Student Journalists Oust Sex Offender
The power of Google Searches:
He posed as a prospective student and tried to pass himself off as a member of a royal family from Europe until some student journalists uncovered his past.
The 22-year-old man told students he was 17 and that he was “Caspian James Chrichton Stuart IV,” the “Fifth Duke of Cleveland.”
“He was pretty quiet. But he seemed to talk with a little bit of an accent,” sophomore Frank Carlson told KARE-TV for a story that aired Wednesday night.
At the school newspaper, reporters thought that if “Caspian’s” story were true, it would make an interesting feature. Their research led them to a page on the youth Web site MySpace.com for the “Earl of Scooby,” where “Caspian” said he was British and that his goal for the year was “To not make the front page of any paper.”
But the student journalists eventually found “Caspian” on another Web site for Florida’s registry of sex offenders. It turned out that he was Joshua Adam Gardner, who was convicted of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct in Winona County of Minnesota in 2003, KARE reported. [Link]
[In case you’re wondering what fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct is, click here.]
I’ve got to say, I’m really proud of these kids and really hope that more kids are smart enough to investigate and oust preying sex offenders as well. When I was a kid, only pre-Google TV shows like Deke Wilson’s Mini Mysteries showed that kind of intelligence.
Ever since I noticed that Ryanne from Ryanne’s Video Blog was teaching youngsters how to make their own videoblogs, I’ve been thinking a lot about kids’ media. I can only hope that vlogger-kids will be able to find interesting stories like the one mentioned above, but who knows what will happen when kids start publishing more and more on the Internet… perhaps vlogs will become something as rightly available and trashy as the 99% of MSN Spaces‘ blogs.
January 13th, 2006 at 7:33 pm
Have I told you how much you rule? I loved Deke Wilson’s Mini Mysteries! It had this weird charm. And the dude that played Deke’s friend/sidekick was pretty funny.