The young witness was able to describe Sarah’s abductor “Tom” to police, to include the clothing the now known registered sex offender wore on the night of this terrible crime. Thomas J. Leggs, Jr., was wearing these same clothes when arrested by police in his family home, and was initially charged with kidnapping the young girl. The charges against Leggs are now far worse with the discovery of the missing girl’s badly burned in a wooded area off of a local road, this near where she was kidnapped in rural Maryland close to the Delaware state line.

The police investigation has developed that Leggs is a former boyfriend of the victim’s aunt and legal guardian, and the owner of the home from which she was taken. Foxwell’s kidnap and murder has once again frightened a community where most thought their children were safe playing out of doors, and especially in their own homes at night. This small community, like hundreds of similar towns and cities across America, have found out that no child is safe from a sexual predator, noting that on the average, a child is kidnapped, assaulted and murdered once every three days in the U.S.

In 2001, Legg was convicted on sex offense charges, to include the rape of a minor child, and was listed on both Maryland and Delaware sex offender registries. He had recently dated the victim’s aunt, Amy Fothergill, who informed police of Legg’s sex offender status. He had been arrested this past September and charged with destruction of property and burglary. Because of his knowledge of Fothergill’s home, he would have known the bedroom in which Sarah slept as well as the fact that the family kept a key to the home under a flowerpot on the porch, thereby giving him access to the residence and to Sarah.

Many local residents, some who participated in the futile search for Sarah, wondered aloud as to why convicted sex offenders like Legg are released back into the community to offend again. One resident indicated “the problem is with these guys going through a revolving door.”

The terrible crime allegedly committed by Thomas Legg, a convicted sex offender and a registered sexual predator, once again cries out for a national 1-strike law for such individuals. There are approximately 675,000 such offenders in America, and by some reports 20% are out of compliance with the terms of their release. A national 1-strike law would not impact the 18 or 19-year-old boy who had consensual sex with his 17-year-old girlfriend, or the emotionally challenged “flasher,” but would specifically target only those violent offenders who by force or coersion stole the innocence of a child.

By some statistics the “average” sexual predator will have victimized 50 young girls or 150 young boys before coming to the attention of the criminal justice system, and other research suggests that pedophiles will offend against 300 child-age victims. So-called ankle bracelet tracking devices do not prevent released offenders from reoffending. Law enforcement has seen case after case of released offenders who reoffend while wearing such a device or who cut the device from their leg so as to offend without detection.

Van Zandt Associates strongly suggests that every citizen contact their elected state and national representative and demand a national 1-strike law for sexual predators. One such predator, when finally arrested in California, had maintained meticulous records on the over 30,000 incidents of child molestation that he had committed. With tens of thousands of children falling victims to such offenders on a yearly basis, and with our children being our most important legacy, we all need to demand that such offenders not be given a free pass to reoffend. We need to demand that all such offenders be incarcerated for life to insure they will not get the same chance Thomas Legg is believed to have had; this to assault and murder a young child who had every opportunityin the world ahead of her, only to be brutally murdered by an offender who should never have been released to reoffend again.

You can make a difference in such cases by letting your feelings be known to those who can write such legislation. A vote for a 1-strike law is a vote for the very lives of our children!

For a free copy of our DVD, “Protecting Children from Predators,” go to www.LiveSecure.org. We’ve given away thousands and the information contained in the DVD can help save lives! You can also find the names and addresses of sexual predators living in your neighborhood by going to www.Livesecure.org.