Tuesday, July 29, 2014

IN LOVING MEMORY OF 7-YEAR-OLD MEGAN KANKA (DECEMBER 7, 1986 TO JULY 29, 1994)



We, the comrades of Unit 1012, will honor and remember 7-year-old Megan Kanka every year on December 7 and July 29. We, the comrades of Unit 1012: The VFFDP, will make her one of The 82 murdered children of Unit 1012, where we will not forget her. Let us remember how she lived and not how she died.

In loving memory of her, we will post information about her from Wikipedia and also endorse Megan’s Law and the Megan Nicole Kanka Foundation.


Megan Kanka [PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.sgpd.com/html/megan_s_law.html]
The murder of Megan Kanka occurred on July 29, 1994 in Hamilton Township, Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. The seven-year-old child was raped and murdered by her neighbor Jesse Timmendequas. The murder attracted national attention and subsequently led to the introduction of "Megan's Law", which requires law enforcement to disclose details relating to the location of registered sex offenders.

Kanka's family set up a charitable foundation, the Megan Nicole Kanka Foundation, with the aim of preventing crimes against children.

Jesse Timmendequas

Jesse K. Timmendequas (born April 15, 1961) had two previous convictions for sexually assaulting young girls. In 1979 he pleaded guilty to the attempted aggravated sexual assault of a five-year-old girl in Piscataway Township, New Jersey. He was given a suspended sentence but, after failing to go to counseling, he was sent for nine months to the Middlesex Adult Correctional Center. In 1981, Timmendequas pleaded guilty in regards to the assault of a seven-year-old girl, and was imprisoned at the Adult Diagnostic & Treatment Center (ADTC) in Avenel, New Jersey, for six years.

Timmendequas reportedly participated little in the treatment program offered at the ADTC. He was described by one therapist who treated him at the facility as a "whiner" who spent most of his time sleeping. Another therapist stated that she had believed that Timmendequas would eventually commit another sex crime (although she did not believe he would commit murder).

Murder and trial

Timmendequas lured Kanka into his house by offering to show her a puppy and subsequently raped her. She was slammed onto a dresser, suffocated and strangled to death with a belt. He moved her body to his truck, assaulting the body again before placing it in a wooden toy chest and dumping it in nearby Mercer County Park. The next day, he confessed to investigators and led police to the site.

Evidence included bloodstains, hair, and fiber samples, as well as a bite mark matching Kanka's teeth on Timmendequas' hand, and led to a guilty verdict on charges of kidnapping, four counts of aggravated sexual assault, and two counts of felony murder—committing murder in the course of a felony. The court sentenced Timmendequas to death, and the sentence was upheld by the New Jersey Supreme Court on appeal. Congressman Dick Zimmer stated, "I believe he is exactly the kind of predator that the legislature had in mind when it enacted the death penalty."

Timmendequas remained on New Jersey's Death Row until December 17, 2007, when the New Jersey Legislature abolished the state's death penalty. As a result of the ban, Timmendequas' sentence was commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Megan's Law

One month after the murder, the New Jersey General Assembly passed a series of bills proposed by Paul Kramer that would require sex offender registration, with a database tracked by the state, community notification of registered sex offenders moving into a neighborhood and life in prison for repeat sex offenders. Paul Kramer expressed incredulity at the controversy created by the bills, saying that "Megan Kanka would be alive today" if the bills he proposed had been law.


Megan Kanka [PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.mcccvoice.org/megans-law/]

The Megan Nicole Kanka Foundation is a non-profit charity founded by the family of Megan Kanka with the intent of preventing crimes against children.

Megan's death resulted in the New Jersey Legislature passing Megan's Law, which requires notification when a convicted sex offender moves into a neighborhood; there is now a similar federal law, passed as an amendment to the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act.

OTHER LINKS:

No comments:

Post a Comment