Bills target predators of children

In the mind of Paul Ray, anyone who victimizes a child "is a monster."

Fighting back tears, the Republican representative from Clearfield unveiled a series of bills at a news conference Tuesday aimed at cracking down on child predators.

"It's unfortunate that we have to be here to do this, but with the plague we've been having with crimes against our children, it's time to step forward and start going after these predators," he said.

After a year of particularly depraved murders involving children in 2006, some lawmakers want enhanced punishments for those who sexually abuse or murder a child.

Potential punishments under two of the bills would include the death penalty.

"This is the year we stand up as a state and take our children back," said Rep. Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman. "This is the year when we say, 'You keep your hands off our kids and if you don't, you're going to pay the consequence."'

Ray wants to make it a first-degree felony for people to entice minors over the Internet. He also wants to force convicted sex offenders who don't have a driver's license to obtain a state ID card.

Reacting to the murder of Shelby Andrews, a 10-year-old Syracuse girl who police said died from child abuse, Ray unveiled a bill that lets prosecutors file a capital murder charge against someone who kidnaps or abuses a child who is ultimately murdered.

"If anyone deserves to die it is the two people that abused and murdered (Shelby Andrews)," Ray said.

Andrews' father, Ryan, pleaded guilty to murder. Her stepmother, Angela Andrews, is facing murder and aggravated sexual-abuse charges. Prosecutors declined to file capital charges, which would carry a potential death sentence, saying they could not prove the couple intended to kill Shelby.

In what appears to be a response to last summer's kidnapping and murder of 5-year-old Destiny Norton, Wimmer is pushing bills that would automatically make homicide of a child under 14 a capital offense.

Destiny's mother supports the legislation.

"Kids, they can't protect themselves," Rachael Norton said in an interview Tuesday with the Deseret Morning News.

Craig Roger Gregerson is serving life without parole for luring Destiny from her back yard, then killing her and sexually assaulting her body. The sexual assault elevated the case to a capital offense, Norton said.