If John Mark Karr’s 12-day run of fame did nothing else, it forced parents to confront the ease in which strangers put themselves next to children.
“No one likes to think about it. That’s why we count on these big cases to get parents’ attention,” says Parry Aftab, an Internet privacy lawyer considered one of the nation’s leading experts on Internet safety for families.
Certainly, she says, most kids are safe from the murder, kidnapping and rape cases that parents fear most. Those crimes may grab headlines but remain extraordinarily rare.
That does not mean, however, that children today are insulated. In fact, it is quite the opposite.
Experts are deeply troubled by the easy access strangers, including pedophiles, have to children. They are equally concerned by the loopholes in the sex-offender registries and background checks designed to keep predators at bay.
Two weeks ago, Hesh DiGuiseppi, who runs a Denver-area computer camp and after-school program for elementary-age children, began calling every parent of kids who had been in her classes last spring and summer.
“I’m not sure you’ve seen the news …” she began, her voice shaking.
One of the teachers she hired, Michael David DiPalma, had been arrested in Lakewood and charged with sexually assaulting an 8-year-old boy during one of her programs. DiPalma faces five felonies and one misdemeanor in the case.
DiGuiseppi, herself the mother of an 8-year-old boy taught by DiPalma, urged all of the parents to talk to their children to ensure no one else had been harmed.
“It was very hard,” she says of those 60 calls, “but parents had a right to know.”
Sometimes, though, parents simply don’t know.
A survey last spring of 13- to 17-year- olds revealed that 71 percent had been approached or received a personal message online from someone they did not know. Only 18 percent told their parents.
The same survey showed nearly half – 45 percent – had been asked for personal information, such as their real name or where they go to school. About 40 percent admitted they continued the conversation. Nearly a third considered meeting the stranger face to face; 14 percent admitted to doing so.
The survey was conducted by Cox Communications for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Ernie Allen, director of the center in Alexandria, Va., wonders if the numbers are even higher.
Recently he spoke to a class of middle- schoolers in Illinois and asked how many had been contacted through the Internet by someone they did not know. Every hand went up. When asked how many told their parents, not one hand was raised. Most were afraid their parents would cut off access to the Internet.
Aftab says part of the problem is many parents do not fully understand the technology their children embrace.
“Parents only know the risks they were exposed to when they were kids,” she says.
Where once the computer was like a television, it should now be seen as a telephone. Parents may not realize their son’s Xbox or RuneScape game has chat capability. Or that their daughter’s profile on Myspace.com is being pored over by people they would never allow in their home.
“I try to tell kids that cute 14-year-old boy you think you’re chatting with may not be cute, may not be 14 and may not be a boy,” Aftab says.
Just as the Internet has linked people of similar interests worldwide, it has done the same for pedophiles.
Allen says an entire cyberspace network of chat rooms and discussion groups has been created where pedophiles can swap stories about sexual encounters or discuss strategies on how to gain access to kids in school and camps.
Even a language has emerged called “pedo-speak,” he says.
While it is not known whether the discussions are real or fantasy, Allen worries they may embolden members.
“It bolsters their sense of normalcy,” he says.
In the case of Karr, who was suspected in the death of JonBenét Ramsey before DNA tests cleared him last week, e-mails the former teacher sent went on at length about his love for girls under the age of 8.
Police add that pedophiles often seem a step ahead of law enforcement when it comes to evading detection.
“The dangerous people are sneaky beyond belief,” says Lance Clem, a spokesman for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
In DiPalma’s case, DiGuiseppi asked for a fingerprint background check before hiring him, assuming it was nationwide. It wasn’t. Only after his arrest here did she learn that he had been indicted in New Mexico in 1999 on similar charges, including sexual assault on a child.
Those charges were later reduced, and he was placed on probation, according to New Mexico records. He came to Colorado after completing probation and was hired by Computer Tots/Computer Explorers this year.
Yet the fingerprint background check DiGuiseppi requested only screened for Colorado. According to the CBI, requests for national background checks can only be made by the person being checked, not potential employers. The exception is if an applicant is applying directly to a school district.
Clem speculated the reduced charge also may have kept DiPalma exempt from the New Mexico sex-offender registry.
“I guess people can just go from state to state,” DiGuiseppi says. “It’s scary.”
Staff writer Jenny Deam can be reached at 303-954-1261 or jdeam@denverpost.com.
