Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, December 7, 1993 TAG: 9312070022
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PETALUMA, CALIF. LENGTH: Medium
Since her children's hopes that kidnap victim Polly Klaas would be rescued were dashed by the discovery of the 12-year-old girl's body Saturday, Ringlein has been facing a dilemma confronted by parents all over Petaluma:
How can parents promise to protect a child, when the child already knows they can't?
"It's as if this veneer of safety we've all had has been ripped off," said family counselor Ken Miller.
Polly was abducted from her bedroom Oct. 1 as she and two friends played at a slumber party while her mother slept.
New reports Monday suggested an even more chilling aspect to the case. The San Francisco Examiner said the man booked in the murder, Richard Allen Davis, told police that Polly was alive nearby when he had a chance encounter with sheriff's deputies about 90 minutes after the kidnapping.
Davis, who was interrogated by FBI and Petaluma police investigators for 10 hours Saturday, directed investigators to the wooded thicket where the body of the 12-year-old seventh-grader was recovered. She had been buried in a shallow grave under some plywood and scrap lumber.
The sources said investigators do not think Davis is being completely truthful, and they are conducting forensic tests to determine whether Polly was sexually molested. They believe that his motivation for the kidnapping was sexual, and that he may want to avoid the stigma of child molestation that makes molesters targets of retaliation when they are imprisoned.
Sgt. Mike Kerns refused to comment on the newspaper report.
"I don't know if we'll ever be able to answer all the questions regarding how or why," he said, "but we're certainly going to try."
In the meantime, this quiet farming town about 45 miles north of San Francisco remains in shock.
Outside the office that served as volunteer headquarters for the massive search for Polly, dozens of candles burned Monday in a makeshift shrine to the girl.
Photographs of the smiling girl were propped amid the flowers and stuffed animals that were left on the pavement.
"It's scary," said 14-year-old Megan Young.
Nearby, Laurie Griffith brushed away tears as she and her newborn son and 8-year-old daughter, Carissa, watched the flames.
"We all thought drive-by shootings were terrible, but in your own bedroom, in your own home . . .," she said, her voice trailing off.
Ringlein, one of many parents who stopped by the foundation, was thinking about putting her sons in self-defense classes.
"The terror of this is that the parents did everything right," she said. "They lived in a safe neighborhood. The mother had a right to be asleep at the end of a hard day."
While her 9-year-old keeps asking "why and what happened," her 5-year-old found out about the crime on his own and now "he kind of is afraid to grow up," she said.
Miller, available to counsel anyone who visited the volunteer headquarters, said he was telling parents to be honest with their children.
Still, he expected problems would continue as families tried to cope with "everyone's worst fantasy . . . the bogeyman can be there."
by CNB