Posted on 10/31/2002 4:57:38 AM PST by aomagrat
SALUDA, S.C. -- If the police chief of Saluda, S.C., had his way, he'd outlaw trick-or-treating.
While Chief Kenneth McCaster can't ban the Halloween custom, he can offer an alternative. McCaster wants the townsfolk to turn off their lights tomorrow night and not answer the doorbell.
Instead, the town plans a party in a local park. Officers and other volunteers in costume will be handing out treats to the kids.
He says pranksters have caused too much trouble in the past to make Halloween fun.
Why not teach miscreants and scofflaws some respect for the law. If nothing else, get their photographs and fingerprints in the system.
Not in a small town. It's still a lot of fun and completely safe.
Turner, BTW, was the reason that sexual predator laws were tightened and why truth in sentencing passed. He's in a halfway house in Madison--and won a settlement from a waste handling company when they refused to hire him (I'm not making this up). I do remember saying that when someone from the state Dept. of Corrections proposed he live at a halfway house in Green Bay that if that spokesman from the DoC wanted Turner to live somewhere that the spokesman could take Turner home with him if he thought Turner was no longer a danger to the public. This is an article from 1998:
MADISON, Wis. (AP) _ Legislators and Gov. Tommy Thompson recommend tightening laws under which rapists and child molesters can go free, including a rape-slayer after whom Wisconsin's sexual predator law was nicknamed.
``I feel bad he's going to be released,'' Thompson said of Gerald Turner, known as the ``Halloween killer'' because of the death of a child during a trick-or-treat outing.
A Circuit Court jury decided Thursday that Turner does not meet the definition of someone who can be detained in a mental institution under the sex-predator ``Turner law'' after being paroled from prison.
``We have three to five days to release him,'' Thompson said.
THe governor repeated Friday his hope that the Legislature enacts a ``truth in sentencing'' law that would keep convicts in prison for the full term of their sentences without eligibility for parole.
Rep. Richard A. Skindrud, R-Mount Horeb, suggested adopting a law that would require lifetime monitoring of sex predators. He hopes the Assembly will vote on it in the coming week, he said.
Turner, 48, is the best example of why a ``truth-in-sentencing'' proposal needs to be adopted, Thompson said.
Many inmates are freed without serving all of their time, Thompson spokesman Rod Hise said.
``The governor believes very strongly that's not right,'' Hise said.
Thompson has said he might convene legislators in special session if they do not adopt the measure before their scheduled adjournment in March.
The Assembly approved it 86-8 last May. Senate Majority Leader Charles Chvala, D-Madison, said the Senate will vote on the measure before then.
Turner was convicted of killing Lisa French, 9, who knocked at his door in Fond du Lac during a Halloween outing in 1973 and was never seen alive again.
He was paroled to a Milwaukee halfway house in 1992. Neighbors and prosecutors protested, urging legislators to adopt the sexual predator law.
The 1994 law was used to send Turner back into custody.
Turner raped women including his wife, a girlfriend and a teen-age baby sitter, got angry with them and beat them, assistant attorney general Tom Fallon told a Dane County jury that heard testimony from psychiatrists on whether to detain him.
The decision Thursday by the jury of eight women and four men has no effect on the law, Fallon said.
Turner remains on parole until 2013. After that, ``we should be watching him for the rest of his life to protect the public from a dangerous child murderer and rapist,'' Skindrud said.
After the verdict, the state Department of Corrections said a parole plan would be created to keep Turner under surveillance.
The department declined to say where he might be sent.
It confirmed having on file an Oct. 19, 1995, proposal to place Turner in a halfway house in Green Bay or at the nearby Powers minimum-security center in Oneida, WKOW-TV of Madison reported.
John Hickman, a member of the Dane County jury and a retired welfare worker, said the predator law ``is drafted in a way that it's virtually impossible to call anyone a (sexually) violent person.''
``The expert testimony was very conflicting,'' Hickman said.
Michael DePauw of Fond du Lac, the victim's brother, said he will always ``wonder what it'd be like to have an older sister.''
``I don't want him coming back to this town or any town to do the same thing,'' he said.
Milwaukee Mayor John O. Norquist said he will be the ``chairman of the Gerald Turner `unwelcoming committee''' if the parolee tries again to live in his city.
Before leaving the courtroom Thursday, Turner told reporters he would ``like to go home,'' which was Fond du Lac before being sent to prison.
He might be unwelcome there too.
``For the good of Gerry Turner and the good of Fond du Lac, he's better off somewhere else,'' former Fond du Lac County Sheriff Tom Snyder said.
"Santa has to go", the police chief was quoted as saying. "We never had Christmas in my house. I never got any presents. So, I'm banning Christmas in the hope that the kids of today will grow up to be as dour and embittered as I am."
Mr. Claus could not be reached for comment.
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