Nacole Winter

Not to long ago I asked you to take a minute or two to think about a young girl named Kelsey Smith. I asked you to keep her family in your prayers. Kelsey was the young girl from Overland Park who was kidnapped from a Target store in Olathe. They found her body a few days later. She had been badly beaten, raped, and killed. Her body was then dumped in a wooded area just across the Missouri border like a piece of trash. Police charged a man named Edwin Hall a few days later with her murder.
Here we are again. Only this time, the young girl was one of our own. Late last year police found the body of 15- year- old Nacole Winter in a field just east of Lake Shawnee. Last week District Attorney, Robert Hecht announced he was charging 24-year-old Christopher Hall with first degree murder, indecent liberties with a child, and desecration of her body. Once again I’m asking you to keep Nacole’s family in your thoughts and prayers. Once this trial starts, they’re going to need all the strength they can muster.
Do you remember Megan Kanka? She was the 7-year-old girl from New Jersey that was raped and killed in 1994 by a man named Jesse Timmindqus. Her death prompted many states to pass what’s become known as Megan’s law. How about 9-year-old Jessica Lundsford? She was the girl that was kidnapped from her own bedroom while her parents slept. She was repeatedly beaten and raped by a neighbor named John Couey. Once he was finished with her, he stuffed her into a trash bag, then buried her alive. Police found her body in a shallow grave only 150 yards from her house.
Three out of the four girls I’ve mentioned were all raped and killed by a convicted child rapist that was allowed by our court system to go free. Right here in Shawnee County, we have a little more than 300 registered sex offenders. Out of these 300, all but about 50 have been convicted of sex crimes against children.
A few weeks ago I told you about an experience I had with one of these convicted child molesters at Gage Park. Remember that? I told you about going to the police with hopes of getting him away from the kids in the park. I also told you they said there was nothing they could do about it. I haven’t talked about it for awhile. That doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about it. I’ve been driving through Gage Park a couple of times a week just to see if he’s still hanging around. He’s been there every single time I’ve checked. He just sits there watching the kids.
How many more kids have to die before we finally get off our butts and do something about it? How many more of these perverts are the courts going to turn lose on society because they’re depressed or they had a rough childhood?
Attorney General, Paul Morrison has been busy strengthening our child predator laws. Now, anyone convicted the second or third time of sex crimes against a child will do serious prison time. How about this idea? The first time you’re convicted of a sex crime against a child, you do 40 years in prison without the possibility of probation or parole. You do it the second time, you get the death penalty.
Locally, there are a few things we can do. Councilwoman, Lana Kennedy has agreed to try to get a law passed that would make it illegal for anyone convicted of a sex crime against a child to be in any of our City Parks. Let’s take that a step further. Let’s put up an information board in all City Parks with the names, pictures, and addresses of the 300 plus people living in Shawnee County that are on the sex offenders list. This way people will have a better idea who to look out for when they take their kids to the park. This is already public information.
I guess it boils down to this. When are we, as a society going to stand up and say we’ve had enough? How much longer will we remain silent about it? It kills me to listen to the outrage over our taxes being raised. But let one our local kids be raped and brutally murdered and all we hear is silence.
To the family of Nacole Winter. I’m so sorry about what happened to Nacole. There’s no way in hell she deserved any of this.
Kevin McGinty can be reached at: kevinmcginty@sbcglobal.net