It all began on a rainy day in October 1955...
Robert Peterson and Anton and John Schuessler left home one afternoon to see a Disney movie. Two days later their nude and brutalized bodies were found in Robinson's Woods Forest Preserve. This firsthand account details the tragedy of this horrible crime, which took 40 years to solve. While the story is heartbreaking, it is an important one to tell. Imagine this: a man who authorities now believe molested over 2,000 boys went undetected for more than four decades. Protected by organized crime, an animal preyed on innocent children and never came to the attention of law enforcement because he was not a "known sex offender." This is just one of many interesting facts and nuisances to this story that make its lessons learned so important, and this moving true crime historical, yet timely. Kenneth Hansen, convicted of the triple murder, died Wednesday, September 12, 2007 in the Pontiac Correctional Center in Pontiac, Ill.
My book has won three book medals. Third Place Book of the Year for True Crime from Foreword Magazine
Silver Medal in the Ben Franklin Award for Mystery and Suspense from PMA, and a Bronze Medal for Honorable Mention in the Independent Book Publishers Association's 2007 Independent Publisher Book Awards
To learn more, attend one of my book signing events or watch me on Chicago Tonight on May 8, 2007. The booktour schedule is posted on My Blog.
My name is James (Jimmy) Jack. I am your narrator and one of the few living investigators of the Peterson-Schuessler murder case. Although this crime occurred more than fifty years ago, the night Robert's dad, Malcolm Peterson, came to us for help still haunts me and is vivid in my memory. In those days, we didn't have a name for pedophilia or homosexuality, for that matter. And we had no idea of the number of crimes being committed against children every day, until we began investigating this murder. In telling the story, I have recalled some of the cases, but there were many, many more. As peace officers we came to understand quite quickly that there was a pressing problem, but we had little power then to change laws and behaviors that contributed to the problems. Today, we can do much more.
I wrote Three Boys Missing to help in the effort to do more. Recently, we've made a great deal of progress with the passage of the Adam Walsh Child Safety and Protection Act. With this Act, it will no longer be difficult to keep sex offenders behind bars when we find them. Also with the effort of Oprah Winfrey’s Child Predator Watch List, as well as Internet applications such as those created by SearchHelp, people can actively search for known offenders and know exactly where these individuals live in their neighborhoods. But because of their anonymity, unknown predators, like the murderer of the Peterson-Schuessler boys, are particularly dangerous and difficult to apprehend and pose a significant threat to the safety of children that should not be underestimated. They are unknown only in the sense that law enforcement is not aware of their activities. Generally, they are known to their victims. Still a significant percentage of these known offender abuse cases go unreported because they are situations of dual-roles built on trust. Worse of all, unknown predators, who hide behind a dual-role of trust in the community, are often invited into our lives and homes and given permission to spend time with our children, which creates confusion that leads to silent suffering. And unfortunately, getting parents to allow children to testify against and publicly punish offenders is another problem. This practice of “protecting the child” has led to the many plea-deals that have kept offenders on the streets, a situation that greatly frustrated us during the Peterson-Schuessler investigation.
My hope is that the story of the Peterson-Schuessler murder will help to create awareness and educate parents and caregivers in ways that will protect children from sexual predators, particularly "unknown predators." In this regard, I believe this story has great historical and educational significance for four reasons:
- People are under the mistaken assumption that the Internet has increased the number of pedophiles in our society. As this story demonstrates, the prevalence of pedophiles has been with us long before the Internet. Unfortunately, we hesitated to address the problem until the Internet made it easier for pedophiles to prey on almost every child.
- The issues that have allowed the problem of pedophilia to grow into the cancer that is today sat unaddressed for almost 40 years, until John Walsh pressed the country into action. I believe this occurred because we were afraid and ashamed to admit to that crimes against children were a problem. People have to place the entire story into context. Our awareness as peace officers of pedophilia grew dramatically through the Peterson-Schuessler investigation. However in the larger society, we, as individuals, choose to believe that such events would never happen in our own backyards. This allowed sexual predators to prey on children’s innocence and conceal their activities by taking advantage of their vulnerability through threats and other means.
- Parents and children are not much better equipped to understand, address, and prevent this problem today than parents were when Bobby, John, and Anton were alive. This very fact should shock us into action. There are many people on numerous levels trying to make a difference, but even someone with the financial resources of Oprah Winfrey needs help. She cannot do it alone. She needs parents and adults to understand the issues, the problems, the obstacles, and she needs them to work with her, law enforcement, and other agencies to create real change.
- We live under the false belief that this could never happen to "my child." This story makes it clear, as the other tragedies that have followed, that it can happen to any child at any time. It is time we faced the reality of our situation and joined together to change things for the better: not for ourselves but for our children, all children.
As you read the book or learn of ways that we can best protect our children, please share your ideas, thoughts, and comments. My blog will begin on November 1, 2006. It will highlight this knowledge and serve as a tool for sharing this information with others. I look forward to hearing from you and working together to protect our children.