![[photo]](images/betances_j.jpg)
Whitaker has been known to have used at least 18 aliases.
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The color photo of PUSD supe Percy
Clark and John Whitaker-Betances which accompanies the piece online was released in response to a second public records act request.....
No word yet from Portland public
schools regarding my PRA request regarding *their* DADS program,
coincidentally (?) begun in the summer of 2003..
R. |
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Btw, more on Mr. Whitaker can be found at list member (and list
lurker) Peyton Walcott's blog http://www.peytonwolcott.com/Whitaker-BetancesPUSD.html
.
And stay up to the minute as to the charges against Mr. Whitaker by
visiting the Orange County Sheriff's Department's webpage on him http://www.ocsd.org/InmateInfo/ViewInmateData.asp?BookingNumber=2231105
.
R
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According to the Orange County District Attorney's
office http://www.orangecountyda.com/docs/casemanagementlist.pdf
, accused murderer, convicted child sex offender, and flamboyant fraud
John Whitaker is moving closer to a trial date, having had a
preliminary hearing earlier this week and a pretrial hearing set for
August 31 at 8:30 am.
Mr. Whitaker is reportedly accused of murdering two
women here in Southern California - one, an Orange County prostitute;
the other, a clerk for the Santa Monica public schools. Both
murders were "cold" cases to which Mr. Whitaker has
reportedly been tied by DNA evidence.
After release from state prison for a sex offense, Mr.
Whitaker settled in Pasadena, and posing as a military hero http://pownetwork.org/phonies/phonies205.htm
, he impressed many in town as quite a man.
He so impressed PUSD then-supe (currently supe-on-terminal-leave)
Percy Clark that Mr. Clark put Mr. Whitaker in charge of the
district's "Dads Are Doing Something" program, supposedly
without ever doing a background check.
Had Mr. Clark checked the state's Megan's Law website http://meganslaw.ca.gov/
, he would have learned many disturbing things about Mr. Whitaker.
But Mr. Clark apparently didn't bother, and Mr.
Whitaker came to our schools.
It's my understanding that because of the multiple
murder allegations, Mr. Whitaker may face the death penalty.
R
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Date:
Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:01:12 -0700 Subject: PW: Identity crisis
The good folks of the P.O.W. Network keep a running
tab on Mr. Whitaker http://www.pownetwork.org/phonies/phonies205.htm
.
Their efforts to expose those who, like Mr. Whitaker,
steal the honor belonging to others, is to be lauded, IMHO.
Btw, next Tuesday will mark the four-year anniversary
of the date that the state says it lost track of Mr. Whitaker.
One would think the "brains" at the state DOJ would be
able to keep track of perverts like him, but, as they say, never
assume.
R
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Pasadena Weekly
Identity crisis
When they learn his whereabouts, maybe Orange
County officials will finally get accused killer John Whitaker’s
name right
By Andre Coleman 06/19/2008
On Friday, John Laurence Whitaker turned 61. But
instead of playing with grandchildren or getting together with old
friends, Whitaker celebrated in the same old place he was last year,
the year before that and the year before that — the Harbor Justice
Center jail in Orange County.
His moustache and goatee are graying and must be
almost white by now. And the six-foot-one-inch, 250-pound accused
killer still cuts an imposing physical figure — that is, if he
looks anything like the last time he was seen in court by the Weekly
back in March 2007.
But even though the flamboyant Whitaker — also a
convicted sex offender who disguised himself as a decorated Vietnam
veteran nearly six years ago while running a volunteer mentoring
program with the Pasadena Unified School District — has been in
custody for nearly four years, he appears no closer to trial for two
separate slayings than when he was first arrested.
After 32 court appearances, authorities in Orange
County still don’t seem to know Whitaker’s real name. In fact,
on May 27, the date of his last hearing, Whitaker didn’t even show
up, because “He simply did not get on the bus” from the jail to
the courthouse, said an Orange County District Attorney’s Office
staff member, who was unable to explain why that happened.
But further complicating the public’s efforts to
keep track of Whitaker’s case, the Sheriff’s Department and the
District Attorney’s Office both continue listing him under one of
his primary aliases, Whitaker-Betances, and that apparently includes
all of their records.
Whitaker’s attorney, Lewis Clapp of the Orange
County Public Defender’s Office, did not return calls for comment.
Neither did prosecutor Matt Murphy of the Orange County District
Attorney’s office.
“The thing about these old cases,” Murphy said in
a previous interview, “is the defense always wants to test
everything.” Murphy said if he objected to the defense’s request
for DNA testing, it could be grounds for an appeal if Whitaker is
convicted of strangling prostitute Patricia Anne Carpenter in Laguna
Beach in 1983 or school administrator Bodil Cecelia Rasmussen in
Santa Monica in 1975.
“I would rather just give it to them now. The
results usually don’t change,” Murphy said of the DNA evidence
that he believes links Whitaker to the two murders. “I’m really
looking forward to getting into this trial. I can’t wait,”
Murphy said at the time — two years ago.
“Basically it has been delay, delay, delay as much
as possible,” said Rene Amy, a longtime schools critic and
attorney who has kept an eye on the Whitaker case since the
beginning. Amy was one of the first to say that Whitaker was a fraud
after he learned that a veterans’ rights group was onto the
deception and posting stories about it on its Web site. “One way
to slow things down is to require a court order for anything and
everything. It is a tactic to try and delay a court date as much as
possible,” Amy explained. “They can drag this out for years.”
Whitaker was first incarcerated in 2004 under his
real name, and he is also listed under that name on the Department
of Justice Megan’s Law database for registered sexual offenders.
However, that same Web site lists Whitaker’s whereabouts as
unknown, despite his arrest four years ago and multiple court
appearances during that time. Further, the Orange Country DA’s
Office now lists his name as John Laurence Whitaker-Betances, as
does the OC Sheriff’s Web site, along with a list of other
aliases.
Correspondence sent recently from the Weekly to John
Laurence Whitaker was returned with a quickly scrawled note, stating
“No inmate with this name is in our custody.”
A few months after he suddenly disappeared from
Pasadena, authorities in Oregon arrested Whitaker for failure to
register as a sex offender in that state. At that time it was
learned that Whitaker had been lying about his name and his tale of
being a decorated Vietnam veteran. He wore military fatigues, a
black military-style beret and once claimed to have gnawed through
the neck of a Vietcong captor to escape a POW camp.
Whitaker, however, had registered with Pasadena
police, only under his real name, John Laurence Whitaker, for sex
crimes that he had committed against a 14-year-old boy back in New
York in the 1970s.
During the five years that he lived in Pasadena under
the name Whitaker-Betances, no one — including former PUSD
Superintendent Percy Clark, who once gave Whitaker keys to the
administration building and access to an office at district
headquarters — suspected Whitaker’s real identity or his
criminal past.
While in custody for the failure to register in
Oregon, authorities said Whitaker was tied through DNA to the
Carpenter and Rasmussen killings. Rasmussen and Whitaker apparently
lived in the same apartment building, and he had been interviewed by
investigators in relation to the murder.
Carpenter’s sister, Cynthia, said her sister was
pretty tough and probably fought with her assailant. “I said the
only way she didn't fight was if she was completely out of it,”
she said in a 2006 interview with the Weekly. “I found out 23
years later that she did fight and that his skin was under her
fingernails. She was no pushover.”
The skin particles were apparently all investigators
needed to identify a suspect, provided that person’s DNA was
already on file. It didn’t take long for forensics experts to come
up with a match to Whitaker in both the Carpenter slaying and the
Rasmussen strangulation, which was done with a pair of the
victim’s pantyhose, according to Santa Monica police officials.
Whitaker has pleaded not guilty to both murder charges. His next court date is set for June 27, a hearing for — what else? — a defense motion to re-examine DNA evidence.
Ironically, Acting City Manager and Pasadena
ex-Police Chief Bernard Melekian was a patrol sergeant in Santa
Monica at the time of Rasmussen’s murder. In fact, Melekian
responded to the call after her body was discovered.
“Homicides are very unique. You don’t forget the
ones you go on,” Melekian said in a previous interview. “I
always wondered what happened and if that crime had been solved.”
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Jan 18, 2008
John Whitaker, the flamboyant fraud and man hand-selected by Percy Clark to run the PUSD's "Dads Are Doing Something" program, will not face the death penalty, although he stands accused of crimes for which the ultimate punishment can be meted out.
That word comes today from the Orange County District
Attorney's office.
Mr. Whitaker, who has been sitting in the Orange County
Jail for just over three years, is accused of two murders coupled with
the special circumstance of multiple murder. As such, the
prosecutor could seek the death penalty, but has chosen not to do so,
according to OCDA spokesperson Farrah Emami.
Instead, the maximum penalty, should Mr. Whitaker
eventually be convicted on all counts, is life imprisonment without
the possibility of parole.
Prosecutors allege that Mr. Whitaker killed two women.
He allegedly strangled a Malibu school district clerk in 1995 and an
Orange County prostitute in 1983.
Mr. Whitaker faces a preliminary hearing on the charges
against him on January 29, 2008. This hearing has been scheduled
for several earlier dates, but each has been delayed by Mr. Whitaker.
Mr. Whitaker, of course, has the right to a speedy trial, but it
appears that he'd rather spend time in the OC Jail than in the general
prison population.
Here in PAsadena, Mr. Whitaker is remembered for his
larger-than-life persona.
Claiming to be a retired Colonel with the US Army
Special Forces, Mr. Whitaker was also reportedly known for his
exciting tales of life as a P.O.W. in Vietnam, telling classrooms full
of school children how he once chewed through the neck of a V.C.
prison guard in order to escape.
Mr. Whitaker told a lot of lies, though. He is,
in reality, a convicted child sex offender who has spent a large
portion of his life in prison for sex-related crimes. He is a
Megan's Law listee. At the time Mr. Clark selected him to run
the DADS program, Mr. Whitaker was registered with the Pasadena police
as required by Megan's Law.
For a relatively complete dossier on Mr. Whitaker's
recent legal problems, see http://www.pownetwork.org/phonies/phonies205.htm
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Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007
17:05:18 -0800 Subject: John Whitaker's Date With Justice Delayed Again
John Whitaker, the man Percy Clark selected to head
the PUSD D.A.D.S. volunteer program, even though Mr. Whitaker was a
convicted child sex offender listed on California's Megan's Law
website, will have spent nearly three years in the Orange County
Jail without a trial by the time his next shot at a preliminary
hearing comes up.
Mr. Whitaker, who is reportedly charged with two counts of murder for "cold case" sex slayings, was extradited from Oregon to California in early 2005, and has been incarcerated since. At nearly every turn, Mr. Whitaker has worked to delay his date with justice.
Last scheduled for just after Thanksgiving, Mr.
Whitaker now faces a preliminary hearing on December 18, according
to the Orange County D.A.'s office http://www.orangecountyda.com/docs/casemanagementlist.pdf
.
Mr. Whitaker, of course, was a close associate of Percy Clark, and was known for his tales of derring-do in Vietnam. Turns out that Mr. Whitaker could talk a lot - but that instead of being the war hero he vociferously claimed to be, Mr. Whitaker was a sick individual who had spent most of his life in jail for sex crimes.
For more on Mr. Whitaker, see http://pownetwork.org/phonies/phonies205.htm
.
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Pasadena Weekly
July 12, 2007
Time to kill
Court documents allege Whitaker threatened to kill
ex-wife
By André Coleman
THE REAL DEAL: John Whitaker’s Megan’s Law database
photo.
A high-profile onetime Pasadena Unified School District
volunteer and convicted sex offender currently on trial for the
murders of two women allegedly threatened to kill his former wife
shortly before the couple divorced in 2003, according to court
documents obtained by the Weekly.
According to an application for a restraining order
filed by Eloise Crichton, John Laurence Whitaker verbally abused
Crichton and threatened to harm her daughter and son-in-law if they
should “interfere in his business.”
Whitaker, who sought his own restraining order against
Crichton at that time, claimed Crichton demanded nightly massages,
withheld sex from him and mocked him for his “sexual
inadequacies.”
Whitaker, 60, is accused of killing Bodil Rasmussen,
his former neighbor and an employee of the Santa Monica/Malibu Unified
School District, in 1975, and Patricia Ann Carpenter, whose body was
discovered in Laguna Hills in 1983.
Both women were strangled.
The two cases had long grown cold by the time Orange
County police detectives in 2004 used DNA evidence to arrest Whitaker,
who was living in Oregon in a trailer with a woman he had met on the
Internet.
While living in Pasadena, Whitaker had been going by
the name John Whitaker Betances, pretending to be a decorated Vietnam
veteran. Under this guise, Whitaker started a chapter of DADS (Dads
Are Doing Something) and was embraced as a role model by former PUSD
Superintendent Percy Clark.
In reality, Whitaker was a convicted sex offender who
had registered his whereabouts with Pasadena police for four years
under his real name. However, a record check was never conducted on
him by Clark, who was so impressed with Whitaker's assumed persona
that he gave Whitaker an office and access to district headquarters.
When arrested in Oregon, Whitaker had failed to
register as a sex offender there. He was already in custody for
suspicion of that crime when Orange County homicide detectives linked
him through DNA evidence to the murder of Carpenter, who police say
was a prostitute.
A pre-trial hearing in Santa Ana Superior Court, where
he is being prosecuted as John Laurence Whitaker Betances, has been
set for Aug. 31.
As laid out in the restraining order sought by Crichton
and eventually granted a year priorto his arrest, Whitaker “would
often stare at me in the dark while I was trying to sleep, he blocked
my path when I tried to leave the apartment, he threw a cup of soda in
my face, and he said he should ‘just kill me and get it over
with.”
Whitaker and Crichton apparently met while they were
staying in the same apartment building on Washington Boulevard in
Pasadena.
Crichton did not return several calls for comment.
During his marriage to Crichton, Whitaker was known as
Betances and regaled anyone listening with Rambo-type stories of his
tours of Vietnam, where he once claimed to have bitten through a
guard's neck to escape from a prison camp.
While working under Clark at the PUSD, Whitaker sent
out inspirational emails to men in the community, urging them to get
involved in the lives of their children.
Whitaker's act even fooled several professors at
Pasadena City College, where he unsuccessfully ran for a seat on the
Board of Trustees.
Whitaker's picture, description and five of his aliases
— police now say he may have used as many as 18 different identities
— have been posted on the Megan's Law Database since 1999, when he
failed to update his registration after moving to Pasadena, a mistake
he did not repeat while living here.
Authorities say Crichton never appeared to know
Whitaker's true identity. However, she may have suspected his war
stories were untrue. “He claims to be retired from the armed
forces,” Crichton wrote in her request for the restraining order in
2003. “Yet I have never seen any supporting documents to that
effect. I have never seen any tax returns in his name, any disability
insurance, unemployment or Social Security benefits.”
By the time Whitaker and Crichton met, he had already
served 10 years in a New York prison for rape of a minor. In 1997, he
was released from parole.
Meanwhile, Cynthia Carpenter, Patricia's sister, was
beginning to give up hope that police would ever find Patricia's
killer.
Carpenter said the last time she saw her sister alive
was on Dec. 16, 1983, a night they argued. When Cynthia awoke the next
day, her sister was gone. After several days, Patricia still had not
shown up and Cynthia feared the worst.
After a conversation with a pimp she knew and one of
Patricia's friends, Cynthia discovered that her sister had been
dropped off in Hollywood and was last seen getting into a car with a
man. Police questioned the friend, a man known only as Tony, but days
later he vanished and the trail went cold. Detectives working the case
at the time told Cynthia that her sister didn't fight with her
assailant.
In 2004, that statement was proved wrong. Skin
particles were found under Carpenter's fingernails and were later
matched to Whitaker.
“I said the only way she didn't fight is if she was
completely out of it,” Cynthia Carpenter said. “I found out 23
years later she did fight and his skin was under her fingernails. She
was no pushover.
I have learned to put my trust in God because he says
vengeance is mine, and sometimes we have to step back and let faith
take its course. I have enough faith in the legal system that justice
will prevail.”
Police also had DNA evidence from the 1975 murder of
Rasmussen, who lived in the same Santa Monica apartment complex as
Whitaker. According to authorities, Whitaker was the last person seen
with her. However, police didn't have enough evidence to hold him.
Orange County Assistant District Attorney Matt Murphy
did not return phone calls for this story.
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Pasadena Weekly
October 26, 2006
Make-up exam
Defense wants murder suspect John Laurence Whitaker’s
DNA examined again
By André Coleman
An Orange County court commissioner ordered new DNA
tests for convicted sexual molester, murder suspect and former
Pasadena school volunteer John Laurence Whitaker, who awaits trial in
the deaths of two women.
Whitaker appeared in a Harbor Justice Superior Court on
Friday where Superior Court Commissioner Thomas J. Rees granted a
defense motion for a five-month continuance to have Whitaker’s DNA
matched against evidence left at two scenes, one in 1975 and the other
in 1983.
“The thing about these old cases is the defense
always wants to test everything,” said Assistant District Attorney
Matt Murphy. “Defense attorney Don Ronaldson is very methodical in
the way he approaches his cases.”
While defense attorneys believe additional testing
could clear Whitaker in these cases, prosecutors say his genetic
marker could show up in other cases after being run through a
nationwide databank, though other connections are doubtful.
Ronaldson did not appear in court. Instead Orange
County Public Defender Anthony Mesa appeared on Whitaker’s behalf.
Mesa declined comment.
Whitaker was taken into custody July 30, 2004, after he
failed to register as a sex offender in his new home of Gresham, Ore.,
where he lived in a trailer with the mother of a woman he had met over
the Internet. Shortly before his arrest, DNA evidence linked Whitaker
to the murders of Patricia Ann Carpenter, in 1983, and Bodil Rasmussen
of Santa Monica in 1975.
Rasmussen was found dead on the beach in 1975 and
Carpenter was found near a Los Angeles Times distribution center in
Laguna Beach in 1983. Both women had been strangled. The ligatures
used in the murders were still wrapped around their necks when their
bodies were found.
Murphy would not say if he thought Whitaker had
committed other murders, but said his office was not attempting to
connect him to any other cases.
“The backlog of unsolved cases in LA County alone is
extremely huge and it would take hundreds of man hours to attempt to
try and pin him to any of them. When we opened the box in the 1975
case, it was like opening a time capsule. It hadn’t been touched.
Detectives would have to take out all of the evidence in every
unsolved case and re-submit it. If he has done something else, it
would probably surface by accident,” Murphy said.
Whitaker arrived in Pasadena in 1998. By then he had
already served three years of a 10-year prison sentence for rape and
was required to register as a sex offender with the Pasadena Police
Department.
But in 2000, he failed to update his registration,
resulting in a warrant for his arrest. Months later, Whitaker started
going by the name of John Whitaker Betances, a Vietnam hero and PUSD
volunteer for the DADS (Dads Are Doing Something) program, which
sought to get men involved in the lives of their children’s lives.
He even ran for a seat on the Pasadena City College Board of Trustees.
Hugo Schwyzer, who taught Whitaker at Pasadena City
College, said he was horrified to learn Whitaker had been arrested for
murder.
“Sometimes in academia we joke about students or
colleagues being serial killers,” Schwyzer said. “He would not
have made my top 50 of people I would have thought that about. I was
absolutely floored. He set himself apart because he was older. He was
very outgoing, very jovial and warm. He always sat up front and
participated and asked questions and came to speak to me during office
hours. He was really, really interested in history and ideas. He
wanted to talk about military battles and wars. He said he had been in
the military and made self-deprecating remarks about his military
service.”
One of the stories was a tale of escaping a Vietnam POW
prison camp by chewing through a guard’s neck.
Whitaker didn’t look the part of war hero on Friday,
however, as he sat in a four-foot-by-12-foot mesh cage in the
courtroom. Clean-shaven, with a nearly white moustache and goatee, and
clad in an orange jumpsuit, Whitaker listened quietly as the judge
granted the continuance. His only words were spoken when he said yes
to the commissioner’s question about whether he understood what was
going on and that he was relinquishing his right to a speedy trial.
Murphy said he did not object to the DNA testing
because it could serve as grounds for an appeal later.
“I would rather just give it to them now,” Murphy
said. “The results usually don’t change. I’m really looking
forward to getting into this trial. I can’t wait.”
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6/22/2006 -0700
I've heard you have to kill *three* people to be a serial killer. In Mr. Whitaker's case, that'd make him a serial sex killer. R ------------ http://pasadenaweekly.com/article.php?id=3564&IssueNum=25 Pasadena Weekly Murphy’s law When Santa Monica homicide detectives began investigating the murder of Bodil Rasmussen in 1975, their chances of solving the case were slim. Rasmussen, who worked for the Santa Monica School District, was found inside of her car, the victim of an apparent strangulation, but the crime scene yielded little evidence, with the undisclosed instrument used to strangle Rasmussen containing no discernable fingerprints. Police interviewed John Laurence Whitaker, described as an associate of the slain woman, but that interrogation yielded no clues. Shortly thereafter, Whitaker disappeared. Today, prosecutors say new technology has revealed that there was conclusive evidence left at the crime scene after all; DNA evidence found on the weapon used to choke the life out of Rasmussen that has been linked to Whitaker, a former Pasadena Unified School District volunteer who masqueraded as a decorated war veteran and operated under an assumed name and was later revealed as a registered sex offender. Since being found out, Whitaker has been tied to another murder, this one involving the 1983 strangulation of a known prostitute in Laguna Beach. Whitaker, who is being held without bail in Orange County, was already charged with murder in the death of Patricia Anne Carpenter, another case in which DNA evidence is expected to play a decisive role for the prosecution. Orange County Assistant District Attorney Matt Murphy told the Weekly that charges against Whitaker were set to be amended this week to include another count of murder for the death of Rasmussen. "Advancements in forensic technology are what have allowed us to charge him with this," Murphy said without elaborating. "We are very confident in the evidence that we have collected." Whitaker served as a volunteer on PUSD’s Dads Are Doing Something (DADS) program under the alias John Whitaker Betances. Under that identity, he claimed to be a Vietnam hero and constantly wore army fatigues and a military beret while speaking about the need of men to get involved in the lives of children. By the time he had started the DADS program, Whitaker had already served prison time for rape and was required to register as a sex offender, which he failed to do once he stopped using his real name. PUSD officials failed to do a background check on Whitaker before allowing him to lead the program. However, Clark and other school officials have maintained that Whitaker was never alone with children in his role as DADS director. On July 30, 2004, Whitaker was arrested in his new home of Grisham, Ore., for allegedly failing to register as a sex offender in his new home state, where he lived in a trailer with the mother of a woman he had met over the Internet. Authorities there handed Whitaker over to Laguna Beach homicide investigators, who traveled north to pin Whitaker with Carpenter’s murder. Whitaker has also been charged with two felony counts of failing to register as a sex offender. Orange County Public Defender Don Ronaldson declined to talk about details of the case, but said, "We’re in the process of getting all of the information on John’s cases and his background together. We look forward to vigorously defending the case." According to Santa Monica Detective Frank Fabrega, evidence collected during the initial investigation of the Rasmussen murder was resubmitted in June to the LA County crime lab for processing, which, like the evidence taken at the Carpenter crime scene, came back with a DNA match to Whitaker. |
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Santa Monica Daily Press
June 20, 2006
Cold case thaws
Suspect faces justice for 1975 murder in SM
BY MICHAEL J. TITTINGER AND CAROLYN SACKARIASON
Daily Press Staff Writers
NEWPORT BEACH — More than
30 years after the body of 36-yearold Bodil
Rasmussen was found strangled and dumped in a Santa Monica parking
lot, the man long
thought to be her assailant will finally stand before a
judge today and answer to murder charges.
John Whitaker Betances, of Pasadena, was arrested in Oregon and extradited to Orange County in 2004 after DNA samples linked him
to the 1975 murder of Rasmussen and another female
victim eight years later in Laguna Canyon.
Betances, 57, will enter a plea at his arraignment this
morning at the Harbor Justice Center in Newport Beach.
Betances lived in the same apartment complex as Rasmussen and was a suspect at the time of her murder, according to the Orange County
District Attorney’s office, but there was
insufficient evidence to charge him for the crime.
The Santa Monica Police Department left the unsolved
case open for investigation and preserved evidence for more than three
decades.
“The Santa Monica and Laguna Beach police departments
should be commended for having the forethought to preserve the
evidence
and never giving up on getting justice for two young
women whose lives were cut tragically short,” said Senior Deputy
District Attorney
Matt Murphy of the Homicide Unit, who is prosecuting
the case.
“Technology will continue to make getting away with these types of crimes more difficult,” added Murphy. Betances, who was also known as John Laurence Whitaker, was said to have been living a double life in Pasadena, according to
a story first reported in the Pasadena Star-News in
November of 2004.
Betances reportedly was a well-respected civic leader, who ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the Pasadena City College board of trustees in 2001. He
was also involved in the local school district as a
recruiter for a program that trained fathers to volunteer in
schools.
But Betances’ seemingly normal life was turned upside down when Laguna Beach Police Detective Paul Litchenberg began sifting through the evidence room, gathering DNA samples from the 1983 murder scene of 26-year-old Patricia Carpenter and matching them up with the Department of
Justice’s database of convicted felons.
On May 3, 2004, the evidence linked Betances to both of the killings.A DNA sample from underneath the fingernails of Carpenter,
whose partially nude body was found dumped along the
road in Laguna Beach, and a semen sample found on Rasmussen led to the
arrest
and subsequent murder charges.
Betances’ DNA had been in law enforcement databases
since 1994, when he was released from a California prison after
serving
10 years for rape, according to Litchenberg. He was
discharged from parole in 1997 and moved to Pasadena a year later.
Through an Internet search, the detective found
Betances in Gresham, Ore. in July of 2004, after having apparently
left Pasadena
in 2003 following a separation from his wife, who was
unaware of his previous life.
In Oregon, Betances moved in with a woman he met over the Internet. But because he failed to register aas a sex offender,
he was placed under arrest, denying any involvement in
the two women’s murders.
Police records later showed that Betances had been
questioned by Santa Monica police nearly three decades before that
time, so he
contacted detectives here.
In September, Santa Monica investigators got a hit on one of their cold cases — this time Betances’DNA matched up to evidence
taken from the body of Rasmussen, of Carson, who was
found dead in the parking lot of the old Sea Castle at 1725 Appian
Way.
Betances had been with Rasmussen the night before her death.He told Santa Monica detectives that he was a medical student and
had a legal background, according to the
Star-News.
What he failed to tell them was that he was a
parolee who had been convicted of sodomy in 1964 and served three
years |
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Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006
16:26:58 -0700
The 13th time *was* the charm.
After celebrating two birthdays behind bars,
59-year-old flamboyant fraud http://pownetwork.org/phonies/phonies205.htm
John Whitaker, aka John Laurence Whitaker Betances http://www.ocsd.org/InmateInfo/ViewInmateData.asp?BookingNumber=2231105
, finally pled "not guilty" to a charge of murder this
morning down in the OC.
He's had a dozen prior chances to proclaim his
innocence and demand a speedy trial.
OCDA's press rep Farrah Emami said that Mr. Whitaker
will have his next day in court on October 20, for a pre-trial
hearing.
As the OCDA puts it, Mr. Whitaker is "(c)harged
with the 1983 strangulation murder of a woman in Laguna Beach.
Through TracKRS, a DNA match linked Betances to the killing. He was
living in Oregon at the time of his arrest. He has been extradited
to California to face murder charges." http://www.orangecountyda.com/docs/casemanagementlist.pdf
Mr. Whitaker, a Megan's Law http://meganslaw.ca.gov/
listee http://snipurl.com/pce6
here in California, made quite a splash during his time in Pasadena.
Percy Clark was so impressed with Mr. Whitaker that
he personally put Mr. Whitaker in charge of the PUSD D.A.D.S.
program and gave him access to PUSD computers, equipment, supplies
and personnel.
Most will likely remember a story by Aaron Harris
from the Pasadena Weekly http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/exclusives.html#ex04
, dated January 26 of this year, which included the
following bits:
Whitaker was "accused of
> the 1983 strangulation murder of prostitute
Patricia Ann Carpenter,
> whose body was found dumped along side a dark
road by police officers
> in Laguna Beach. Until late 2004, the trail to
catch her killer
> remained cold until detectives used technology
that wasn't available
> in 1983 to match DNA evidence to that of her
accused murderer."
"> Investigators hope the same DNA evidence
that linked Whitaker to the
> murder of Carpenter will tie him to the
strangulation of Santa Monica
> School District employee Bodil Rasmussen in
1975.
>
> The OC DA's office is now putting together a
case against Whitaker
> that they feel is solid enough to charge him
with the Rasmussen murder.
>
> As Betances, Whitaker claimed to be a Vietnam
vet, once claiming he
> escaped from a prison camp by chewing through a
guard's neck."
A few people have expressed fears that having Mr.
Whitaker roam the halls down at 351 may have endangered PUSD
employees.
Btw, Percy Clark, the man who put Mr. Whitaker in
charge of the D.A.D.S. program, remains at the helm of PUSD despite
his proven plagiarism.
R
|
|
June 19, 2006
Maybe the 13th time will be the charm, because the 12th wasn't.
John Whitaker, the man Percy Clark personally put in charge of the
PUSD D.A.D.S. program - despite Whitaker being a locally-registered
sex offender and Megan's Law listee - will have his 13th chance to
plead "not guilty" to a charge of murder tomorrow in Orange
County http://www.orangecountyda.com/docs/casemanagementlist.pdf
.
Mr. Whitaker, who has a long string of sex offenses on his record,
charmed many in the community, especially with his (totally
fabricated) tales of military bravery.
In a manner much like that of one who claims to have dragged a police
dog to a lunch counter, Mr. Whitaker would tell tales of derring-do
that were total lies, but were such great lies that those who heard
simply wanted to believe them.
for more about Mr. Whitaker, see the P.O.W. Network's
"Phonies" page on him http://pownetwork.org/phonies/phonies205.htm
.
R
|
|
Date:
It'll be mid-June, the 16th, to be precise, when John Whitaker gets
his twelfth chance to plead "not guilty" and start
proceedings against him to determine his guilt in the murder case he
faces. See http://www.orangecountyda.com/docs/1725391442006cases.pdf
for details.
Mr. Whitaker, the locally-registered sex offender, flamboyant fraud, and Megan's Law listee put in charge of the PUSD D.A.D.S. program by Percy Clark - and thereby granted access to district computers, stationary, and the like - has been in jail in Orange County since January of last year when he lost his 1/2 year fight against extradition from Oregon. He's had 11 prior chances to plead not guilty, including one last Friday, but has chosen to have each delayed.
As a fan of "Arrested Development," I can understand that a
guy might find the OC Greybar kind of homey, but...
R
|
|
Pasadena Weekly
March 9, 2006
Whitaker's ninth no comment
By André Coleman
John Laurence Whitaker, a convicted sex offender who
under the name John Whitaker Betances flourished as one of the
Pasadena Unified School District's top volunteers, has once again
delayed his arraignment on a murder charge.
For the ninth time in more than a year, Whitaker
appeared Friday in Orange County Superior Court, but managed to
avoid making a plea in relation to the 1983 strangling death of
Patricia Ann Carpenter.
Held without bail at the Harbor Justice Center,
Whitaker also faces two counts of failing to register as a sex
offender in Oregon, where Laguna Beach homicide detectives arrested
him in July 2004.
Orange County prosecutors have told the Weekly they
want to charge Whitaker with another killing, the 1975 murder of
Santa Monica/Malibu Unified School District employee Bodil
Rasmussen, to which detectives say he is linked by DNA evidence.
After serving 10 years in prison for rape, Whitaker
came to Pasadena in 1998 and soon thereafter became a top community
volunteer with the district's DADS (Dads Are Doing Something)
program, which sought to get men more involved in their children's
lives. He also ran for a seat on the Pasadena City College Board of
Trustees.
Whitaker is scheduled to appear in court again on
April 14.
|
|
March 6, 2006
John Whitaker once again did not exercise his right to a speedy trial, once again delaying his arraignment on a charge of murder and two counts of failing to register as a sex offender http://www.ocsd.org/InmateInfo/ViewInmateData.asp?BookingNumber=2231105 , according to the OC DA's office http://www.orangecountyda.com/docs/142117332006cases.pdf .
Mr. Whitaker, whom PUSD supe Percy Clark personally
chose to run the PUSD DADS volunteer program even though Mr. Whitaker
was a locally-registered sex offender on the Megan's Law list http://snipurl.com/n85f
, was given the opportunity to plead "guilty" or "not
guilty" this past Friday, but instead, sought a delay.
Mr. Whitaker will once again have a
chance to start the process of getting out of the OC jail on April 14
- his tenth shot at it.
OC DA representatives have told me that there are often multiple delays in murder arraignments, especially if a "mental" component (I guess that means insanity) is being considered for the plea.
Note, btw, that the state's Megan's Law list is quite
obviously snafued: John Whitaker has been in the OC jail since
January, 2005 - but the Megan's Law site says of him: "LOCATION
UNKNOWN."
About a year ago, I sent in an update on Mr. Whitaker's
whereabouts to the CA DOJ.
Apparently, nobody up there cares.
R
|
|
Pasadena Weekly
January 26, 2006
Whitaker arraignment delayed again
For the eighth time in just more than a year, former
Pasadena resident John Laurence Whitaker, aka John Whitaker Betances,
has had his date to be arraigned for murder postponed again.
The former candidate for the PCC board of trustees
and volunteer for the PUSD chapter of DADS (Dads Are Doing
Something) stands accused of the 1983 strangulation murder of
prostitute Patricia Ann Carpenter, whose body was found dumped along
side a dark road by police officers in Laguna Beach. Until late
2004, the trail to catch her killer remained cold until detectives
used technology that wasn't available in 1983 to match DNA evidence
to that of her accused murderer.
Whitaker also is charged with failing to update his
state-mandated registration as a sex offender.
"We're still building up some of our
evidence," said Orange County Assistant DA Matt Murphy.
"We're going through the final stages of verification of some
of the information that we have just to make sure we have all that
we need for our case."
Prosecutors will try again to arraign Whitaker on
March 3.
Investigators hope the same DNA evidence that linked
Whitaker to the murder of Carpenter will tie him to the
strangulation of Santa Monica School District employee Bodil
Rasmussen in 1975.
The OC DA's office is now putting together a case
against Whitaker that they feel is solid enough to charge him with
the Rasmussen murder.
As Betances, Whitaker claimed to
be a Vietnam vet, once claiming he escaped from a prison camp by
chewing through a guard's neck.
- Aaron Harris
|
|
Pasadena Weekly
December 1, 2005
Murder in the first - twice OC prosecutor says new murder charge will be filed against Whitaker
By André Coleman and Aaron Harris
The Weekly has learned that Orange County prosecutors
plan to file an additional first-degree murder charge against John
Laurence Whitaker, a sex offender and onetime Pasadena schools
volunteer who already faces capital murder charges in relation to the
1983 strangulation of a prostitute in Laguna Beach.
Orange County Assistant District Attorney Matt Murphy
told the newspaper that Whitaker, who went by the name John Whitaker
Betances and pretended to be a decorated Vietnam veteran during his
time in Pasadena, will also be charged with the 1975 strangulation
murder of Bodil Rasmussen, an employee with the Santa Monica/Malibu
Unified School District at the time of her death.
Whitaker was connected to the murder by DNA evidence,
but Santa Monica police had previously said that they would not be
filing charges against Whitaker in connection with that crime.
But Murphy said, "We think we have a good case
against Whitaker. Santa Monica PD has put together a great case with
good evidence and we're going to try that case along with the one from
here in Orange County."
Last year prosecutors charged Whitaker in the nearly
22-year-old murder of Patricia Ann Carpenter, a known prostitute.
Carpenter's partially nude body was found Dec. 17, 1983, dumped on
Laguna Canyon Road.
Detectives thought the trails on both murders had gone
cold. However, according to authorities, Carpenter and Rasmussen
fought their assailant and some of his skin was trapped underneath
their fingernails. Detectives hoping to find leads fed the evidence
into TracKRS, a cold case homicide database that contains the details
about thousands of cases, with some including DNA evidence.
In April the database matched DNA from the Carpenter
case to Whitaker, whose DNA had been in police databases since 1994
when he was released from prison in New York after serving nearly 10
years for rape. However, Whit-aker's history stretches back 41 years.
Beginning in 1964, he served three years in prison for sodomizing a
child under 14.
In June, Santa Monica police, using the same database
to investigate Rasmussen's murder, came up with a match to Whitaker,
Murphy said.
Whitaker was taken into custody July 30, 2004, after
failing to register as a sex offender in his new home of Gresham,
Ore., where he lived in a trailer with the mother of a woman he had
met over the Internet. He was then arrested by Orange County
authorities, who had traveled to Oregon to pin Whitaker with the 1983
murder of Carpenter.
If Whitaker is found guilty of both murders, he could
receive the death penalty.
Murphy would not say if prosecutors would seek the
death penalty.
Whitaker is scheduled for arraignment Jan. 20 and is
currently being held without bail in the Harbor Justice Center in
Orange County.
According to Santa Monica Police Detective Frank
Fabrega, Whitaker was the last person seen with Rasmussen when the two
lived in the same apartment complex in Carson in 1975. Police
questioned Whitaker at that time, but released him due to a lack of
evidence.
Using at least 18 aliases Whitaker managed to avoid
police and in 1983 allegedly killed Carpenter. Police are not sure of
his whereabouts between 1975 and 1983. According to Los Angeles
police, there are no unsolved crimes that fit Whitaker's method of
operation, or MO.
When Whitaker landed in Pasadena in 1998 he was unknown
to police, including Pasadena Police Chief Bernard Melekian, who
actually rolled to the scene of the Rasmussen murder when he worked
for the Santa Monica Police Department in 1975.
Upon his arrival in Pasadena in 1998, Whitaker
registered as a sex offender with Pasadena police under his real name
each year he was here. Two years ago, Whitaker failed to update his
registration, resulting in additional felony charges by the Los
Angeles District Attorney's Office in December.
One of the reasons he may have failed to update his
registration was because he was no longer John Laurence Whitaker.
Whitaker had assumed the identity of decorated Army Col. John Whitaker
Betances, a Vietnam hero who seemed to be straight out of an A-Team
episode and claimed to have served six tours of duty in Vietnam.
Whitaker once told another newspaper that he had escaped a POW camp by
chewing through his captor's neck.
Whitaker also sent out inspirational emails and spoke
often about the need of men to get involved in the lives of children.
He even headed up the PUSD's DADS, or Dads Are Doing Something,
program as a volunteer. At one point he even ran for a seat on the
Pasadena City College Board of Trustees.
PUSD officials maintain that Whitaker was not alone
with children at any time. But they concede that a background check
was never done on the district's top volunteer
|
|
Date: Thu, 03 Nov 2005 21:59:31 -0800 From: Rene Subject: Cool Heels: Whitaker's Arraingment Delayed Until 2006
John Whitaker will have been in the Orange County jail for exactly a
year and a week when on January 20, 2006 he next has the chance to
appear before a judge and plead "guilty" or
"not guilty" to a charge of murder and a charge of failure
to register as a sex offender.
His arraignment on October 14 was rescheduled, according to a
representative of the Orange County District Attorney's office.
Mr. Whitaker, who Percy Clark personally placed in charge of the
PUSD D.A.D.S. program, has had a total of 6 opportunities to date to
declare his innocence and see a speedy trial, but each has been
delayed.
It currently costs California taxpayers about $44,578 to house the
average prison inmate per year.
Btw, it was one year ago that the Whitaker story broke locally, here on the list. See the post from 11/05/04 pasted below. Two days later, the story appeared in the PSN.
Rene
---------
-------- Original Message --------
Subject:
Date:
From:
To:
The POW Network http://www.pownetwork.org/
which is "since 11/11/89, dedicated to information distribution
on our Prisoners of War and Missing in Action Servicemen",
through its "Phonies & Wannabees" pages, has
identified PUSD "DADS" Program founding member John
Whitaker-Betances as a phony http://www.pownetwork.org/phonies/phonies205.htm
. Allegedly using as many as 18 aliases, Mr. Whitaker-Betances
frequently claimed to be a former Colonel in the US Army Special
Forces. Mr. Whitaker-Betances is the 205th individual the site
has identified as a phony.
Ever so much worse, though, the page indicates that Mr. Whitaker-Betances
was in court on Monday facing extradition to California to face two
murder charges, on cases dating back to 1975 and 1983.
KNBC4 ran a story back in July regarding Mr. Whitaker-Betances
arrest http://www.nbc4.tv/news/3600023/detail.html
, but no word has been seen in print locally.
According to KNBC, Mr. Whitaker-Betances' was arrested in Oregon for
failing to register there as a sex offender, and he then reportedly
confessed after his arrest to the murder of a prostitute in Orange
County.
The POW site leads off with a description of the DADS program, and
the involvement of Mr. Whitaker-Betances and Percy Clark in bringing
the program to PUSD. "Volunteers go through a training
course and state/district mandated background checks."
Apparently the background check on Mr. Whitaker-Betances was not
very thorough.
Btw, list members with good memories will recall that Mr. Whitaker-Betances
was a member of this list for a *very* brief period, and that he ran
unsuccessfully for a seat on the Pasadena City College board in
2001.
Kudos to the POW Network for doing the work no one else could or
would.
R
--
"God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School
Board"
-- Mark Twain
|
|
07/12/05
http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/features/exclusives/webexclusives.html Whitaker's waiting game Arraignment for accused killer and former PUSD volunteer rescheduled for next month By André Coleman John Laurence Whitaker, a convicted sex offender, a former Pasadena Unified School District volunteer and a onetime candidate for the Pasadena City College Board of Trustees, will once again face arraignment on one count of murder in relation to the strangulation of an Orange County prostitute in 1983. Friday's scheduled court appearance was Whitaker's fourth time up for arraignment since his arrest on Nov. 5 in Oregon for failing to register as a sex offender. His fifth court appearance is set for Aug. 19 at the Harbor Justice Center in Laguna Niguel. Using the name John Whitaker Betances, one of at least 18 aliases, Whitaker was appointed by PUSD Superintendent Percy Clark to head up the district's volunteer DADS, or Dads Are Doing Something, program. Whitaker had claimed to be a retired Green Beret colonel and was not given a background check before volunteering for the district. After his time as top schools volunteer and a failed bid for a seat on the Pasadena City College Board of Trustees, Whitaker, 57, moved to Oregon but did not register as a sex offender there. He had served three years of a 10-year sentence for rape before coming to Pasadena in 1998, where he registered with police as a sex offender. Investigators say DNA evidence links Whitaker to the 1983 strangulation murder of Patricia Ann Carpenter, a prostitute whose body was found in Laguna Beach. Whitaker had also been suspected in the 1975 murder of Santa Monica schools administration clerk Bodil Rasmussen, who was also strangled. Whitaker, who was questioned by police but released after that murder, was the last person seen with Rasmussen and lived in her building, said Santa Monica Police Lt. Frank Fabrega. Due to lack of evidence, however, no charges will be filed in relation to that crime, said Fabrega. |
|
March 4, 2005
Rapist, fraud, confidant of Percy Clark, and accused murderer John Whitaker will have his day in court - eventually.
At the request of Mr. Whitaker's public defender, an Orange County
judge today delayed Mr. Whitaker's arraignment on a charge of murder
until April 15.
Sure, it shouldn't be that hard to plead "not guilty," but
as I've explained before, for Mr. Whitaker, who's been tied by DNA
evidence to the sex slayings of two women, every day justice is
delayed could be a day his own death is delayed.
Of course, Mr. Whitaker is innocent until proven guilty.
R
|
Orange County Sheriff's Department has Mr. Whitaker in custody. They indicate that Mr. Whitaker's next day in court is March 4, 2005 |
|
02/02/2005
The flamboyant fraud Percy Clark personally put in
charge of the PUSD DADS program without doing any sort of background
check will be arraigned Friday in the Orange County Harbor Justice
Center on a murder charge.
John Laurence Whitaker, as he is known to Orange County authorities, is being held without bail for the 1983 murder of a prostitute in Laguna Beach. He has reportedly been linked to that murder, and a second, earlier murder of a Santa Monica school district clerk, by DNA evidence.
Known in Pasadena as John Whitaker Betances or simply
John Whitaker (as he was listed on the state's Megan's Law List of
"serious" and "dangerous" sex offenders http://snipurl.com/biu9
, and as he was registerd with Pasadena Police while working for PUSD),
Mr. Whitaker is also being held on two felony counts of failing to
register as a sex offender filed against him by Los Angeles County.
Bail for those two felonies, should the murder charge be dropped, is
$1,065,000.
Given that Mr. Whitaker was extradited from Oregon on a
fugitive warrant, it is highly unlikely that any bail bondsman would
take the risk of posting Mr. Whitaker's bail - even if Mr. Whitaker,
who has no known occupation, could pay the upfront fee.
Details of Mr. Whitaker's stay in Orange County can be
found via the Orange County Sheriff's Department's website http://www.ocsd.org/
by clicking on the "Who's in Jail" link under "eServices."
Btw, weighing in at 252 lbs. when booked at the Orange
County Central Mens Jail, Mr. Whitaker has put on 17 lbs. since he was
released from a California prison after serving ten years for rape,
which state records indicate involved a child under the age of 14.
R.
|
|
01/12/05
Jane Robeson of the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office this morning indicated that charges have been filed against John Whitaker for (1) failure to register and (2) failure to update registration. His case number is GAO58268. These charges constitute a "second strike" under California's "Three Strikes" law, according to Ms. Robeson.
Ms. Robeson was unaware that Mr. Whitaker had been
arrested in Oregon, but after being quickly filled in on the details,
indicated that it would be some time before Mr. Whitaker would face
the charges above in LA County due to the murder charge he faces in
Orange County.
While it may seem unusual to file charges against
someone who may have been out of the state at the time he failed to
register with California officials, Ms. Robeson indicated that, while
she did not know the details of Mr. Whitaker's parole, it is possible
his parole was conditioned on his not leaving the state.
|
|
Date: Wed,
05 Jan 2005 18:07:44 -0800 From: R Subject: Doubt he'll be singing: John Whitaker Headed "Back to Cali"
Though I doubt he'll be singing LL Cool J's pop tune
"Going Back to Cali" http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/llcoolj/goingbacktocali.html
, that's exactly what John Whitaker, aka John Whitaker Betances, will
soon being doing.
A Multnomah County, Oregon judge today discharged a
writ of habeus corpus filed on behalf of John Whitaker, according to
Multnomah County District Attorney spokeswoman Chirstina Estes.
This morning's ruling cleared the way for the convicted
child rapist, locally-registered sex offender, fugitive sex murder
suspect, and buddy of PUSD supe Percy Clark to be remanded to the
custody of the Orange County Sheriff for transportation back to
California.
Mr. Whitaker, the flamboyant fraud who ran the PUSD
D.A.D.S. program at Percy Clark's personal direction, will face murder
charges in the 1983 death of a prostitute whose partially-disrobed
body was found dumped near an LA Times distribution center.
Mr. Whitaker has also reportedly been linked by DNA
evidence to the 1977 sex slaying of a Santa Monica school district
clerk, but there is no word as to whether Mr. Whitaker faces charges
in that case.
It is my understanding that If he is convicted of both
sex slayings, Mr. Whitaker could face the death penalty.
R
|
|
Pasadena Weekly
December 30, 2004
A long walk home Concerns are raised following the discovery of five registered sex offenders living within blocks of local schools and parks By Andre Coleman
The discovery of five convicted sex offenders living in
the same house near Cleveland Elementary School has sparked community
questions over whether police and school officials should be charged
with notifying parents and the community of potential dangers to
Pasadena schoolchildren.
According to the state's recently made public Megan's
Law sex offender database, http://meganslaw.ca.gov,
five registered sex offenders are living together in a house on West
Washington Boulevard, less than a mile away from Cleveland Elementary
School and only a few blocks from both Robinson and La Pintoresca
parks.
News of this sex-offender cluster near area schools and
parks comes as Pasadena Unified School District officials fend off
criticisms of their handling of a situation in which a registered sex
offender and current murder suspect, John Whitaker, achieved a high
volunteer position with the district and actually worked for about a
year out of an office at school district headquarters on South Hudson
Avenue.
Whitaker, who went by the name John Whitaker-Betances,
passed himself off as a Vietnam veteran and an Army Special Forces
officer, but was really neither. Whitaker, who was a registered as a
sex offender under his real name with Pasadena police each of the five
years that he lived in the community, was head of the Pasadena chapter
of the Dads Are Doing Something, or DADS, program before leaving
California for Oregon earlier this year.
In August, Whitaker was arrested in Oregon for failing
to register as a sex offender there and was subsequently arrested by
Orange County, Calif., detectives at that time and charged with the
1983 strangulation of a prostitute. The victim in that case was found
to have a match for Whitaker's DNA under her fingernails, Orange
County officials have said. ......
|
|
12/22/2004
The state's newly-created Megan's Law website http://www.meganslaw.ca.gov gives a lot of details - scary details about the man Percy Clark called John Whitaker.
John Whitaker (with no middle name) http://snipurl.com/biu9
, is listed as being in "violation of registration requirements
since 06/24/2004."
The state lists the reason for his being on the
dangerous sex offender list as:
261(2)
261.2
288a(c) ORAL COPULATION WITH PERSON UNDER 14/ETC OR BY
FORCE/ETC
The state lists the following as know aliases for Percy
Clark's close confidant:
* WHITAKER, JOHN L
* WHITAKER, JOHN LARRY
* WHITAKER, JOHN LARY
* WHITAKER, JOHN LAURANCE
* WHITAKER, JOHN LAURENCE
And the following as distinguishing scars, marks or
tattoos:
* GLASSSES
* SCAR ABDOMEN
* SCAR RIGHT CHEEK
* SCAR RIGHT HAND
* SCAR RIGHT WRIST
* SCAR RIGHT FOREARM
"Mr. Whitaker, who ran the PUSD's D.A.D.S. program
at Percy CLark's direction without ever having had a background check,
has reportedly been linked by DNA evidence to the murders of two
Southern California women, and is currently incarcerated in Oregon,
where he is fighting fugitive extradition proceedings which seek his
return to California on a bench warrant for murder."
|
|
Pasadena Weekly
December 9, 2004
W E E K L Y E X C L U S I V E
Sugar DADS
Documents show PUSD gave tens of thousands to DADS program and allowed
accused murderer and convicted rapist to use district equipment and
organize on-campus activities, all without a background check
By Aaron Harris and Kevin Uhrich
It will now be up to a court to decide the extent of accused killer
and convicted rapist John Whitaker's lengthy, violent and convoluted
criminal past.
But determining just how deeply Whitaker, a registered sex offender
who, while using one of 18 aliases, infiltrated the Pasadena Unified
School District administration in the guise of a volunteer mentoring
program leader, is a whole other matter.
After poring through a stack of memos released by the district in
response to a state Public Records Act request by schools watchdog
Rene Amy, it is clear that Whitaker not only had nearly everyone he
met bamboozled, but he also had direct access to the superintendent's
office, as well as PUSD office equipment, computers and district
letterhead stationery.
It's easy to see how one could be fooled. While living in Pasadena
from 1998 to last year, Whitaker posed as
retired Army Col. John Whitaker Betances, a supposed Vietnam hero, and
headed up the DADS, or Dads Are Doing Something, program as a
volunteer.
Whitaker was so comfortable in this completely fabricated identity,
one in which he regularly wore military fatigues and a black or a
green beret, that he assumed the district directorship of the
Michigan-based DADS organization and even ran for a seat on the
Pasadena City College Board of Trustees.
According to some of the heavily redacted documents released to Amy,
officials with the district, who were apparently desperate to
cultivate leadership among young adult males in the district, had
bought Whitaker's act hook, line and sinker.
"What they did was put [public relations] and looking good ahead
of children's safety. There's no question of that in my mind,"
Amy said after looking over the documents. "And they did so in
the face of continuing and growing lies on this guy's part. I mean,
his lies got so bad that you had to wonder what the hell these people
were thinking down at [district headquarters]." ......
the rest of the article:
|
|
Pasadena Weekly
December 9, 2004
Editorial
Will they ever learn?
A few years have passed since John Muir High School track coach Clyde
Turner was first accused of having sex with two teenage boys, and then
eventually found guilty of committing that crime on one of the kids.
That unfortunate episode was more than six years ago, so it's only
natural that people would want to forget it, that is if they ever
really could.
But there are a few important similarities between the hinky things
that Turner did to get prison time and what's happening now in
Pasadena — at that very same high school no less, as well as at
district headquarters — that people, particularly people in
positions of authority, would do well to remember.
One of those things we should remember from then is the leadership
vacuum that pervaded the district in Turner's time in the late 1990s.
It's hard to imagine a worse administrator than former Superintendent
Vera Vignes, who presided over the Turner debacle and a slew of other
educational disasters that quite literally destroyed educational
opportunities for a whole generation of children.
But current Superintendent Percy Clark is rapidly eclipsing even
Vignes in terms of incompetence with his allowing convicted rapist and
accused killer John Whitaker to roam the halls of district
headquarters at will, allowing nine schools to fail during his tenure,
and now suspending three teenage boys for something they admitted to
doing and were punished by the courts for doing last January; but
first allowing them to finish the football season so the school could
get a shot in the CIF playoffs, which it did........
for the rest: http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cityBeat/editorial/editorial.html |
|
"Btw, the likelihood of a tie
between Mr. Whitaker-Betances and the Portland schools is strengthened
by Mr. Whitaker-Betances oft-repeated claim to the title "Western
Regional Administrator for the national DADS FOR EDUCATION
program" (quoting from one of the emails provided by PUSD in
response to my PRA).
Gotta wonder just how much John Finn,
head/founder/owner/C.E.O. of D.A.D.S., knew about Mr. Whitaker-Betances...
Especially since Mr. Finn "earns a
living setting up chapters in school districts" http://www.parenting.com/parenting/article/article_general/0,8266,6617,00.html
.
It could be bad for business to let a
charismatic guy like Mr. Whitaker-Betances go...
Or to have your name blackened by
association with a convicted rapist, registered sex offender, and
suspected sex slayer.
Of course, Mr. Whitaker-Betances was
arrested for *not* registering as a sex offender in Oregon.
So the Portland public schools wouldn't
have had any reason to know...
Unlike PUSD, where Percy Clark
repeatedly referred to Mr. Whitaker-Betances as "John
Whitaker" - the name under which he had registered as a sex
offender with local police."
R |
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| Page 1 10:15am JC3: Judge ALBRECHT PRESIDING November 1, 2004 - MONDAY Time Case Title Relationship Room Disposition Evt Case# Matter / Charge / Case Type Attorney Judge Id DA# Circuit Court 040834418 State v Whitaker John Laurence D:Gedrose Gareld JC3Y 22 AKA: Cpms 686101 Y3 CUSTODY J Whitaker-Betances John L 2029030-1 Hearing Further Proceedings / Fugitive /CA / Extradition waiting for copy of h.corpus Page 2 |
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| Circuit Court 040834418 State v Whitaker John Laurence D:Gedrose Gareld JC3Y 20 AKA: Cpms 686101 Y3 CUSTODY J Whitaker-Betances John L 2029030-1 Hearing Further Proceedings / Fugitive /CA / Extradition for h. corpus |
| This is an archive of a past election. See http://www.smartvoter.org/ca/la/ for current information. |
League
of Women Voters of California
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John
Whitaker Betances
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page and on all pages linked below is provided by the candidate. The League of Women Voters neither supports nor opposes any political party or candidate. |
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