Lauderdale woman faces charges after confrontation with sex offender

12-3-2007 Florida:

Davie - As Valerie Parkhurst was warning neighbors about sex offenders, one of them turned down the street.

She confronted him at gunpoint, and ended up in jail.

Parkhurst, 52, said Monday she was surprised police arrested her after the confrontation with Dale Weeks, 49, in the Playland Village neighborhood on Saturday. She was charged with aggravated assault and two counts of carrying a concealed firearm without a permit.

"I had a convicted sex offender, kidnapper who cornered me," Parkhurst said. "I don't expect to be convicted on any one of those [charges] because I was in the right."

Weeks was convicted in 1996 of abducting and raping a Walton County woman, according to state records. He served nine years and was released from prison in May 2005

Lt. Wayne Boulier, Davie police spokesman, said he can understand that neighbors are concerned when a registered sex offender moves into a community.

"Still, that doesn't justify pulling out a gun and threatening to kill people," he said.

Police said in a report released Monday that Weeks and girlfriend Maria Rodriguez were driving on the 4600 block of Southwest 66th Avenue at 1:50 p.m. Saturday. They were headed to a thrift shop to buy clothes when they came upon Parkhurst, who was posting fliers of sex offenders in the area. Parkhurst recognized Weeks and thought he was following her. So she got out of her Chevy SUV, pulled 9-millimeter Glock from a holster, and told Weeks she would kill him, police said.

Rodriguez, who was behind the wheel, froze and could not drive away, police said. Parkhurst went back to her SUV, grabbed a 12-gauge shotgun, pointed it into the pair's car and again threatened to kill Weeks, police said.

"It's a vigilante-style move," Weeks said Monday. "She has no right to blow me away."

Parkhurst disputes the police account, saying that Weeks and Rodriguez stalked her after they saw her put up the fliers at Weeks' complex hours earlier. Parkhurst said they blocked her in at a dead-end street. When she got out of her truck to ask what they were doing, Parkhurst said Weeks threatened her in a profanity-laced rant.

That's when Parkhurst, mother of an adult son, threatened to shoot him if he touched her, she said. When Weeks continued to swear at her, she grabbed the shotgun she keeps in her SUV for her and her boyfriend's weekly clay shooting practice.

"I figured if the pistol didn't scare him, maybe the shotgun would," Parkhurst said. "I stood there with the shotgun and said, 'If you come near me, I promise you, I will shoot you.'"

Group pickets restaurant over placement of sex offender

Parolee's home is owned by proprietor of Racine eatery; owner of Somers restaurant is protesting
11-25-2007 Wisconsin:

RACINE — Darcy Powell lives in a gray, nondescript house surrounded by a well-kept yard on a dead-end street.

There is no name on his mailbox. There is no car in the driveway. There is no sunlight that enters his house since the white shades are kept closed and down.

The dwelling he lives in is among four other houses on a roadway on the northwest edge of Kenosha County in the Town of Somers. On the other side of the two-lane road, there is a small basketball hoop in a driveway, a trampoline in a backyard and an assortment of children’s playthings.

Powell, who was convicted of two counts of second-degree sexual assault of a child and two counts of incest with a child in 1996, preyed on children for years. He now lives in the clutches of the state’s Chapter 980, a program that binds convicted sex offenders to a tightly supervised life outside of prison.

“He is living in his own little prison,” his mentor, Terry Maack, the deacon of St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Kenosha, said Sunday afternoon.

Alleged child molester attacked in jail

11-19-2007 Indiana:

Indianapolis - An Indianapolis man accused of child molestation was attacked at the Marion County Jail Monday evening.

Ron Eiland, 59, was asleep in his cell around 10:30 p.m. Sunday when two inmates approached, then assaulted him. Eiland alerted the jail staff, who came to his aid, and he told them he fell out of his bunk. After he was transported to another cell, he told officers about the assault.

Eiland faces charges after police say he molested a nine-year-old girl as she slept on his couch. He turned himself into Metro Police Friday.

Eiland was first investigated by police after he allegedly had the nine-year-old girl talk to a phone sex operator while fondling himself at his home in September. The victim was visiting Eiland's daughter at the time. That operator called police, who accuse Eiland of molesting the girl later that evening. The victim's father called police last month.

"The phone sex operator knew this individual by name. He said he'd called the operator in the past but not on this particular evening," said Sgt. Paul Thompson, IMPD.

Police say those two events gave them enough evidence to obtain a search warrant for Eiland's home where a computer was confiscated.

"I guess I kind of left the world and went to a horror show," said Dee Stafford, describing her reaction to her son's arrest.

For the last ten years, Ron Eiland has worked at his mother's Castleton day care center, although according to Stafford, her son never had direct contact with The Lil' Sprouts Learning Center's 155 children.

"He would never be allowed anywhere near our children. His children at home, wherever, until he's exonerated," said Stafford.

Eiland is accused of touching the girl while she and his daughter were asleep on a couch in his home. Prosecutors say the phone sex operator told police that Eiland told her the victim was a friend of the family. Eiland denies placing the call that night.

Police did not arrest Eiland in September because they say they did not have enough evidence, but officers did report the alleged incident to Child Protective Services. ..more.. by WTHR.com