New law, task force put
big microscope on sexual predators

July 27, 2006

By JOANIE BAKER
Index-Journal staff writer

On the 25th anniversary of his son’s disappearance, America’s Most Wanted host John Walsh is hoping to see harsher penalties and actions against sexual predators.
Today, President Bush plans to sign into law a bill designed to track sexual predators nationwide by creating a national Internet database that allows predators to be searched by ZIP codes and toughens the penalties for adults preying on children.
The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, named after John Walsh’s son, was introduced two years ago and has passed through Congress with little opposition. For people who fail to register and keep their information updated, the act imposes a 10-year prison sentence.
In 1981, Adam Walsh was abducted from a department store and his body was found 16 days later. His death spurred his father to start America’s Most Wanted. The crime is still unsolved.
The AMW Web site says, “Of the 550,000 registered sex offenders nationally, the whereabouts of about 100,000 are currently unknown. The Adam Walsh Act creates stricter requirements for sex offender registration — to prevent offenders from slipping through the cracks and hurting our children.”
“This may be the toughest piece of child protection legislation in 25 years and a great example of bipartisan politics,” Walsh said on the Web site.
In South Carolina, those who fail to update information can receive 90 days to five years in jail, depending on the number of offenses.
Kris Burris, assistant director of the Sexual Trauma & Counseling Center and The Child’s Place, said the center supports any law designed to protect children.
“A core belief of the Sexual Trauma and Counseling Center and The Child’s Place is that perpetrators should be held accountable,” Burris said.
Greenwood County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Mike Frederick said that any database and tougher laws will benefit the local effort to track sexual predators.
“We’re all law enforcement,” Frederick said. “The tougher the sentence, the better.”
But joining the national database isn’t all that South Carolina is doing to crack down on predators.
Seven agencies have joined the state’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, strengthening the same program started by the State Law Enforcement Division two years ago that has led to the arrest of 34 people.
Attorney General Henry McMaster announced Tuesday that Central Police Department, Clemson Police Department, Greenville Police Department and the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office are among the agencies jumping on board the already successful force.
Frederick said Greenwood does not have a lot of Internet crimes against children and has not yet moved to join a task force.
But the tougher restrictions by all law enforcement agencies is a step in the right direction, Burris said.
“The fact that our federal and state legislators are recognizing child sexual abuse as a real problem and that they are committed to protecting our children is a positive step forward for victims’ rights,” Burris said.

Local brothers charged in meth ring
pondering whether to face jury trials

July 27, 2006

By VIC MacDONALD
Index-Journal regional editor

Four of the 20 people arrested and charged late last year in connection with a methamphetamine importation ring could be headed to court for jury trials.
Among those four are the men authorities say were the ring’s masterminds, brothers Daniel and Harold Stanley.
Both are in custody but were moved from the Greenwood jail to an out-of-county detention location, said Mike Frederick, Greenwood County Sheriff’s Office chief deputy.
“They received some death threats, so they were moved for their own protection,” Frederick said. The Stanleys had once indicated their desire to stand trial on the charges against them, including conspiracy to traffic in meth, Frederick said.
Since then, “their court-appointed representation has indicated they might plead (guilty) to receive what is still a substantial penalty: eight and a half to 10 years,” Frederick said.
The Stanleys, arrested during December 2005’s “Operation Family Tree,” are eligible for two 25-year sentences each, and Frederick said they might reconsider “taking their chance” with a jury, a conviction and a sentence of the maximum time in prison.
“If the jury goes against them, that’s 50 years each, and we have as good a case against them as we’ve had against anybody. That’s 10 years (plead) versus 50 years (maximum),” Frederick said.
“They’re both in their 40s. If they serve 45 years, they will never see daylight again. (If they plead) they could have some semblance of a life.”
The Stanleys were two of the 20 people arrested by sheriff’s office personnel on a rainy morning in a dragnet that also reached into neighboring counties.
Some people arrested were charged with minor drug offenses in cases developed in conjunction with the meth roundup, and others were considered “minor players” in the alleged meth-importation ring.
Authorities said the ring brought 100 pounds of methamphetamine in 18 months into Greenwood County. Meth, also known as “speed” or “ice,” is a highly addictive drug that has a stimulating effect on the nervous system.
It can be manufactured in home labs from the active ingredients in what used to be over-the-counter cold medications.
To stem the tide of “home-grown meth,” South Carolina and other states have required that these medications now be kept behind the counter at pharmacies.
The S.C. Attorney General’s Office administers the Meth Watch program that works with retailers on ways to control the distribution of these medications for misuse in meth-making operations.
Frederick said the home labs cannot crank out the quantity of the drug necessary to sustain a criminal enterprise ring. To do that, he said meth pushers have to bring in higher quality, mass quantities of the drug, and authorities allege that is what the Stanleys and others did in a “pipeline” from Mexico.
“Operation Family Tree” was wrapped up three months ago, Frederick said, as investigators were confident they had dismantled the operation. Information was shared with the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, and Frederick said “a lot of good cases” were developed against suspects in two other states.
As a result of the Greenwood investigation, three of the 20 people arrested have pleaded guilty. Two others are still in custody as primary witnesses for trials. Eleven others have indicated a willingness to plead guilty to the charges against them, Frederick said.
The number of home labs in Greenwood County has not spiked to fill the void left by the meth ring bust, Frederick said, and no other large-scale criminal operation has moved in to grab the local meth-buying business. Authorities are not under the illusion that meth is no longer on the local drug scene, Frederick said, but they do think 100-200 local meth users had to look elsewhere for the drug.
“For a few months, it was hard to get high-quality meth,” he said, “but it’s back, and we’re working cases against them. It’s not realistic for us to think we’ve stopped every ounce of meth.”
Public awareness has contributed to the decline in the meth industry, Frederick said. Part of that awareness is retailers being vigilant against large-scale ingredients purchases, and another part is people knowing the telltale signs and smells of a home lab, he said.
“It’s nearly peaked,” Frederick said. “There is no sense that we’re losing the battle.”
Part of that awareness campaign against meth is included in The Index-Journal. Ann Crawley, with the drug abuse fighting organization ACORE/CORA, wrote a series of methamphetamine articles that have been published the past four Mondays on the newspaper’s Health & Fitness page. The fifth and final article will be published Aug. 7.
“Public awareness is very important. People can’t set up a lab and stink up the neighborhood without neighbors saying, ‘We think it’s a meth lab,’” Frederick said.
Awareness also has centered on the devastating effects of meth use over a long period of time. On the Attorney General’s Meth Watch Web site, there is a series of photos of a meth user over the course of 10 years, showing dramatic changes in a normal facial appearance to a near-skeletal appearance.
“Meth is graphic,” Frederick said. “There are functioning crack (cocaine) users. They can smoke crack all weekend and get up Monday. Few meth users can use all weekend and then get to work on Monday, especially when your teeth fall out and your skin turns gray.”
Investigators have “debriefed” the people they have arrested, and Frederick said he has never gotten a good answer to the question, “What were you thinking?”
“They always say things like, ‘It’s no big deal. I thought I could handle it.’”

Post 20 starts tournament with a win

July 27, 2006

By CHRIS TRAINOR
Index-Journal sports writer

There’s a lot to be said for getting off to a good start.
The Greenwood American Legion Post 20 baseball team certainly got off to a good start in the American Legion state tournament Wednesday.
Post 20 downed Gaffney, 7-5, in front of a vocal crowd at historic Riley Park in Sumter.
With the win, Greenwood advances in the winner’s bracket and will play the winner of Wednesday’s Sumter-Murrells Inlet game today.
Results from the Sumter-Murrells Inlet game were unavailable at press time.
Visit www.p-15.com to confirm Greenwood’s opponent and game time for today.
Greenwood pounded out 14 hits Wednesday and got solid starting pitching from Brandon Miller, as well as a stellar relief effort from Justin Lawson.
Lawson picked up the win for Greenwood, while Bobby Wilkins, who threw more than 130 pitches, took the loss for Gaffney. It was Wilkins first loss of the year.
Post 20 coach Billy Dean Minor was pleased with the win, yet focused on today’s second round.
“We played well tonight, I think the guys really stepped up to the challenge,” said Minor of the win over Gaffney, which had lost only one game all season coming in. “But the most important game is always the next one.”
Post 20 got a particularly solid effort at the plate from third baseman Nick Milford.
Milford was 3-for-5 with two RBI and a run scored.
“We knew coming in how important it would be to get a good start in this tournament,” Milford said. “It gets really tough in the loser’s bracket. I just wanted to get some quality at-bats, and roll with it to help this team.”
Greenwood got to work early in terms of scoring runs.
In the top of the first, Post 20’s Kyle Behrendt drew a walk, then advanced to third on a errant pick-off throw by Wilkins.
Keith Hill then sent Behrendt to the plate by roping a single into right center field.
Greenwood, which played as the road team, led 1-0 heading into the bottom of the first.
Post 20 continued its run scoring ways in its next turn at the plate.
Milford blasted a double deep off the center field wall, then was able to move to third base when Wilkins balked to Brent Wham.
Milford then raced home to score on a Wham ground ball, giving Post 20 the 2-0 advantage going into the bottom of the second inning.
Miller worked himself out of jams in each of the first three innings for Post 20.
In the bottom of the fourth, Miller worked himself out of his tightest spot up to that point.
After drawing a pair of walks and executing some opportunistic base running, Gaffney found itself with runners on second and third with just one out.
However, Miller struck out Gaffney’s Justin Phillips and Jon Lewis Floyd to end the threat.
Greenwood added to its tally in the top of the fifth.
Post 20’s Trey Wimmer led off the inning by blasting a gargantuan solo home run that bounced off the top of the scoreboard at Riley Park.
The shot sent the contingent of fans from Greenwood into a frenzy and gave Greenwood the 3-0 lead.
“He had thrown me a curveball the pitch right before that,” Wimmer said of the home run. “On the next pitch, I saw him grip the curveball again. I was sitting dead on it. I’ve never gotten into one like that before.”
Post 20 tacked on another run in the fifth, to go up 4-0, when Cruse Tollison scored on a Josh Lovvorn single.
After skating on thin ice for four innings, Miller finally succumbed to Gaffney in the fifth.
Gaffney picked up a walk and three hits in the inning, including a ringing double by Treven Taber that brought Justin Sarratt and Dustin Mobley around and cut Post 20’s lead to 4-3 heading into the sixth.
Taber’s shot also closed the book on Miller. The lanky lefty pitched 4 1/3 innings, striking out five and allowing three earned runs.
Greenwood struck back in the seventh inning, however.
Once again Milford delivered a timely hit. The Anderson College player popped a single to the opposite field, scoring Matt Titus and Lovvorn to give Greenwood the 6-3 edge.
When the top of the seventh inning was over, Greenwood found itself ahead 7-3.

Opinion

Teen pregnancy problem shows improvement, but...

July 27, 2006

Not too many years ago Greenwood County ranked first in South Carolina in the number of teen-age pregnancies. Since then, however, there has been much improvement. Greenwood is now 33rd. That’s still nothing to be proud of, to be sure, but the continuing effort to improve is encouraging, nevertheless.
McCormick County, on the other hand, ranks fifth in the state in teen births. Saluda is 15th and Abbeville is 42nd. There are all kinds of problems created by teen pregnancies, including venereal disease. Also, one of the worst factors is that only one in ten teen mothers finishes high school. That negative is compounded in that children of teen mothers are more likely to become teen mothers, too, according to officials.

A STATEMENT BY by Cherry Brown, director of Behavioral Health Sciences at John de la Howe School, paints a disturbing picture that apparently is too often repeated. Some boys think, she said, the only way to prove themselves is to impregnate as many girls as possible. According to a news article in this newspaper, Brown also told a questioner that gangs are another negative factor. Gang members often require new members to have sex with a certain number of people before they can be accepted, she said.
Obviously, there are many things that contribute to teen pregnancies. One surely has to be the glorification of promiscuous sex through various media. .... TV, records, movies, etc. In fact, in some television shows, sex is a matter-of-fact recreational activity, shown as an accepted and integral part of unmarried society.
Somehow, too many don’t see a connection, and that may be the worst part of it all.

Obituaries

Edna Rhodes

EASLEY — Edna Kinard Rhodes, 99, widow of Stephen B. Rhodes, died Wednesday, July 26, 2006 at Blue Ridge Nursing Center.
Services will be announced by Blyth Funeral Home & Cremation Services, Greenwood.

Ella C. Smith

LAURENS — Ella C. Smith, 73, of 134 Suber Road, widow of Lawrence Thomas Smith Sr., died Sunday, July 23, 2006 at St. Francis Hospital.
A daughter of the late Roy Cleveland Sr. and Mamie Cunningham Cleveland, she was a member of Mill Rock Baptist Church, Gray Court and a retiree of Laurens Mills.
Survivors include three sons, Lawrence Smith Jr., Robert Smith and Raymond Smith of Laurens; two brothers, James Cleveland of Salisbury, N.C., and Roy Cleveland of Los Angeles; five sisters, Mary L. Lynch, Sarah Cleveland Beasley, Bessie Kilgore of Laurens, Ruth C. Anderson of Brooklyn, N.Y., Mamie C. Lee of Greenwood; four grandchildren; three great-grandchildren.
Services are 2 p.m. Friday at Mount Zion Baptist Church, conducted by the Revs. Carlton Austin and Jefferson McDowell. Burial is in Mill Rock Baptist Church Cemetery, Gray Court.
Visitation is 7-8:30 tonight at Beasley Funeral Home.
Beasley Funeral Home is in charge.
Announcement courtesy of Percival-Tompkins Funeral Home, Greenwood.