MO- Suspect had sought help, never got it

John Couey also asked for help, and failed to get it!

3-21-2008 Missouri:

Less than a month out of prison in 2003, convicted burglar Brian Walters told his parole officer a secret he'd carried for years.

He had sexually assaulted a teen. He said it "felt wonderful." He fantasized about doing it again, about hurting women — and killing them.

He said he needed help.

But prison officials never treated Walters' lust for rape — even during another stint behind bars. And five years later, police say, he fulfilled his fantasy.


Days after Walters' second release from prison, he attacked a Chesterfield neighbor in her home, raped her and fatally stabbed her, authorities allege.

As prosecutors prepare to try Walters for the Feb. 1 murder of Nancy Miller, a Post-Dispatch investigation has found that authorities failed to heed warning signs that Walters was a sexual sadist.

The newspaper uncovered the failures despite the refusal of the Missouri Department of Corrections to discuss Walters' admissions — and how it missed repeated chances to get him the treatment a parole officer recommended.

The revelations frustrate police officials from two departments that have previously arrested Walters, now 27. That includes Tom O'Connor, the police chief in Maryland Heights. His officers arrested Walters in 2000 for several burglaries, including one in which Walters stole three women's underwear from their apartment.

He said the murder shows "a classic case of recidivism, an untreated person going back and killing this poor lady."

"Somewhere along the line somebody missed the chance to identify his real motivation."

THE FIRST-KNOWN ASSAULT

Walters' fantasies can be traced back at least nine years, to the shore of a small North Carolina lake outside Charlotte.

On a Thursday night in January 1999, Walters, then 18, repeatedly beat and kicked a 16-year-old acquaintance, and forced her to perform a sexual act on him, authorities said.

"He left her for dead in the woods," her mother recalled.

Prosecutors said they worried that a jury wouldn't believe the victim, who had an arrest record of her own and was undergoing mental health treatment.

Prosecutors gave Walters a deal. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanors. He was released after five months. He moved to his parents' new home in Maryland Heights with no sex conviction on his record.

He was in trouble almost immediately. In November 1999, a police officer found him outside Parkway North High School before dawn. Walters drove at the officer, who got out of the way.

Months later, Walters was charged with several burglaries in Maryland Heights. During one, he had cut the screen of the apartment of three female college students and stolen a pair of underwear from each of their dressers. Those were found in his pockets when police arrested him.

For the encounter at Parkway and the burglaries, Walters was imprisoned for 2½ years.

St. Louis County prosecutors could have raised the issue of sex offender treatment to a judge; Corrections officials say the treatment halves the likelihood of a repeat sex offense.

But while state law requires treatment for those convicted of sex offenses, prosecutor J.D. Evans said the court has no authority to order it for others. That's up to prison officials to decide, he said.

Prison officials say they can treat inmates even if they're not convicted of sex crimes, so long as a "sexual element" was involved in their crimes. But they say they didn't treat Walters.

O'Connor, the Maryland Heights chief, said some of the burglaries were clearly sexually motivated. The police knew it. He questions whether Missouri prison officials knew, and, if they did, why they didn't treat Walters as a sex offender.

"How does a guy go to jail for a burglary and he's never treated for the basic motivation, which is sexual?" O'Connor asked. "I don't think they're really interested in the motivation unless very specifically it's a sexual act."

'RAPE FELT WONDERFUL'

Walters was paroled to a halfway house in St. Louis in March 2003 and ordered, like most parolees, to see a counselor. At a meeting with a counselor a month later, he confessed to what had really happened in North Carolina.

Walters said he'd "raped" the Charlotte girl and "beat the case in court," according to an excerpt from his parole file obtained by the Post-Dispatch. He told his counselor that "rape felt wonderful. I loved it."

He also told his counselor that he was masturbating five times a day and had, in his counselor's words, "consistent thoughts of hurting and/or killing sexual partners."

The counselor immediately contacted Walters' parole officer, Christopher Sarchett. In an April 4, 2003, report, Sarchett documented the counselor's recollection of that session. Sarchett said he then questioned Walters.

Walters "without hesitation admitted that the above said was true and emphasized to this officer that he has a problem and needs help," Sarchett wrote.

Noting concern if Walters was "left in the community without proper treatment," Sarchett recommended the parole board reclassify Walters as a sex offender. He asked the board to order Walters to get sex offender treatment.

Neither was done, officials acknowledge.

Instead, Walters stayed in the halfway house more than a month longer, until he walked out on his own.

CASING HOUSES

On May 22, 2003 — seven weeks after his parole officer made his recommendations — a woman at home in Chesterfield heard a noise in her garage and found Walters there, according to police.

"Does Jeff live here?" he asked. No, she said.

Walters drove off in a Honda SUV. The woman gave police the plate number. The vehicle had been stolen two days earlier from a St. Louis parking garage.

Chesterfield police found Walters in the Honda the next day, snoozing behind Toys R Us, and arrested him at gunpoint.

The owners reclaimed the vehicle but found something troubling: A spiral notebook illustrated with pictures of celebrity Jennifer Lopez cut from magazines.

Pages of notes were inside.

"He was casing houses," recalled the Honda owner, Jonell Layton. "Right down to the minute, he was making notes of women's comings and goings. He would sit outside and note what time they came and left walking the dog or when they left the garage door open, all kinds of notes like that."

ANOTHER LOST CHANCE

Walters pleaded guilty to burglary and was sent back to prison — offering yet another chance to get him sex-offender treatment.

Beyond his own admissions to the parole agent, and the parole agent's own recommendation for treatment, Missouri prison officials cited Walters for at least one sexually aggressive infraction:

On Feb. 4, 2007 — nearly a year before his release — he claimed he had a medical emergency. When a female guard checked on him, he exposed himself, began masturbating and told her to perform a sex act on him.

He was disciplined for the rules violation, but, again, was not offered treatment.

Missouri Department of Corrections officials refuse to discuss much of Walters' case, including why they never offered him treatment. They say state law forbids them from releasing parole and probation records, so they will discuss only basic facts about those cases.

Corrections spokesman Brian Hauswirth said, in general, that the prison's treatment program is already full, with a waiting list of 176 sex offenders who by law must be offered treatment.

The parole board did take one step — refusing to release Walters early. He was forced to serve out all his time as required by state law: 4½ years of his seven-year sentence.

The board could have ordered him to get treatment on his own for sexual sadism as a condition of release but did not, the corrections department said.

Instead, Walters was released Jan. 22 with orders to stay away from drugs and alcohol, and to get "assaultive-aggressive" treatment. Parolees getting that treatment usually attend 90-minute group therapy once a week for several months.

But that wouldn't help a sex offender, said longtime counselor Bill Maxson, based in Fenton.

Maxson, who has given both types of treatment to parolees, said those getting sex treatment receive far more intense counseling and supervision.

"Assaultive-aggressive (counseling) would not be appropriate for a sex offender, unless it would be in conjunction with a sex offender program," he said.

Even outpatient treatment for sex offenders may not have been enough, said Richard Taylor, a Clayton psychologist who spent years treating sex offenders.

"They could have said, 'We're going to put you in a hospital for a while. You need a psychiatric evaluation,'" Taylor said. "They could have gotten to a judge to say, 'This guy is at risk, in need of a 48- or 72-hour evaluation.' But I think that ideally he would have needed inpatient treatment because it looks like he was not safe to be on the street."

A FANTASY COMPLETED

Walters' mother, Alonda, said she called his prison and asked what type of counseling programs he needed, and was told that information was private.

She and her husband, Mike, said they never knew the details of their son's 1999 North Carolina case or anything about his admissions of rape fantasies.

Walters moved in with them in their apartment on a quiet street in Chesterfield, surrounded by condominiums and houses with spacious lawns.

Chesterfield police said they weren't notified by prison officials that a parolee was moving there — even though it's common in many cases.

"I don't know all the circumstances, but it's disconcerting that someone with that background would be released into the community without us being aware," said Chief Ray Johnson.

Police say that 10 days after his release he entered the home of a neighbor across the street, Miller, 59, a retired Post-Dispatch editor and columnist. She lived alone.

Police and prosecutors said Walters admitted that he entered Miller's home to steal something. He raped her and stabbed her with two knives during a struggle that left him with a black eye.

Alonda Walters said that when she heard about the killing the next day, she didn't think her son was involved but figured police would want to question the recent parolee.

She took him to the crime scene. The police took her and her son to the police station. Within hours, he confessed.

OFFICIALS ARE MUM

Walters, through jailers, refused to answer a reporter's questions. His lawyer wouldn't discuss the case. Neither would Darlene Witt, the counselor who first heard Walters' admissions.

"I could lose my license for discussing a case," Witt said.

Parole agent Sarchett — the man who years ago recommended Walters get treatment — referred the newspaper's questions to Corrections officials.

Steve Long, the chairman of the Missouri Board of Probation and Parole, and its five other board members — Penny Hubbard, Reid K. Forrester, Wayne Crump, Robert Robinson and Joseph V. Knodell — did not respond to requests to discuss their decisions.

Instead of discussing Walters' case, Corrections officials said that, overall, offenders on probation and parole commit fewer crimes than in years past.

Hauswirth said that "this one case, however horrible, does not tell the whole story about Probation and Parole and our successes."

Outside the prison system, others wonder just how the many warning signs could be ignored.

Johnson, the Chesterfield chief, said he is surprised and disappointed that, "He seemed to have slipped through the cracks."

Chief O'Connor, a published expert on sex offenders, was especially taken aback that the offender's own words were not heeded.

"My God, it is such a classical statement of a sexual predator," he said. "Where does (the parole officer's report) go to, just lie there in their file?" ..more.. by Bill McClellan of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.