How to locate a child molester.

August 12, 2006 2:51 AM

A good friend recently told me about sexual abuse at the hands of a family friend. This man went on to later abuse her sister. She wants to find him (more inside)

After she told her dad about the abuse, the man never came to the house again. Still, she has mixed emotions toward her parents, feeling that they may have been complicit, and will not ask them for details as to what happened to him. She would like to locate him and confront him. He would now be in his late seventies or early eighties and she would like to find him before he dies. I'm sure that he didn't stop abusing kids after her experiences in the late 60's/early 70's and it is quite likely that he has a criminal record. She has asked me to help. I have only the man's name and some vague details about him (he was an ex police officer). I have tried looking for him in sex offender registries and the usual google-fu but so far no luck. Any suggestions on how to track him down and give her the closure that she needs? By the way, we are in Canada, not the USA.

posted by alltomorrowsparties to Human Relations (4 answers total)

I was going to suggest ZabaSearch but apparently that is US only.

This probably isn't very helpful but here are a few search pages for Canada.

Also - do you know if your local government is well connected to the net? That may be able to help as well. Where I live, I can search county/state records for people's names and see if they have a 'record' - anything from an arrest, traffic citation or if they've been sued. (Basically online court records.)

Best of luck to you and your friend.
posted by MarkLark at 6:04 AM on August 12, 2006

I'd suggest that your friend talk to a licensed therapist prior to pursuing this course. We don't know the particulars of the incident and it sounds like she is replaying it in her mind. Confrontation might not be the answer and then again it might be. An educated ear might know how to find him as well and how best to do the confrontation.

{{Hugs to your friend}}
posted by TauLepton at 8:01 AM on August 12, 2006 [1 favorite]

Can she look into a private investigator to track him down? They probably know the best way to locate people saving your friend a lot of legwork.
posted by tastybrains at 8:23 AM on August 12, 2006

I second the make sure she really wants to do this. I confronted my abuser and all it brought was tension, stress, and tears.

If she decides to actually do this, call the police station where he use to work and make up some story about how Officer Creepy helped her change a tire in the bad part of town and it saved her life and she'd give anything to thank him, blah, blah, blah.
posted by nadawi at 9:03 AM on August 12, 2006 [1 favorite]