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 Girls' attacker kept a 'how-to' record of sex crimes CONVICTED PEDOPHILE KEEPS "HOW TO" RECORDS ON ALL HIS SEXUAL ASSAULTS AGAINST KIDS A Kansas City, MO man judged guilty Wednesday of sex crimes against children kept meticulous records of his assaults and wrote handbooks on how to drug and molest girls. James Phillip Edwards, 61, videotaped his assaults on 13 girls over a four-year period and documented his research on drugging them in a document entitled “How to Molest Young Girls,” which investigators found on his computer. In it, he described mixing sleeping pills into root beer, ice cream or chocolate syrup to disguise the taste, authorities said. Authorities also recovered a document called “Pedo Handbook,” in which Edwards included a section on “Drugging Children and Pre-teens.” Edwards appeared in federal court Wednesday and pleaded no contest to 21 counts charging him with production of child pornography, drugging his victims, advertising child porn on the Internet and possession and attempted distribution of child porn. In such pleas, a defendant admits that the government has the evidence to prove the crimes but does not admit committing them. U.S. District Judge Whipple accepted the pleas and found Edwards guilty, saying he wanted to avoid putting Edwards’ victims through a long public trial. Edwards’ record keeping grounded a long presentation that Assistant U.S. Attorney Katharine Fincham made in court.After Edwards came under suspicion on a child porn possession charge in 2009, investigators uncovered his handbooks, which included his notes on sedative dosages for children, taking into account each victim’s weight and age and the activity the molester planned. In the “How to Molest” document, Edwards offered tips on obtaining the sedative, how to administer it in ice cream and soft drinks without suspicion and a suggestion on how to time the encounter. All of the girls whom Edwards assaulted and videotaped appeared to be drugged, Fincham said. “They are obviously unconscious,” Fincham said. “Except for a few instances, they remain unconscious even though their bodies are being subjected to penetration, attempted penetration (and) manipulation into a variety of positions.” Edwards showed no emotion as Fincham spoke. Prosecutors said that all of the molestations charged in this case occurred in Edwards’ south Kansas City home between 2001 and 2005. However, Edwards suggested that the charges did not encompass all of his crimes against children. “We just moved there in 1999 and I started this in 1997,” Edwards said. Edwards also disagreed with Fincham’s suggestion that two incriminating interviews he voluntarily gave to investigators amounted to confessions. “I told people what I did, but I didn’t consider it a confession,” Edwards said. “I just told the truth.” Fincham reported that in one of the interviews, Edwards said that girls ages 9 to 11 were his sexual preference, “although he said he doesn’t see any age group as being out of bounds.” More information about what has become of Edwards’ victims is likely to become public at his sentencing hearing in a few months. Fincham, however, said the drugs that Edwards administered may have worked as he intended. “In forensic interviews, a few of the victims recalled ‘ice cream eating’ contests at the defendant’s house,” Fincham said. “A few recalled that sometimes the ice cream or the soda pop, which included root beer on occasion, tasted funny. However, none of the victims knew she was being drugged.” Edwards faces minimum 15-year sentences on each of several child porn production charges |
