Meet Megan Kanka, a seven-year-old hero who changed American law forever.
On July 29, 1994, Kanka left her house in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, to ride her bike.
Less than 24 hours later, the seven-year-old was found raped and murdered by her 36-year-old neighbor, Jesse Timmendequas, who lived across the street.
Timmendequas told the police he had lured the girl to his home with the promise of showing her a puppy, then sexually assaulted and strangled her before dumping her body in a nearby Mercer County Park.
To everyone’s shock, police discovered that Timmendequas had two previous convictions for sexually assaulting young girls.
Perversely enough, the pedophile also shared a home with two other convicted sex offenders.
“I was afraid she would tell her mother that I had my hand on her butt and tried to kiss her,” Timmendequas told police when asked why he killed Megan. Asked what he thought would happen to him, he said, “That I would get in trouble and go to jail.”
The public outrage of Kanka’s parents, who said they never would have let her play outside unsupervised if they had known that their neighbor was a sex offender, sparked a nationwide outcry that led to the introduction of “Megan’s Law.”
Despite the severity of the crime, defense attorney Jack Furlong opposed Megan’s law, claiming that community notification is developing its own troubling legacy.
“I don’t know how many people are going to have to kill themselves, I don’t know how many houses are going to have to be burnt down, I don’t know how many guns are going to be shot at innocent people before the message gets through that this law incites violence,” Furlong said.
However, New Jersey Attorney General Peter Verniero had a different opinion.
Attorney General said that when a sex crime is committed – particulary in his state – the convicted “forfeits” his or her “ability to live anonymously.”
“We’re taking about the safeguarding of children against a sex offender, somebody who chooses to have sex with kids,” Maureen Kanka, the victim’s mother said. “And I think when you weigh it, it has to come down on the side of children. Always.”
On May 17, 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the legislation, which required community notification when a sex offender moved into a neighborhood. It also standardized the sex offender list requirement that had varied from state to state and made it available to the public instead of just to law enforcement.
Twenty years later, President Barack Obama introduced an international version of Megan’s Law. The legislation requires foreign governments to be notified when a citizen of the United States registered as a sex offender for a sexual offense involving a minor is going to be traveling to their country.
The law also requires a visual “unique identifier” to be placed on the passports of covered registrants and requires offenders to notify law enforcement 21 days before traveling abroad.
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