Investigators in Washington say Susan Powell’s husband, Josh, and her two children, Charlie, 7, and Braden, 5, were killed by their father on Sunday afternoon. Authorities say a case worker dropped the children off at the Powell home near Tacoma, Wash. on Sunday, when Josh pushed the worker out of the way and brought the children inside. In matter of moments, there was an explosion and a fire. Investigators confirm they took three bodies from the scene, two children and one adult. They also confirm that the explosion was intentional.
Reports indicate Josh sent an e-mail just minutes before the explosion to his attorney saying, “I’m sorry, goodbye.” Josh lost custody of his children five months ago when investigators executed a search warrant on his father’s home and found child pornography.
Susan Powell went missing on Dec. 6, 2009 and has not been found. Josh said he took Charlie and Braden camping, in the middle of a snowstorm, during the night. Josh claims when he returned, Susan was nowhere to be found. He was the only public person of interest named in this case.
Statistics show that one in seven kids are solicited for sex online.
This alarming statistic was recently released from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). The survey says 1 in 33 kids receive aggressive online solicitations to meet in person and 34% of kids say they’ve had communication with people they don’t know. NCMEC maintains a proactive approach to protect children and teens and now they have two brand new items for children between the ages of eight and 12. The NSTeen sitenow has animated video and educational games for children in this age range. “Cyberbully Zombies Attack” and “Mike-tosis” both targetinformation about technology, safety and cyber bullying prevention. Although these sites are for “tweens,” parents and teachers are encouraged to log on and educate themselves on the dangers lurking online for kids. The content is available in English and in Spanish. NSTeen is an entity of the main hub of NetSmartz.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says itsCyberTipline has handled more than 903,240 calls of child sexual exploitation. According to a press release on their site, the Child Victim Identification Program has reviewed and analyzed more than 34 million pornographic images.
The FBI is putting safety in your hands and on your cell phone. Now, there’s a free new tool that can help you find your child if he or she suddenly disappears. According to a news release, the new app is called Child ID and it is the first mobile application created by the bureau. The application allows parents and guardians to store valuable information about their child if they go missing and has the ability to e-mail the contents to law enforcement in a matter of clicks.
For now, the app can only be downloaded to iPhones from iTunes. In the coming months the program will be available to all cell phones. For more information, please visit the FBI website.
NOTE FROM THE FBI: The FBI (and iTunes for that matter) is not collecting or storing any photos or information that you enter in the app. All data resides solely on your mobile device unless you need to send it to authorities. Please read your mobile provider’s terms of service for information about the security of applications stored on your device.
If your child is on Facebook and other social networking sites, you may want to check out a free parental control that monitors what they are doing.
GoGoStat is an application you can use right inside your own Facebook. Have you seen those Geico commercials, “It’s so easy a caveman can do it”? Seriously, this application really is that easy.
You will receive notifications if your child posts foul language, vulgarities, anything pertaining to drugs and cyber-bullying, sexual or otherwise unsafe activity. You will also receive notifications if your child is posting embarrassing or personal information about themselves or their families, and when they are connected to a new “friend.” The Parental Guidance will show you an in-depth chart on the age, location and information about the new friend.
GoGoStat also allows parents to print out up to the minute information about their child if they go missing. You will be able to pass over the latest photos, messages to friends, status updates and anything else your child was doing online before they vanished.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) says 73% of teens between the ages of 12 to 17 have social networking profiles and around 86% of teens comment on the pages and walls of their friends. A new game launched by NCMEC called, “Tad’s Profile Panic” is a way to educate children before they reach their teen years of safe practices on social networking sites. Tad’s Profile Panic targets children between the ages of 8 and 12 and players are able to teach Tad clean up his profile by collecting the information that should be kept private.
“Today, children rely more on the Internet than ever before in history. The majority of households today have at least one computer, and we know that most teens access the Internet from multiple locations,” said Ernie Allen, president and CEO of NCMEC.
Tad’s Profile Panic was created by the NSTeens.org and is an extension of the popular NetSmartz workshop program.
1 in 7 kids are solicited for sex online. This alarming statistic was recently released from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The survey says 1 in 33 kids receive aggressive online solicitations to meet in person and 34% of kids say they’ve had communication with people they don’t know. NCMEC maintains a proactive approach to protect children and teens and now they have two brand new items for children between the ages of 8 and 12. The NSTeen sitenow has animated video and educational games for children in this age range. “Cyberbully Zombies Attack” and “Mike-tosis” both targetinformation about technology, safety and cyber bullying prevention. Although these sites are for “tweens,” parents and teachers are encouraged to log on and educate themselves on the dangers lurking online for kids. The content is available in English and in Spanish. NSTeen is an entity of the main hub of NetSmartz.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says itsCyberTipline has handled more than 903,240 calls of child sexual exploitation. According to a press release on their site, the Child Victim Identification Program has reviewed and analyzed more than 34 million pornographic images.
Facebook users can now receive Amber Alert notifications through the site for their state. A partnership between Facebook, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Department of Justice allows subscribers to receive official Amber Alerts on their news feeds.
You can “like” the page here and Facebook says they are contributing 50 million advertising impressions to promote this important program. There are currently 53 Amber Alert Pages set up, one for each of the 50 states, along with pages for D.C., Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands. You can sign up for the alerts in states that interest you, and share the alerts with family and friends.
This is a more formalized approach to getting accurate information about Amber Alerts out through social networking.
NetSmartz is a unique resource provided by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. The safety approach this program offers is one-of-a-kind. The goal of the NetSmartz program is to team up with law enforcement, educators and parents to educate the safest practices on the web.
NetSmartz411 is a page specifically designed for parents. You can send detailed questions to experts, and get all the answers needed about the newest lingo used by kids or technology. You can even call 1-888-NETS411 and ask an expert a question over the phone. Parents and teachers, this resource is FREE and it is something you can actively be involved with. If you take the time to learn the latest trends of the virtual like gaming, social networking, sexting, video sharing, photo sharing and blogging it may prevent a potentially negative situation in your child’s life.
If you have questions, or need more resources, please visit the RESOURCE section of this site or if you have a specific question you would like to ask, please visit the ASKMICHELLE section.
Want to be alerted when a child is abducted? I encourage you to sign up for free via wireless Internet. It is easy, all you have to do is text the word AMBER followed by a space and your 5-digit zipcode to 26237.
If you don’t feel comfortable texting, you can always sign up on-line.
According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited children, the first three hours a child is abducted are the most critical to recovery efforts. This is a fantastic initiative to reach 200 million wireless subscribers. About 200-250 Amber Alerts are activated each year, and more than 400 children have been safely recovered because of the program.
Michelle Sigona is a crime fighting, victims advocate extraordinaire, but for Michelle -- the good fight doesn't stop there. In her spare time, she is a volunteer firefighter -- and now, she is tackling the issues and cases that mean the most to her....
Statistics show that one in seven kids are solicited for sex online.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) says 73% of teens between the ages of 12 to 17 have social networking profiles and around 86% of teens comment on the pages and walls of their friends. A new game launched by NCMEC called, “
Facebook users can now receive Amber Alert notifications through the site for their state. A partnership between Facebook, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Department of Justice allows subscribers to receive official Amber Alerts on their news feeds.
NetSmartz
Want to be alerted when a child is abducted? I encourage you to 
