Polly Klaas was the victim of a sexual predator. Her father, Marc Klaas, president of both the KlaasKids Foundation and BeyondMissing, Inc., and one of the originators of the Amber Alert system, spoke with Law Enforcement Technology contributing editor Carole Moore about his daughter, his experience with the police and his activism against sexual predators. (This interview has been edited for space.)
LET: What did the police do right and what could have been done better?
Klaas: My daughter Polly was having a slumber party with two of her girlfriends in the bedroom of the house that she shared with her mother Eve in Petaluma, California, on the evening of October 1, 1993. About 10:30 in the evening, as the girls were preparing to go to bed, their party was invaded by a knife wielding, bearded stranger who threatened the girls' lives if they made a sound and then proceeded to tie up and gag and bind all these girlfriends and steal Polly into the night.
Once the girls got free, they were able to wake up Polly's mother who was asleep in another bedroom in the house and a 911 call was initiated. The police responded immediately, put out an all points bulletin that the information was not for press release. Therefore, when the kidnapper, having interactions with two sheriff's deputies about half an hour later, those deputies were unaware that a kidnapping had occurred. So, instead of arresting this character, they helped pull his vehicle out of a ditch and went about their daily lives.
We then spent the next 65 days searching for Polly only to find that the bearded stranger was a recently paroled violent offender who had kidnapped, raped and murdered my daughter within about a one to two-hour period. (He is now) on California's death row. We started the KlaasKids Foundation as a way to give meaning to Polly's death and a way to build a legacy in her name that would, hopefully, be protective of children for generations to come.
LET: Do you see that failure to communicate the APB to everybody as a major factor?
Klaas: No. I suspect that had she been able to call out to those police officers when they had the interaction with the kidnapper, she would have done so. So, she was either dead, or otherwise incapacitated at that point.
But in all fairness to the law enforcement, back in 1993 there were no protocols for missing children. So every time a child disappeared you had to reinvent that wheel and that's something that's very, very difficult to do on the fly as minutes are ticking away.
So, I know it was an oversight and I know that they made a mistake, but I have a hard time blaming the locals for the fact that they had no template from which to work. I think it's also important to point out that in those days, we didn't have anything like truth in sentencing. Characters like the goon that kidnapped my daughter would continually go through the revolving turn-style system of justice that would regurgitate them after serving only minimal sentences time and time. Again, we're escalating crimes to the point that they would do something like he did to Polly.
So, I think that's a context that I think is necessary, as we move forward in this discussion.
LET: (Prior to kidnapping Polly, Richard Davis was sentenced to several terms in prison, including two life sentences.) He only served six years.
Klaas: That's exactly the point. His criminal history did start when he was about 10 years old. He had been diagnosed as a sexually, sadistic psychopath, well over a decade prior to Polly's being kidnapped and he had been released from prison after serving less than 50 percent of his 16-year sentence for his second kidnapping in which he pistol whipped and stole $6,000 dollars from a woman. So, you're exactly right, he had no business being on the streets. That was my point about truth in sentencing and the fact that these characters would be regurgitated time and time again.
Moore: Do you think juries understand completely what type of sentence the offender is getting?
Klaas: Oh, I believe that the jury and the public, at large, have no idea what's going on in the criminal justice system. What they don't know is that this is really just a big lie, or certainly in the past, it's been a big lie. When somebody is sentenced to life, or some iteration thereof and is back on the streets within a very few years, I think that it's appalling. It's a trick that's being played upon the public, I think certainly more in the past than it is now, but I think there's still a practice that goes on and I think that it's something that needs to be absolutely addressed. It's not a joke. It's not a game. The safety of innocent individuals is at stake and that should be paramount in these kinds of situations. The criminal justice system should be protecting the public, not gaming the public.
Moore: What is your ultimate solution for sexual predators?
Klaas: Well, I think if someone is determined to be a sexual predator, or diagnosed to be a sexual predator, they need to be locked up. We know we're not going to be able to change their behavior, that in the best of circumstances would be able to, at some level modify their behavior, but there are no guarantees to either of those. I think the best illustration is that once these individuals are released back into society, they're never released back into the neighborhoods of judges, or of the defense attorneys, or of the prosecutors. Instead, they're released into the neighborhoods of innocent, unsuspecting individuals. Again, that's part of the travesty of justice.
Moore: Do you believe that sexual predators can be cured?
Klaas: No. State hospitals have spent decades and decades trying to address this problem
Moore: What would you like for police and law enforcement and emergency responders to know about dealing with parents in this type of situation?
Klaas: There needs to be sensitivity towards the family. Law enforcement is prepared, hopefully, for any kind of an emergency situation. Families aren't. There needs to be a law enforcement liaison directly with the family, somebody the family can contact (who) gets viable and useful information, or at least be told that they have nothing new to provide, or that they have no new information that they can share. Secondly, I think law enforcement needs to tell families that any substantial movement on the investigation will be relayed to the family before they ever hear it in the media.
Moore: Let's talk a little bit about the foundation.
Klaas: We aligned ourselves with a wonderful advocacy organization called Fight Crime, Invest in Kids back in the late 1990s or perhaps, the early 2000s and their whole goal is to bring crime victims, prosecutors, and police chiefs together to advocate on behalf of funding for at risk kids. The rationale for that is very simple: Every dollar that's invested in a viable program for at risk youth is going to save anywhere between $6 and $10 dollars down the road in direct crime costs, and it's going to give a lot of kids chances that they otherwise wouldn't have had. We think that that's a very important component. We think it's important to ensure that these kids don't turn out to be tomorrow's predators.
We have a search and rescue director that we make available to go anywhere in the country on a moment's notice to help search for a missing child at the request of the law enforcement agency or family. We do a lot of work in the human trafficking arena, the domestic human trafficking arena, particularly knowing that there are hundreds of thousands of American teenage kids who find themselves caught up in the world of child prostitution for whatever reason, but that makes them victims.
Moore: What is the mission behind BeyondMissing?
Klaas: BeyondMissing is a different kind of an organization. We created it separately from KlaasKids because it's a resource for law enforcement. We turned the Internet into a powerful tool for the distribution of missing child flyers. We created a password protected website that allows law enforcement to log on, upload a picture of a missing child, fill out form fields and then, press a distribution button, which will then, via fax, e-mail and text message, distribute those flyers that were created to law enforcement agencies and media outlets, convenience stores, fast food chains, motels, service stations, other transportation depots and the community at large. So that, when a child is missing, that child's image will hopefully, become ubiquitous enough to stop the kidnapper in their tracks.
Moore: What's next for you and your family and your foundation?
Klaas: BeyondMissing is just trying to stay afloat. We just lost our grant from the State of Texas. We could almost see that coming, so we're turning to other means to raise the money we need to survive. If we are able to survive, what we would like to do is to continue to offer the BeyondMissing Amber Alert service to the state of Texas.
We'd like to expand out and reach out to other law enforcement agencies. We think that our services could be the premiere Amber Alert backup service. It's never failed. We have sent out a million and half faxes. We've sent out nearly a million e-mails, tens of thousands of text messages. We've assisted in over Amber Alerts for over 159 children, local Amber Alerts for 51 children, abduction alerts for 16 children (and) other missing child alerts for another 95 children.
With the KlaasKids Foundation, we continue to forage ahead on many fronts. It's a matter of just moving forward with our missions and staying current and being viable.
