Man confessed to molesting 212, yet.....
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| Wed, 04-14-2004 - 10:34am |
here is the article:
Man Freed Because Accuser Killed Self
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) - A convicted child molester serving a life sentence was freed after an appeals court ruled he never had a chance to confront his accuser - a teenager who committed suicide before the man's trial.
To the chagrin of prosecutors and even his sister, Edward Harvey Stokes was released from jail last week, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday. Officials believe he has left the state.
``We worked extremely hard to make sure he would spend the rest of his life in prison,'' Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy said.
John Barnett, an attorney for Stokes, said the 4th District Court of Appeals ruling was fair because defendants have a right to cross-examine their accusers.
``Aside from the victim's testimony, little evidence existed to support the charges against the defendant,'' the court wrote.
Blue Karak, the alleged 16-year-old victim, was a runaway who police said Stokes met in a Seattle coffeehouse in 1996. According to court testimony, Stokes lured the boy to Disneyland and forced the boy to drink tequila and take LSD in a motel room before assaulting him. Stokes had been arrested for parole violation and released on $25,000 bail just days earlier.
Karak escaped, but he committed suicide several months before Stokes went on trial. Stokes was sentenced to life in prison under California's ``one-strike'' sexual assault law, which allows for a life term in aggravated cases.
The appeals court overturned Stokes' conviction in November.
``It is appalling to me that a person with his criminal history has been released,'' said Stokes' sister, Susan Stokes, in an e-mail to the Times. ``He is dangerous.''
Stokes was first arrested in 1974 and had been convicted at least five times in Washington and Oregon on rape, sodomy and kidnapping charges. In July 1995, he completed a three-year sentence in Oregon for sex abuse and sodomy.
According to police and court records, Stokes targeted runaways and other troubled youth because they typically did not tell authorities. He often gave his victims alcohol and drugs, with some victims waking up in handcuffs and leg shackles.
In a letter to a therapist in the early 1990s, Stokes said he had molested 212 victims and felt like a monster.
``I am angry at myself and others but I still seek out the weak and the unsuspecting as my victims,'' he wrote then.
04/14/04 09:29

>"an appeals court ruled he never had a chance to confront his accuser"<
Freed on a technicality. Unbelievable.
>"Stokes had been arrested for parole violation and released on $25,000 bail just days earlier."<
Can I suppose that
i got sick to my stomach when i came across this article.
i have a 3yr old son, and it makes me sick to think that this could some day happen to him, and the government would allow it!!!!!!
a self-confessed child molestor is allowed to run free, while people that are innocent serve life sentences!
the man confessed, what other evidence do they need? dont you think that if any other man walked into a police station and said "im turning myself in for molesting kids", he would be immediately arrested adn sentenced with hardly any trial???
i am beginning to wonder if our government is really here to protect us.
tracey
which is exactly what i would do if it had been my son.
because if he really did confess to 212 molestations, then there are 212 families hunting him down.
so i guess they are protecting him by not showing his picture. i think it should be automatic that any time anyone is convicted of child molestation that his/her picture should be plastered across every news station in the country, they should have a News segment every night that shows all the pictures of recently convicted child molesters and where they are from, so when they get out the neighborhood will be on watch. the perpetrator should not have the right to live a normal life anymore, people should know what they have done. they should tag them just like they do wild bears, so that we know who and where they are at all times.
sure you can go to state websites and see the offenders in your area, but they dont keep them update on a daily basis.
jmho
tracey