Of all the crimes in all the world, none is more horrific than the crimes against children.  Especially when the crime involves murder and then tossing the child’s body in a landfill like a piece of garbage, and that’s what happened in Orange Park, Florida.

7-year-old Somer Thompson’s body was found last-night by police.  Her partially covered body was found after investigators followed garbage trucks leaving from the neighborhood where Somer Thompson disappeared Monday.

NBC’s TODAY reports that Sheriff Rick Beseler of Clay County (Fla.) said that a birthmark and clothing helped detectives confirm the child’s identity.  Beseler was unable to comment on the condition of the body or if there were any sign of sexual assault.

The Police who were in search and recovery mode until yesterday are now in a full-blown criminal investigation.  Beseler said, “there are lots of leads we’re following.  There is a child killer on the lose and that’s why we are going to catch this person.  We are going to work as hard as we can.  We will not stop”.

Somer Thompson disappeared Monday during the mile-long walk home from her school on Monday.  The little girl had been arguing with another child, and her sister told her to stop.  Somer became upset and walked ahead of the group and wasn’t seen again.

Like everyone, my hearts and prayers go out to the family of Somer Thompson.  I can not imagine any thing more horrific than loosing a child, let alone, finding the child I loved, buried in a trash heap like a piece of garbage.  

But why was a 7-year-old walking home from school a mile away?  Although there is safety in numbers, which by her leaving the group may have put her at risk, why were these children walking from a school a mile away?  I know our parents told stories of walking to and from school in the snow and up-hill both ways, but that world no longer exists.  I know in some communities in the past you had to live a minimum of 4 miles away from the school to be allowed to ride the school bus.  If this is the case something needs to change.

In a country where child molesters are allowed to walk free as was Phillip Garrido, the man who kidnapped Jaycee Dugard, who was sentenced to 50 years in prison but released after serving only a few years, children are not safe.  Children are naturally the weakest parts of our society and need the most protection.  Law-makers are gung-ho on passing laws that on the surface appear to protect our children but when these laws are not enforced, they are no better than the paper they are written on. 

The judicial system is doing nothing but creating Uber-Molesters.  Take a person that has been convicted for child molestation for example.  They are put in prison under the pretences of serving YEARS of a justly deserved sentence.  In a few years, however, the said molester is set free.  He has not served his sentence.  He has not learned his lesson.  Instead, he feels that in someway he has beat the system or that the crime he has committed must not have been that bad after-all.  So, what does he / she do next?

His previous punishment not fitting his crime, he commits the same despicable crime again.  Only this time, for fear of returning to prison and possibly having to serve his whole sentence, instead of setting the child free, he kills the child to keep him or her from telling what he has done or possibly testifying against him in a court of law.

The people who commit these crimes are not going to be reformed with love and kisses.  They are going to have to be taken off the streets permanently or made to serve their entire sentences….