Escaped pedophile and former Army specialist Kevin Patrick Stoeser has finally been found, but in a rather unique way. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the best of circumstances for him, though how much empathy a pedophile deserves is certainly up for debate.
Forty-one year old Stoeser’s skull was discovered and retrieved Sept. 8 by a woman’s dog that had escaped the yard overnight and returned the next morning with a pile of animal bones and remnants of Stoeser’s head. The remains looked to be weathered, as if they’d been exposed to the elements for some time. Naturally alerting authorities then, police dogs were dispatched to comb the area but found no additional remains, seemingly ruling out the possibility of suicide by conscience or fear of pursuit.
Stoeser slipped out of federal custody Oct. 24, 2013, when he fled a halfway house where he was living in Del Valle, Texas, seven miles out of Austin. His fleeing the halfway house was likely a result of staff members finding and confiscating a smartphone Stoeser was not authorized to possess. Over two dozen illicit pictures of young girls were found on the phone. Stoeser fled after being confronted about the incident. A $25,000 bounty had been consequently placed on his head.
That following May, 2014, Stoeser was added to the U.S. Marshals Service 15 Most Wanted list. His crimes? He was convicted of several back in 2002, such as rape, sodomy, and production of child pornography. That’s right, not just possession, but ?production.?
Stoeser’s victims include ?at least? five tween to teen girls, ages 12 to 16, most of which took place while ?serving his country? stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, according to both state and federal authorities.
I can see Stoeser’s chances of empathy dwindling quickly.
His convictions for the crimes committed in 2002 yielded a 13-year imprisonment in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, along with a dishonorable discharge from the Army. Stoeser was released, however, in 2011, nine years into his 13-year sentence. A short six months later he was returned to custody for violating stipulated sex offender treatment instructions. He was merely weeks away from completing that sentence when confronted at the halfway house regarding the smartphone.
The case was closed on Stoeser as of Monday, but questions still loom. Certainly Stoeser’s victims will continue to suffer and adjust to their forever-altered lives. There’s no telling what will become of them due to his aggressive perversion. There’s also the matter of the bounty. Will the woman who made the horrid discovery receive the $25,000 bounty on Stoeser’s head for, well, returning his head, thereby closing the case? Or will she deny such ugly money?
And most curious of all, the question certainly presents itself, did Stoeser find himself at the end of some strong vigilante justice, or did he take his own life? And if it was suicide, what happened to the rest of his body?
It’s not difficult to guess which possibility readers will likely be rooting for, and who knows if we’ll ever know? Hopefully, though, those five or more girls assaulted by Stoeser will feel a bit of closure in all this at the very least.
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H/T: usatoday.com / (Featured image courtesy of usatoday.com)
Dylan Hock is a poet, novelist, professor and social activist. He is published in a number of little magazines and has an essay on the muzzling of Ezra Pound included in the anthology ?Star Power: The Impact of Branded Celebrity?. Currently, he also writes and edits for If You Only News, Addicting Info, Green Action News, and Take 10. Follow him on Ello, Google+, LinkedIn, RebelMouse and Goodreads. Hire him for freelance writing and editing work on Elance.
