Published August 1, 2002 in issue #26 of The Hook

In 1996, Bill Clinton signed Megan's Law, which required each state to maintain a registry of sex offenders after seven-year-old Megan Kanka was raped and murdered by a previously arrested sex offender.

That list is only effective if the sex offender has been convicted and if he and it's almost always a he registers a new address within 10 days as required by law.

That didn't happen in the case of Richard Mark Evonitz, the suspected killer of Sofia Silva and sisters Kati and Kristin Lisk. Evonitz would have been questioned early on in the investigation of those murders had he registered in Spotsylvania County.

Nor did convicted Stanardsville rapist Anthony Slaughter re-register. In late July, Slaughter abducted his former girlfriend in Augusta County and held her captive for four days.

State police track violent sex offenders by sending a certified letter every 90 days, which must be returned with the offender's fingerprint, according to Lt. Robert Kemmler in the State Police. If the offender has moved without alerting authorities, his name is sent out for criminal investigation.

Some are questioning just how vigorously convicted child molesters are tracked, especially in light of the abductions allegedly committed by Evonitz and Slaughter.

More possible evidence of a loophole: convicted molesters Gregory Moyer and Robert Lightburn are not listed.

Kemmler says Moyer probably isn't listed because as a fugitive, he never showed up in prison, when offenders are usually registered. As for Lightburn, his felony conviction in Illinois has to equate to sex crimes in the Virginia Code to be listed on the Virginia registry, according to Kemmler.

On Virginia's sex offenders registry, sex-offender.vsp.state.va.us/cool-ICE, it's possible to check online to see if anyone convicted of a violent sex crime lives in your area. A search of zip code 22902 and surrounding zip codes turns up 56 names that are currently listed on the registry, including five men who are wanted by the police.

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