I think we need more vigilantes and less soft liberal judges. Here is an AP article from today.
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DUDLEY, Mass. ? Nancy Surprise left her 7-year-old son alone in the car one day while she ran into the post office, and returned to find a 280-pound man sitting on top of the boy.
But when the man was hauled into court, Surprise says, prosecutors insisted the best way to handle the case would be to make him go far, far away.
Prosecutors cut a deal in 1991 with the man, Nathaniel Bar-Jonah: no jail time, two years of probation, and he must keep his promise to move to Montana and live with his mother.
Bar-Jonah headed west. And it is there that he stands accused of crimes far more horrifying: He is suspected of butchering a little boy and serving the remains in dishes cooked up for his Montana neighbors.
"I wanted him locked up," Surprise says now. "If I knew then what I know now, I would have been arguing a lot more and made a lot more noise" about the plea bargain. She adds: "What could we do?"
That is a question that resonates as investigators wonder how Bar-Jonah -- a child predator who had already been convicted of attempted murder and locked up for a decade in a mental hospital -- was allowed to go free.
Montana officials say Massachusetts "dumped" Bar-Jonah on them without fully disclosing his history. Massachusetts denies that.
It was a history riddled with violence against children.
Bar-Jonah, 44, grew up as David P. Brown in the town of Webster. Neighbors described him as a strange boy fascinated by gore.
In 1974, a 17-year-old Brown, dressed as a policeman, ordered an 8-year-old boy into his car and beat and choked the youngster before driving him home. The boy later recognized his assailant working at a McDonald's. Brown pleaded guilty and received a year of probation.
In 1977, again dressed as a policeman, the 20-year-old Brown kidnapped two boys from a movie theater, ordered them to undress and began strangling them. One boy escaped. Brown was arrested after a chase, and authorities found the second boy in his trunk, handcuffed.
This time, Brown was sentenced to 18 to 20 years in prison for attempted murder and other charges. A psychiatrist pronounced him "dangerously disturbed," and in 1979 Brown was committed to Bridgewater State Hospital.
There, he changed his name to Nathaniel Benjamin Levi Bar-Jonah. He told friends he wanted a Jewish name so he would know how it felt to be persecuted. He also told therapists his fantasies.
"Mr. Brown's sexual fantasies ... outline methods of torture extending to dissection and cannibalism; he expresses a curiosity about the taste of human flesh," one therapist wrote in 1980.
In 1991, however, Superior Court Judge Walter E. Steele ruled that Bar-Jonah could leave without restrictions because the state had not proved that he was still dangerous. At that hearing, his family promised to take Bar-Jonah to Montana.
The judge, now retired, did not respond to requests for interviews.
Three weeks after Bar-Jonah's release from the state hospital, he walked to the Oxford post office and attacked Surprise's son.
The boy's mother dragged her son away and ran for help. Bar-Jonah was arrested on assault charges. He was freed without bail. Soon after, the Surprises reported seeing Bar-Jonah near their house, and prosecutors asked to have him returned to jail. A judge refused.
The next day, Dudley District Judge Sarkis Teshoian approved a deal sending Bar-Jonah to Montana and placing him on two years' probation.
The judge told The Associated Press that the deal was "an appropriate sentence based on the information" available to him at the time.
Worcester County District Attorney John Conte, whose office handled the Massachusetts cases against Bar-Jonah, said in response to written questions from the AP that prosecution "would have been difficult, if not impossible" because Surprise refused to let her son testify and because both failed to identify Bar-Jonah within hours of the incident.
"If Mrs. Surprise had been willing to permit her son to testify, I expect that the case would have gone to trial," Conte said. "We saw no cause to object to Mr. Bar-Jonah's transfer."
Surprise's lawyer, John W. Towns, disputed that account. He said Surprise was willing to testify but prosecutors wanted to make a deal.
Bar-Jonah's probation officer sent his file to Montana. But shortly after Bar-Jonah moved to Big Sky Country, Montana probation officer Michael Redpath sat down with him to review the file. He was stunned by what he heard.
"He divulged to me that he was in Bridgewater and all the other things," Redpath said. "I was taken aback by that, because it was not included in the packet of information."
Redpath's supervisor wrote to Massachusetts for more history and psychiatric records. But the Massachusetts probation office said it has no record of sending any additional information on Bar-Jonah.
In 1999, Bar-Jonah was arrested outside a Great Falls, Mont., elementary school, again dressed as a policeman. He was carrying a stun gun and pepper spray.
A search of his house yielded thousands of photographs of boys. Investigators also found encrypted writings, which the FBI decoded, about "little boy stew" and "lunch is served on the patio with roasted child," prosecutors said. Also found was a list of boys from Massachusetts and Great Falls.
Bar-Jonah was charged in December with kidnapping and murdering one of the Great Falls youngsters, 10-year-old Zachary Ramsay, who disappeared in 1996. He was also accused of sexually assaulting three other boys.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. No trial date has been set in the murder case.
Don Vernay, one of Bar-Jonah's Montana attorneys, would not comment on the charges.
The gruesome case has led to interstate fingerpointing.
"Montana officials were unaware of what occurred in the Massachusetts courts and did not have a complete record to evaluate Bar-Jonah," the Montana Corrections Department said in a statement.
Coria Holland, spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Commissioner of Probation, countered: "If there were any problems, and the state of Montana felt that they didn't have adequate information, they wouldn't have accepted the case."
---
DUDLEY, Mass. ? Nancy Surprise left her 7-year-old son alone in the car one day while she ran into the post office, and returned to find a 280-pound man sitting on top of the boy.
But when the man was hauled into court, Surprise says, prosecutors insisted the best way to handle the case would be to make him go far, far away.
Prosecutors cut a deal in 1991 with the man, Nathaniel Bar-Jonah: no jail time, two years of probation, and he must keep his promise to move to Montana and live with his mother.
Bar-Jonah headed west. And it is there that he stands accused of crimes far more horrifying: He is suspected of butchering a little boy and serving the remains in dishes cooked up for his Montana neighbors.
"I wanted him locked up," Surprise says now. "If I knew then what I know now, I would have been arguing a lot more and made a lot more noise" about the plea bargain. She adds: "What could we do?"
That is a question that resonates as investigators wonder how Bar-Jonah -- a child predator who had already been convicted of attempted murder and locked up for a decade in a mental hospital -- was allowed to go free.
Montana officials say Massachusetts "dumped" Bar-Jonah on them without fully disclosing his history. Massachusetts denies that.
It was a history riddled with violence against children.
Bar-Jonah, 44, grew up as David P. Brown in the town of Webster. Neighbors described him as a strange boy fascinated by gore.
In 1974, a 17-year-old Brown, dressed as a policeman, ordered an 8-year-old boy into his car and beat and choked the youngster before driving him home. The boy later recognized his assailant working at a McDonald's. Brown pleaded guilty and received a year of probation.
In 1977, again dressed as a policeman, the 20-year-old Brown kidnapped two boys from a movie theater, ordered them to undress and began strangling them. One boy escaped. Brown was arrested after a chase, and authorities found the second boy in his trunk, handcuffed.
This time, Brown was sentenced to 18 to 20 years in prison for attempted murder and other charges. A psychiatrist pronounced him "dangerously disturbed," and in 1979 Brown was committed to Bridgewater State Hospital.
There, he changed his name to Nathaniel Benjamin Levi Bar-Jonah. He told friends he wanted a Jewish name so he would know how it felt to be persecuted. He also told therapists his fantasies.
"Mr. Brown's sexual fantasies ... outline methods of torture extending to dissection and cannibalism; he expresses a curiosity about the taste of human flesh," one therapist wrote in 1980.
In 1991, however, Superior Court Judge Walter E. Steele ruled that Bar-Jonah could leave without restrictions because the state had not proved that he was still dangerous. At that hearing, his family promised to take Bar-Jonah to Montana.
The judge, now retired, did not respond to requests for interviews.
Three weeks after Bar-Jonah's release from the state hospital, he walked to the Oxford post office and attacked Surprise's son.
The boy's mother dragged her son away and ran for help. Bar-Jonah was arrested on assault charges. He was freed without bail. Soon after, the Surprises reported seeing Bar-Jonah near their house, and prosecutors asked to have him returned to jail. A judge refused.
The next day, Dudley District Judge Sarkis Teshoian approved a deal sending Bar-Jonah to Montana and placing him on two years' probation.
The judge told The Associated Press that the deal was "an appropriate sentence based on the information" available to him at the time.
Worcester County District Attorney John Conte, whose office handled the Massachusetts cases against Bar-Jonah, said in response to written questions from the AP that prosecution "would have been difficult, if not impossible" because Surprise refused to let her son testify and because both failed to identify Bar-Jonah within hours of the incident.
"If Mrs. Surprise had been willing to permit her son to testify, I expect that the case would have gone to trial," Conte said. "We saw no cause to object to Mr. Bar-Jonah's transfer."
Surprise's lawyer, John W. Towns, disputed that account. He said Surprise was willing to testify but prosecutors wanted to make a deal.
Bar-Jonah's probation officer sent his file to Montana. But shortly after Bar-Jonah moved to Big Sky Country, Montana probation officer Michael Redpath sat down with him to review the file. He was stunned by what he heard.
"He divulged to me that he was in Bridgewater and all the other things," Redpath said. "I was taken aback by that, because it was not included in the packet of information."
Redpath's supervisor wrote to Massachusetts for more history and psychiatric records. But the Massachusetts probation office said it has no record of sending any additional information on Bar-Jonah.
In 1999, Bar-Jonah was arrested outside a Great Falls, Mont., elementary school, again dressed as a policeman. He was carrying a stun gun and pepper spray.
A search of his house yielded thousands of photographs of boys. Investigators also found encrypted writings, which the FBI decoded, about "little boy stew" and "lunch is served on the patio with roasted child," prosecutors said. Also found was a list of boys from Massachusetts and Great Falls.
Bar-Jonah was charged in December with kidnapping and murdering one of the Great Falls youngsters, 10-year-old Zachary Ramsay, who disappeared in 1996. He was also accused of sexually assaulting three other boys.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. No trial date has been set in the murder case.
Don Vernay, one of Bar-Jonah's Montana attorneys, would not comment on the charges.
The gruesome case has led to interstate fingerpointing.
"Montana officials were unaware of what occurred in the Massachusetts courts and did not have a complete record to evaluate Bar-Jonah," the Montana Corrections Department said in a statement.
Coria Holland, spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Commissioner of Probation, countered: "If there were any problems, and the state of Montana felt that they didn't have adequate information, they wouldn't have accepted the case."
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