- Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Web site.
It’s difficult to come up with a good reason for a 42-year-old man to be sitting in a parking lot at 2:48 a.m. with a 15-year-old boy he’d been talking to online — especially a 42-year-old man who has served time for possession of child pornography. Nevertheless, that’s just the scene Salem, NH police say they walked up to Thursday morning thanks to the concerned call of a neighbor.
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The man, Rodney A. Martineau, 42, of 61 Monadnock Ave. in Dracut, Mass. is registered as a Level 2 sex offender in Massachusetts. One can only imagine the the reaction of the parents of the boy, who told police he snuck out of his house in Methuen at 1 a.m. to meet Martineau. Should his parents have seen this coming? It’s a scary thought for any parent.
The Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board’s Web site is one of the most handy tools in spotting who high-risk sexual predators in your town are. But it’s by no means a fool-proof way to identify people who might endanger your kid. In this case, the offender was from another town and — as a Level 2 — isn’t included in the online database. Level 3s — the ones judged by the board to be the most at risk to re-offend — are the only ones you’ll find there. Information on Level 2s in your town are available from local police. The law was set up this way after an earlier attempt to monitor sex offenders in Massachusetts failed to pass state Constitutional muster in the late ’90s. In essence, the current Mass. law puts information about the most dangerous sex offenders at your fingertips. These are people who’ve done the time for their crime, have been released, but are deemed highly likely to re-offend given the opportunity. So, there they are for us all to see. But, it’s often the sex offender you don’t know about, who you need to be watching for.
In talking a few years ago with Bob Baker, the Registry Board’s director of operations, he pointed out a couple of disturbing facts:
- Most sexual assaults are perpetrated by someone the victim or victim’s family knows
- Out of 100 sex offenders only 12 to 15 will be convicted and end up in the Sex Offender Registry database.
Those are some scary facts.
“They can play on the kid’s desire to be liked, wanting to be taken places,” says Charles McDonald, communication and legislation director for the registry. “If you see a grownup who wants to spend a lot of time with your kids it should raise a question in your mind as a parent.”
Does the individual want to be alone with your kid? Do they buy them tons of stuff? Those are good questions to ask yourself.
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Noah R. Bombard is the new media editor for The Eagle-Tribune in North Andover. He is a former award-winning newspaper and magazine editor who has been covering news in Massachusetts since 1997.