May 2006: Cult leader Warren Jeffs is named as one of America’s ten most wanted. His crime as leader of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, a polygamous cult – Warren Jeffs stands accused of the rape and imprisonment of children. But even with their leader on the run from the law, the members of Jeffs’ cult see themselves as faithful followers of God, not a band of criminals. One man’s cult is another man’s religion. Cults: Dangerous Devotion, History 2007
In Spring 2008 US officials and armed guards removed over four hundred children from their homes and families. But what compelled the authorities to take such a course of action? The children in question are members of one of the most controversial religions in the United States. A religion that some have called a cult. Raid on Texas Cult
On 3rd April 2008 the state of Texas stormed the El Dorado compound of the FLDS – the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints – with armoured tanks and guns drawn, and began removing children. ibid.
This is about children who are at imminent risk of harm. Children that we believe have been abused or neglected. Marleigh Meisner, Texas Child Protective Services, re raid of FLDS Texas range
The women have to hand over their children in order for the men to abuse them in this organisation. What they would say is that this is how they have been raised, this is what they’ve been taught, and it’s true – there is a cycle of abuse that creates the organisation that they are. Marci Hamilton, legal scholar, re FLDS
FDLS: I also believe that it’s a criminal organisation, and it is founded on the exploitation and abuse of children. Flora Jessup, former FLDS member
The infants are trained not to cry by waterboarding them. Flora Jessup
It’s the European trial of the century. Six young girls vanish without a trace. Snatched from their families. They are raped, tortured and locked in a cage. The crimes were so horrific they sent the country of Belgium reeling into national mourning. Which erupts into fury over revelations of how police bungled the investigation. (Murder & Children & Abuse & Paedophile) Great Crimes & Trials/Killer Trials: Marc Dutroux
Detroux was released in 1987 after serving just six of his thirteen year sentence for kidnapping and raping children. ibid.
Rumours of a police cover-up start to circulate. ibid.
Over 300,000 people protest in the streets of Brussels. ibid.
March 3rd 1984: the trial of 33-year-old Arthur Gary Bishop ... accused of kidnapping and murder. Great Crimes & Trials/Killer Trials: Arthur Gary Bishop
A paedophile ... Bishop reveals how over a four-year period he has killed not one but five boys. ibid.
I couldn’t stop and I would go do it again if I had the chance. Arthur Gary Bishop
I am a homosexual paedophile convicted of murder, and pornography was a determining factor in my downfall. Somehow I became sexually attracted to young boys and I would fantasize about them naked. Certain bookstores offered sex education, photographic, or art books which occasionally contained pictures of nude boys. I purchased such books and used them to enhance my masturbatory fantasies ... Finding and procuring sexually arousing materials became an obsession. For me, seeing pornography was lighting a fuse on a stick of dynamite. I became stimulated and had to gratify my urges or explode. All boys became mere sexual objects. My conscience was desensitized and my sexual appetite entirely controlled my actions. Arthur Gary Bishop
Robert Black is one of the most evil predatory paedophiles that this country has ever seen. But his thirty-year offending period led to him being convicted of only four child murders. Killers Behind Bars: The Untold Story: Robert Black, Channel 5 2012
His murders covered the UK. ibid.
Black seemed to hint at further crimes. ibid.
Whilst still at school he was suspected of having abused a neighbour’s baby but the incident was ignored. ibid.
He would suffer systematic sexual abuse by an adult member of staff who is now dead. ibid.
Black worked as a driver for a nationwide poster delivery company. ibid.
I can’t understand myself. I keep asking myself why. I’ve got this fascination, a weakness. Robert Black
The policeman who stopped the van [at Stow] was the little girl’s father. Andrew Watt, former Detective Superintendent of Lothian and Borders police
His crimes against children shocked the world. His arrest sparked protests that brought his home country Belgium to the brink of revolution. Serial Killers: Monster of Belgium
91% of abducted children are murdered within twenty-four hours. ibid.
Soon more young girls will disappear. ibid.
A man who has readily confessed to committing horrific and callous crimes. ibid.
In 1989 ... Detroux and his wife had been convicted of the abduction and rape of five girls. Detroux was released just three years into a thirteen year sentence. ibid.
He states he is part of a national paedophile network whose tentacles stretch right to the top of Belgium society. ibid.
Twenty people connected with the case have died in suspicious circumstances. ibid.
Marc Detroux is found guilty of the abduction and rape of six girls, and killing four of them. ibid.
In April 2008 the world was stunned by revelations of one of the most horrific cases of abuse ever recorded. Fritzl: Story of a Monster, 2009
Josef Fritzl, a respected businessman, father and husband was discovered to have held one of his own daughters captive in the cellar of the family home for twenty-four years. Over that period he repeatedly raped her. She bore him seven children. ibid.
On October 6th 1967 ... Josef Fritzl raped a local woman ... serving a year of an eighteen-month sentence. ibid.
The fourth of Rosemary and Josef’s seven children was Elizabeth, born in 1966. ibid.
Josef Fritzl has been writing begging letters to the daughter he locked up and raped in a secret dungeon for 24 years.
Every two weeks Fritzl, 74, pens a pleading note to daughter Elisabeth, 43, who suffered over 3,000 rapes at his hands and bore him seven incest children.
He says he needs money ‘to study to be a lawyer so I can defend myself’ – but Elisabeth never replies.
In some of the notes he asks for £3,500 to ‘get me started’ on his legal career.
He even moans about not being able to get special shampoo he claims he needs for his implanted hair.
Elisabeth is building a new life with the six children who survived the cellar hell beneath the family home in Amstetten, Austria, after she was freed in 2008.
The seventh child died three days after birth; Fritzl is serving a life sentence for his death and the rapes.
He was sentenced in March last year after dramatically reversing his not guilty pleas on multiple charges when he saw Elisabeth suddenly enter the courtroom.
From his cell at the psychiatric top security prison of Stein in Austria he bombards Elisabeth with the letters, seeking in turn forgiveness, money, understanding – and expressing the misguided hope that he will one day be free to spend his life with wife Rosemarie again. Mail online article Allan Hall 15th February 2010, ‘Cellar monster Josef Fritzl begs his rape victim daughter for cash ... to fund his legal training’
Face to face with a child killer. And a family betrayed ... With the country basking in the glory of the Olympic Games, here in South London Tia Sharp disappeared from her grandmother’s home and was never seen again. Tonight: Living With a Killer, ITV 2013
Christine’s house was searched for a third time and this time police discovered Tia’s body wrapped in sheets in the loft. But the failure to find her earlier was widely criticised. ibid.
He was sentenced to Life in prison with a minimum of thirty-eight years. ibid.
Best friends Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman slipped out of the house unnoticed. Murders that Shocked Britain
One of the biggest hunts of its kind ever mounted in Britain. ibid.
Huntley had originally been ruled out of the investigation by an alibi from his girlfriend Maxine Carr. ibid.