Feeling a little sick

[ciroccoj]

Police hunt on in Western Canada for Ontario pedophile and two missing boys
By Tim Cook

WHITEWOOD, Sask. (CP) - While police in Western Canada were searching for two missing boys and a notorious pedophile, a Saskatchewan town was left to contemplate how such an unsavoury individual was in their midst.

Mounties issued a Canada-wide warrant Monday for Peter Whitmore, 35, for the abduction of 10-year-old Zachary Miller of Whitewood, who disappeared a day earlier.

They said Whitmore was also believed to be travelling with 14-year-old Jordan Bruyere, who was last seen July 22 in Brandon, Man. A missing person's report had been issued for Jordan, but Winnipeg police were not treating his case as a kidnapping.

"We're still considering Jordan a missing person at this point, however given the history of the suspect he's with, we are very concerned for his safety," said Const. Jacqueline Chaput.

"The suspect, we feel, may be under the impression that he did have permission to be with Jordan."

Whitewood Mayor Malcolm Green said the whole situation has shocked the community of about 1,000 along the Trans-Canada Highway east of Regina.

"You can never tell what is coming down the highway," Green said in an interview outside the local Co-op, where he is the meat manager.

"Probably we don't want to know."

Green said some people in the town have been talking about encounters they had with Whitmore and stories were circulating that he might have been trying to appear as if he were blending into the community.

"We had heard some innuendo that he was telling people he was going to buy a house here and would like to stay here and give the idea that he was going to be a community-minded person, but I can't verify that."

Kevin White, owner of the local Chrysler dealership in Whitewood, said Whitmore stopped in last Friday with a boy matching the description of Jordan, whom he called his son.

Whitmore had a flat on his 1988 Dodge Caravan with Alberta plates and wanted it fixed. He even made an offer on a used car, which was too low and refused.

White said Whitmore told him he was just passing through town while visiting his wife in nearby Moosomin, Sask. He said he worked in the oil fields in St. Albert, near Edmonton, "making the big bucks."

White said in hindsight, he found the whole situation very suspicious. The boy appeared healthy, but didn't speaking during the whole encounter, even while alone with dealership staff.

"I would have wished that he had spoken out," White said. "It would have been done, finished. We wouldn't be worrying about this."

"I wish I would have phoned the cops, because when you think back he was a suspicious character and maybe if I phoned in, the child and the other child would still be at home."

Police filed an Amber Alert for Zachary late Sunday night, about 11 hours after his disappearance was noticed by his family.

"Police detachments are on alert. Everyone has been notified, including police in other jurisdictions," RCMP Sgt. Tammy Patterson said in Regina. "We've notified the border and there's also a plane up helping with the search."

She said Whitmore, who recently lived in Chilliwack, B.C., has a wide-ranging support network.

When reached at the family farm near Whitewood, Zachary's sister would only say the family is "doing all right," before declining further comment.

Police said Whitmore and Jordan had been in the Whitewood area for a week and had met the Miller family.

In Winnipeg, Jordan's mother, Joannie Robinson, said Whitmore had become a co-worker and friend to her husband and was the last person seen with her son.

She said Monday she recognized his picture on TV: "There's no doubt in my mind that that's him."

She said Whitmore and her husband had gone to Brandon with Jordan two weeks ago to pick up a new truck. On July 22, Whitmore said he had left $2,000 behind in Winnipeg and had the husband go back alone to retrieve it.

She said Whitmore told them: "I'm just going to get my van fixed here in Brandon and I'll bring Jordan home."

Whitmore phoned the next day to repeat his promise but never followed through, she said.

"I talked to my son. I asked him if he was OK. He said yes," she said. "I tried to find out where he was, (but) he kept telling me 'Mom, I don't know where I am.' "

Whitmore has a long criminal record.

In 1993, he was convicted of abduction and five sexual offences involving four young boys in Toronto. He spent a year and four months in custody.

Nine days after his release, he took an eight-year-old girl from Guelph, Ont., to Toronto and was sentenced to more than four and a half years in jail.

Less than a month after his November 2000 release, he was found in a downtown Toronto motel with a 13-year-old boy. He was sentenced to one year in jail.

In 2002, a Toronto judge sentenced him to three years in jail for probation violations because he fled to B.C. after being found in the company of a five-year-old boy.

Those parole violations included the fact he was carrying a "rape kit" in his backpack while in B.C. It contained latex gloves, pictures of young children, tubes of jelly lubricant, duct tape, a sleeping bag and plastic zipper ties that can be used as handcuffs.

Whitmore was released on June 16th, 2005, after serving his entire three-year sentence and took up residence in Chilliwack.

A year ago, Mounties in Alberta issued a news release to say Whitmore would visit Morinville and St. Albert, near Edmonton, from June 2-5 of this year.

In a 2003 interview with the Chilliwack Times newspaper, Whitmore's aunt, Lynn Hopkins, said his father left him and his developmentally disabled mother when Whitmore was born. She said he had a Grade 7 education when he went to prison for the probation violations.

She said in the article he has since earned his Grade 12 equivalency but has the emotional maturity of someone half his age. She said he once told her, "I could never hurt another child." Hopkins could not be reached for comment Monday.

Zachary is four and a half feet tall, 70 pounds, with red hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing black track pants with a red and white stripe and running shoes.

Whitmore is six feet tall, white, with a heavy build, brown hair and blue eyes. He may be driving a 1988 blue Dodge Caravan with wood panelling and Alberta licence plate.

Link to the article.



Man wanted in Sask. abduction has long list of victims in Ontario
By Gregory Bonnell

TORONTO (CP) - Thirteen years ago, Peter Whitmore delivered a dire warning to authorities in Ontario that his strong sexual desire for young boys could lead to "more serious harm" if he wasn't stopped.

On Monday, the convicted pedophile was the focus of a frantic Canadawide search involving two missing boys, a 10-year-old and a 14-year-old, raising fresh questions about Canada's ability to protect children from repeat sexual predators.

"When he was released in 2005... the experts at Correctional Services said he had a 100 per cent chance of re-offending," said Steve Sullivan of the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime.

The first priority, of course, is finding Zachary Miller and returning the boy to his family in Whitewood, Sask., said Sullivan.

"After that, people should be calling their MPs and saying, 'What is the new government going to do about it? What are we going to do with Peter Whitmore and what are we going to do with people like him?' "

Whitmore was believed to also be travelling with 14-year-old Jordan Bruyere of Brandon, Man. - a missing persons report has been issued for Jordan. Whitmore is wanted on an abduction charge in the case of Zachary.

The trail of young victims Whitmore has left in southern Ontario compelled residents of a Toronto neighbourhood to literally run him out of town six years ago - after which he made a startling appeal on national television.

"I want to take treatment," Whitmore said.

"It's going to be very hard to take treatment if I'm moving from town to town."

When Whitmore made his televised plea in October 2000, he already had some half-dozen convictions to his name.

In ensuing years, the now 35-year-old man would only add more sexual offences against minors to his record.

The resource centre has long sought revisions to the Criminal Code that would allow the courts to deem chronic pedophiles dangerous offenders - and jail them indefinitely - when their prison terms expire.

As it stands, a dangerous offender application can only be made during sentencing and only for crimes that command prison terms of 10 years or more.

None of Whitmore's crimes have merited such a sentence.

"Whatever the mechanism is, we just have to admit to ourselves that at some point we can't treat everybody," said Sullivan.

Court orders prohibiting pedophiles from contacting children and public warnings from police that such offenders have moved into the community only go so far, said Sullivan.

"If that's the best we can do, then we have to do a lot more."

Whitmore's history of sexual assaults date back almost 14 years.

At the age of 22, he lured a boy into an apartment building rooftop boiler room and sexually assaulted him over several hours.

"Upon his arrest, (Whitmore) admitted a strong desire for sexual contact with young boys and expressed fear that if he did not stop, more serious harm was likely to occur," court documents read.

The incident in 1993 led to three other boys coming forward, and Whitmore was sentenced to 16 months in jail.

Upon release, Whitmore promptly established a babysitting service and forced one of his young charges - an eight-year-old girl - to perform oral sex on him.

The ensuing charges and publicity helped to uncover yet another sexual assault Whitmore committed in 1992, when he paid a young boy for oral sex.

Diagnosed as a homosexual pedophile with an anti-social personality, Whitmore was held in prison for his entire 56-month sentence.

In November 2000, Whitmore was arrested in a Toronto hotel in the company of a 13-year-old boy.

A one-year jail term was followed in 1992 by a three-year sentence for probation for fleeing to British Columbia after being found with a five-year-old boy.

Whitmore was released on June 16th, 2005, after serving his entire three-year sentence, and took up residence in Chilliwack, B.C.

In a 2003 interview with the Chilliwack Times newspaper, Whitmore's aunt, Lynn Hopkins, said his father left him and his developmentally disabled mother when Whitmore was born. She said he had a Grade 7 education when he went to prison.

Link to the article.

Peter Whitmore was a student of mine when I worked at Kingston Pen. Not for very long, because I was teaching entry-level college computers and he hadn't even gone through high school yet, despite his assertion that he'd already received a college diploma and therefore didn't need to do my course.

I remember him as a relatively witty guy with odd spots of slowness. From my hazy memory, he was in my class for a week or so before being politely told to please get his high school diploma before venturing back. He was transferred to the Adult Basic Education section of the school and I hardly ever saw him again other than during break time. I heard all sorts of nasty stories about what was happening to him on the cell range. Then I transferred out to Bath Institution shortly after that and never saw him again until many years later, when he was arrested for breaking his parole.

I wonder where he'll be sent once he's caught. I wonder if he will finally be declared a Dangerous Offender and put away for good, instead of continuing to do Life on the installment plan. I wonder what my fellow teachers think of him, and where they are right now, and whether they're getting the same sick feeling I get when I read about him. I wonder what his fellow inmates think.

It's not that his crimes shock me; I worked in the prison system for four years, I saw a lot of people who committed a lot of horrible crimes, and I was never under any illusion that my students were just tragically misunderstood. It's just that it's weird, seeing his face, and reading about his life on the outside. Knowing what he's done with the freedom he was granted.

Makes me wonder about a lot of my guys. Because it was so easy to get used to them being confined and hyper-controlled and easily identified as Offenders, and no menace to society at large, and not think that the vast majority were eventually going to get out and would have to control themselves, around a public that wouldn't even suspect that they could be dangerous.

Comments

[ladystarstruck.livejournal.com]

I hear ya...

I read the most disturbing thing I'd ever come across in a file last week, and for the life of me, today I can't remember what it was. I don't know whether to be relieved, or frightened at the power of my brain to demonstrate that we really can repress memories.