Mother shouldn't have left daughter with sex-offender roommate

I have already dedicated two columns (make that three with this one) to the sordid animal planet of sex offenders on national, state, and local levels.

Now we have a case as close to home as you can get. Lydia Bethany-Rose Rupp, 8 years old, was abducted from her Fernley home last Friday and taken across the border to Mexico by yet another in a horde of detestable rodents - two legged ones we call sex offenders - who have found their way through the judicial sewer system and entered into civilization through holes in the sewer lid of the law. This particular rat actually lived in that house as a roommate to Lydia's mother, Carmen Bauer.

A roommate. What could have Bauer possibly been thinking to leave her defenseless 8-year old daughter with a roommate? Not a fiancé. Not a relative. Not a dear friend. But a roommate. You know, a boarder without the worry of rent or household upkeep. A guy who she met in April. Four months ago.

And by the way, if it is true the couple hadn't even kissed, as Bauer claims, then the label "fiancé" doesn't apply in my view, whether marriage is the intention or not.

Even though it was said that Lydia's mother had no idea that Fernando Peons Aguero is a known (yet unregistered) sex offender with a record that dates back to 1985, the fact that he is just some guy she met at a church function only four months ago was reason enough to NOT leave her child with him unattended. Maybe meeting him at a church function made it seem OK to Bauer. Should it have? Hell no. In fact, it should have prompted her to see a stray puff of smoke form itself into the shape of a big question mark above Aguero's head.

At least one of my news reporters would say I am being too harsh; that four months is a long time to know someone. But I'm not of that university. There are married couples who don't really know each other after 40 years of wedlock, so why would I personally think four months is satisfactory? Yet another member of our news team said to me, "Well, what about people who hire baby-sitters? They don't even have four months to get to know them." OK, she got me on that one. But I still cannot help but smell the stomach-turning odor of irresponsibility on the part of Carmen Bauer.

Why did it take her eight hours to report her daughter missing after returning from work at 3 in the afternoon? And one more thing: There was apparently no attempt by Carmen Bauer to check the sex offense history. Let's put it this way: She has given us no reason to believe that she did.

Aguero didn't bother to adhere to the law and register in Lyon County anyway; but Bauer didn't even try to look his name up on the state registry. I mean, c'mon, she met this guy just four months ago. She had every reason to check too. If not really knowing the man wasn't enough, then seeing him get overfriendly with her daughter (which she stated to law officials) in such a short period of time should have made Bauer hear sirens go off.

Fernando Peons Aguero. This guy has more alias names than Carson City has residents. And here's the real zinger: A judge still let him get off with only one year of prison. When is our judicial system and those who represent it going to realize that the abnormal behavior of these sick sons-of-bitches cannot be corrected?

Rape is just a scream away. So is murder. I'm tired of hearing about the overpopulation of our nation's prisons, and about the cost to the taxpayers because of it. Murderers, rapists. Give 'em death. And fast. And let the impact on our tax dollars die with them just as quickly.

I'd prefer us never having to think anymore about the continued erosion of our hard-earned paychecks from tidal waves of unnecessary taxes. All of those taxes spent just to keep a bunch of convicted or would-be killers and rapists alive and walking among us, or inside the hotel honeymoon accommodations of their prison cells with metal bars that curtain the lies of rehabilitation promise, compliments of the taxpayers' money.

n John DiMambro is publisher of the Nevada Appeal. Write to him at jdimambro@nevada appeal.com.