Parents Charged With Rape
Photograph found in park shows man performing act on boy, leads Medina detective to 6-year-old's mother, father as suspects
By Gina Mace and Stephanie Warsmith, Beacon Journal writers
Originally published in the Akron Beacon Journal, November 28, 2001
MEDINA: The case began with a photograph of a child in trouble.
The picture, found in a Medina park, showed a man performing oral sex on a young boy. There were no names and only partial faces could be made out.
But, using the photograph, Medina County Sheriff's Detective James Foraker was able to identify the 6-year-old boy. Foraker says the man in the picture is the boy's father. Now, the boy's parents are behind bars—both charged with rape—and the child has been placed in a foster home.
The investigation began Nov. 3 when the sheriff's office got an anonymous phone call. Detectives went to Letha House Park in Spencer Township, where they found the Polaroid picture. The boy in the picture appeared to be between 6 and 10 years old.
"I scanned the picture and separated the faces of the adult and the child," Foraker said. "Polaroid was able to tell me that the film was manufactured in January of 2000, so I was able to determine the approximate current age of the child."
Foraker took the modified pictures showing the faces to elementary schools in the county and posted them at Jobs and Family Services. He also sent the pictures to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va.
A week later, Foraker got a call from a Medina County school principal who thought the boy looked like a 6-year-old kindergarten student at her school. She gave Foraker a school picture of the boy, but the big difference between the two pictures was that the boy was wearing glasses in his school picture and not in the picture found at the park.
Foraker called the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for help.
The center, which often provides technical services for law enforcement agencies, used software to change the boy's school picture so that he was not wearing glasses. They then sent this picture to Foraker.
When Foraker compared the two pictures this time, he said he felt confident that he had found the right boy. "The pictures matched," he said.
The detective said he was also able to match both file mug shots and a driver's license photo of the child's father to the face of the man in the picture found in the park. The boy's father had previously been convicted in 1995 of felony theft and in 1997 for passing bad checks.
Foraker said he talked to the boy, who told him that his mother took the picture while his father performed oral sex on him. The detective said the picture was taken about a month ago, but he has not yet been able to determine how long the boy had been abused.
Police arrested the boy's 29-year-old father and 26-year-old mother, who live in Medina, Monday for one count each of rape of a child under 13. They are being held at the Medina County Jail on $100,000 bonds. The case was presented to a Medina County grand jury yesterday, but the grand jury has not yet ruled on whether they should be indicted.
The Akron Beacon Journal generally does not name sexual assault victims. The parents also are not being named in this story to protect the identity of their son. During a search of the parents' home on Monday, sheriff's investigators confiscated adult pornographic video tapes and magazines, a computer, computer discs and photographs.
Foraker said none of the magazines, video tapes or pictures depicted child pornography. Detectives have not yet had a chance to look over the contents of the computer.
Kathy Free, a supervisor with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said the agency often helps law enforcement agencies with photographs. The center has software, for example, that can show an age progression for a missing child so that police can guess how the child might look after an extended period.
Free was pleased to hear yesterday that Medina officials may have determined the identity in this case.
"I'm glad the child will be in a protective environment," she said.
Lt. John Detchon and Sheriff Neil Hassinger praised Foraker's investigative skills.
"I handed him a photo and told him to run with it," Detchon said. "Because of his work, this child will be able to lead the life he should be leading."
