On Valentine's day, February 14, 1998, I launched a site under the domain www.scarletweb.com. The name of the project was "The Scarlet Web" Child Safety Resources.
The website was a project to encourage the State of Louisiana to erect a statewide sex offender registry. The Scarlet Web, was named after 'Louisiana's Scarlet Letter Law", which required sex offenders to register and notify residents in the neighborhoods where they reside.
At the time of launch there were 7 such registries on the internet and none in
Louisiana. I obtained the names, addresses and conviction information from the Jeff Davis
Parish Sheriff's office, and other information that was considered "public
record".
Shortly after that I received the registered sex offenders from Rapides Parish. I received
an endorsement from Congressman Chris John. The Jennings Daily News wrote an article and
shortly thereafter the Lake Charles American Press ran an article about my effort. I did
an interview on a Lake Charles AM talk radio station early one morning. I was excited at
the level of cooperation from law enforcement, the media and others. I recieved tons of
positive responses from visitors.
I embarked on a blitz, through email, letters, faxes & phone calls, requesting sex offender information from all other Louisiana parishes, the state police and sought endorsements from other political figures and media outlets. My attempts were at strictly getting the web address to the public. I did not want interviews, recognition or anything. Let's face it, when your developing sites, you are your own media outlet. I simply wanted the address listed in their community events/notice calendars.
KPLC, KATC & KLFY were not interested. KLFY said "we are already running
wednesday's child". KPLC said we will interview you if you can find a politician that
we come on with you. You must supply the politician. The politician who co-authored the
"Scarlet Letter Law", ignored emails, phone calls, & faxes. Congressman
Breaux could not get involved. Senator Theunissen could not get involved.
Agency after agency denied my requests for sex offender information. Some Parishes were in
direct violation of Megan's Law and the Jason Wetterling Act in their responses. One
parish, Orleans parish said the information was available for you to view but you had to
go the court house but you could not photocopy the information or take notes of any kind.
Beyond the initial good news I had experienced, the rest was a complete joke.
Calcasieu Parish outright refused to provide the information. Acadia Parish responded,
when I was adamant at obtaining the information, "who do you think you are"? and
promptly hung up on me. It both amazed me and made me ashamed of my State.
The Daily World out of Opelousas Louisiana, told me "We are not interested and don't
ever call back again"! Hundreds of multiple contacts to different organizations
received no response at all. One very large victims group in Baton Rouge, showed very
little interest unless I would become a member and submit a sizeable donation. I was
accused of child endangerment by organizations that claimed they were the internet police.
The Scarlet Web, became part of a small internet network of sites that provided Child Safety information, and ran alerts everytime a child went missing. Each time, a follow up was sent out that the childs body had been found. Even when 11 year old Lorin Easterling in Slidell was murdered by Ralph Stogner, the same people I had contacted before never budged an inch from their positions.
Today, and approximately 4 Louisiana child victims later, The Louisiana State
Police has launched a on line sex offender registry. Calcasieu Parish boasts of it's
hardline stand against sex offenders has launched it's site and a few others.
Shortly after the State Police launched it's site, The Scarlet Web was dismantled. I tried
to tell myself that "The Scarlet Web' at least planted a seed, but in reality I know
that is not the case. I wanted to see Louisiana become the 8th state to provide such a
registry. It settled for being at the bottom of the list and doing what other states had
already done. That part doesn't matter as much as the information being available.
In looking at the State Police Registry and comparing it to the 2 registries that I had obtained, I see a number of discrepancies. I am not sure why there isn't a listing for some of the names I had obtained. After going through what I went through, to encourage a state run registry, I doubt that the current registry is completely accurate. It is my opinion there may be missing entries. I recognize there may be some legal precedence for the omissions.
Holli Thibodeaux was abducted 100 yards from the window I looked out of while working on the Scarlet Web, and fighting for what I wanted to help prevent.
I still own the domain www.scarletweb.com but because of costs I cannot keep the site up. I have decided to re-launch it as a feature on Jeff Davis Parish.com, as a sub-domain. If you would be interested in assisting with this please email me at jsemmes@charter.net. The site will be located at www.jeffdavisparish.com/scarletweb and will be a work in progress.