See? There is a God...

Mission Accomplished

They didn’t have much to go on, only some disturbing photos and a resort location. But Toronto Police have confirmed authorities have found a girl who was being abused for years, and the man they believe was behind the terrible crime.

The case began several months ago, when local cops came across the disgusting images on the Internet. It quickly became clear the abuse had been going on for years and investigators watched as the tortured child grew up before their eyes in photo after photo.

After efforts to track her down failed, the Sex Crimes Unit took the unprecedented step of air brushing her out of the photos and releasing them to the public, hoping someone could pinpoint where the crimes took place.

And someone did, with several tipsters confirming they were from a hotel in Walt Disney World. That led Florida police and local authorities to another photograph, this time of what they called a key witness.

And that’s when cops finally received the tip they’d been waiting for.

Details are still scarce, but police here reveal the girl has been rescued and that the man they believe was behind the terrible crime is in custody.

The F.B.I. and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security were both involved in bringing the case to a close.

Police are being tight-lipped about who she was and where she was, but they do admit she was living in a residence somewhere in New York State.

They’d theorized her attacker was someone close to her, but there’s no word on whether they were right.

The case sparked controversy over whether photos of the victim and the witness should be released, possibly compromising their privacy. But authorities believed the benefits outweighed the risks and on Friday, despite all the odds, they revealed the case had finally come to a close.

May 13, 2005

And the process involved what some people on Slashdot have considered to be the World's Worst Job: editing out the girl from the original pornographic pictures. I won't go into what I feel about this...I don't even want to think about it, and it's pretty obvious how I feel about the outcome of this case and the circumstances in which this girl lived most of her life.

I don't mean to at all subtract from the significance of the incredible effort that went into this...but seeing as how the outcome of this case could have been much, much worse (an earlier story looked at how the mother of Holly Jones was dealing with Mother's Day), I think that it's no less than a miracle that she was found safe, and the man (supposedly her foster father) caught.

She's now in her teens now, according to the TV report I just saw. I can't help but feel that while her terrible ordeal may be over, her true suffering...won't.