Thread: Truth about "Casey" hits parents, kids

Truth about "Casey" hits parents, kids
By Jennifer Steinhauer
The New York Times
Denver Post
Article Last Updated:02/01/2007 01:05:57 AM MST

El Mirage, Ariz. - To neighbors, Casey Price was a seventh-grader with acne and a baseball cap who lived an unremarkable life among a bevy of male relatives.

He built the occasional skateboard ramp and did wheelies on his bicycle down the streets of this subdivision of stucco homes north of Phoenix.

In nearby Surprise, where Casey was enrolled as a 12-year-old in a public school for four months, he was regarded as a shy, average student with chronic attendance problems. A man identified as his uncle had registered him, attended curriculum night and e-mailed his teachers about homework assignments.

Now Casey is in jail, and his former neighbors and classmates have learned the unthinkable: Not only is Casey not Casey - his real name is Neil Havens Rodreick II - but he is a 29-year-old convicted sex offender who kept a youthful appearance with the aid of razors and makeup.

And the men known as his uncle, grandfather and cousin, who until recently shared a three-bedroom house with him here, were not family at all, but a web of convicted sex offenders and predators, law enforcement officials say, preying in part on one another.

A retracing of Rodreick's tracks over the past several years shows that he is under investigation in three states. Authorities in four jurisdictions say he repeatedly failed to register as a sex offender, housed a large cache of child pornography in his computer and, based on videos found by police, had sex with at least one boy.

"We are just shocked"

"Obviously, there are a lot of emotions to work through," said Mindy Newlin, the mother of a kindergartner at Imagine Charter School, the school in Surprise where Rodreick posed as Casey. "We are just shocked."

Robin Kaiser's daughter Kaitlin shared a class with "Casey," but he failed to make an impression, Kaiser said.

"She remembers him, that he was quiet and sat in the back of the classroom," she said. "She said he looked like he had been held back."

Janet Lincoln, the public defender for Yavapai County who represents Rodreick and the three other men, did not return multiple phone calls. A receptionist in her office said Lincoln would have no comment.

The men have been indicted on numerous counts and are scheduled to appear in court in late February; they have already pleaded not guilty to charges of fraud and failing to register as sex offenders.

Fooled Net predators

Rodreick spent seven years in prison in Oklahoma for making lewd and indecent proposals to two 6-year-old boys. After being released in 2002, law enforcement officials said, he was able to convince Lonnie Stiffler, 61, and Robert J. Snow, 43, who had been trolling the Internet for boys, that he was a minor.

In 2005, he talked the two men into taking him from Oklahoma to live with them in Arizona, where Stiffler posed as Rod reick's grandfather and Snow as his uncle, and both men regularly had sex with him, authorities said. Another man living in the house, Brian Nellis, 34, a sex offender Rodreick had met in prison, is believed to have aided Rod reick in the ruse, authorities said.

Rodreick continued the charade posing as a minor for nearly two years, authorities said, registering at four charter schools in Arizona, until January, when school administrators in Chino Valley called the sheriff.

Police and school officials in each location where "Casey" enrolled said they knew of no children harmed, although the indictment against Rodreick included an assault count. Authorities are trying to determine, with the help of videos confiscated from the men, whether there are victims in the schools.

"With boys, it is a really tough deal," said Lt. Van Gillock of the police department in El Reno, Okla. "If they did it voluntarily, they have the stigma of homosexuality, and if it is forced, well, boys are supposed to be tough and the things the boys have on them gives them an embarrassment factor."

While looking for Rodreick in a computer child-porn case in 2005, Gillock stumbled upon Rod reick's new life.

He learned Rodreick had been posing as a 12-year-old named Casey and befriending families at a local church. He had spent the night with at least one boy, the lieutenant said, and traveled to the Grand Canyon, with Nellis in tow as his uncle, with another boy.

Frequent relocations

When Rodreick arrived in Arizona, he is believed to have first enrolled at the Shelby School in Peyson, where administrators say he attended under the name of Casy Rodreick for 21 days in 2005.

The next stop was Surprise, where the same "uncle" played the role of enroller again, presenting Rodreick as a 12-year- old. His concocted name, Casey Price, was that of a child in Oklahoma, authorities there said.

"He absolutely looked age-appropriate," said Rhonda Cagle, a spokeswoman for Imagine Charter School, of Rodreick, who is listed on the Oklahoma corrections website as 5 feet 8 inches tall and 120 pounds. "We have several seventh-grade students who are taller and of a larger build than this individual."

Cagle said he was quiet and participated in no after-school activities, eventually being expelled by school officials for poor attendance.

"He took all of the subjects our students take - math, social studies," she said. "By all accounts from the teachers, he was fairly quiet and withdrawn. He turned in homework, certainly didn't come off as brilliant or as someone needing extra help."

Suspicions aroused

After another effort to enroll in a school in Prescott Valley, police say, Rodreick headed a bit north, to the Mingus Springs Charter School in Chino Valley, and this time, his "grandfather," Stiffler, took him to enroll on Jan. 16 toward the end of the day.

But administrators and staff members quickly grew suspicious, said Dawn Gonzales, the school director.

"The person posing as the child obviously looked older than 12," Gonzales said, although he was allowed to start class while they looked over his paperwork. Things were not right, there, either. Some records had Casey, others Casy. Different birth dates emerged.

The next day arrived, and so did Casey.

"He did have the demeanor of a kid," Gonzales said. "He played that part very well. He appeared to be very shy. He kept his head down and spoke softly."

It wasn't working.

"Every adult that encountered him said, 'Something here is not right,"' she said. "He just looked older. They kept saying, 'Are you sure he is 12?"'

When information on his enrollment forms turned out to be fiction, school officials, believing they had an abducted older child on their hands, called the Yavapai sheriff's office.

"In my wildest imagination, I could not have dreamt up" what was discovered, Gonzales said.

Authorities said Stiffler and Snow were shocked too, and angry about being duped by an adult posing as a minor.

Cagle said her school in Surprise learned about their "Casey" on the evening news.

"Needless to say, our staff is devastated," she said. "This individual violated a sense of community that we all share. This is something that is bigger than our school. It affects the way we live and the way we look at each other."

http://www.denverpost.com/lacrosse/ci_5131406

I literally am speechless

No offense, but I must be missing something here?

What does this article have to do with Illegal immigration?

Sorry, my bad. Just noticed it was "Other Topics News and Issues"

Originally Posted by Raleigh

Sorry, my bad. Just noticed it was "Other Topics News and Issues"

Thats ok Raleigh, a lot of us have made the very same statement you have made in this forum lol That shows how great our frustration is with illegal immigration!