the porch and my daughter pulled my hand for me to come to her level. "Mommy, Burt stuck his pee pee in me, shhh." I swear fifty thousand things ran through my head. I took Chylece with me into the house and called my friend Missy. She said, "Hang up the phone Cheryl, call the cops, I'm on my way."
I picked up the phone and called the cops. Even though Burt wrote a written confession that night, they did not arrest him until July 20th. I also learned that Burt's older brother had messed with little boy's, but he never legally got in trouble. I have always heard the statement, "The law is made to protect the criminal". I truly believe that statement is 100 percent true.
Burt is out of jail living his life as if nothing had happened. My kids and I are still in counseling. I took a 17-minute bike ride with my son, and our lives now are changed forever. Burt will never show on any of the registered sex offenders list because he was a juvenile when he committed the crime. The newspaper could print his name, age, address, and the crime when he was arrested, but the law protects his identity. I try to get the word out of the danger that people are unaware of. People have a false sense of security with the registered sex offenders list, they do not realize how many dangerous people there are out there that do not show on that list.
I am only one voice but I try every chance I get to make other people/parents aware. Unfortunately, most people still do not believe me. “He has to be listed", they say, but he is not and will not be unless he commits the crime again now that he is 18. He has to register until he is 28 years old, but nobody will ever see him on the list.
He did what he did in 17 minutes with someone in the next room. Imagine what he, or some other sicko, could do with 30 or 60 minutes while you run to the store or are on your way home from work.
I wrote this for a class at college and I know now they are in the process of changing the laws and I hope one day he will show on the registry list.
And of course the new laws that were suppose to go into effect Jan 1, 2008--is held up right now. Even if that law does go into effect he still will NOT show on the registry. I love Ohio law (rolls eyes).
