'Monitored' Sex Offender Kills Teen

GPS monitoring failed to prevent murder
By Eliott C. McLaughlin and Patrick Oppmann
CNN

VANCOUVER, Washington (CNN) -- When 13-year-old Alycia Nipp didn't come home from a trip to Wal-Mart, her family had no idea where she was, but a tracking device was transmitting the location of her alleged killer. The quirky seventh-grader, who went by "Licy," could tell you the origin of every neon drinking straw in her collection and she "sewed buttons on everything," said her aunt, Amber Hager.
Her family thinks her free-spirited nature may be the reason she walked through a field popular with transients -- a field she'd been warned to stay away from and where her body was found February 22.
Licy's family had reason to be cautious. Hager was raped twice as a teen and Licy's grandmother was kidnapped as a child, Hager said, so the family was extra vigilant with Licy and Hager's young daughters.
"We all made Licy the promise that it would never happen to her. The cycle would end," said Hager, who is acting as family spokeswoman. "Now we're left wondering: What didn't we say? What didn't we do? How come she didn't listen?" Darrin Sanford, 30, was one of several homeless people living near the field in an abandoned home slated for demolition, police said.
He was convicted in 1998 of communicating with a minor for immoral purposes and luring minors with sexual motivation; he was sentenced to probation, said a Clark County sheriff's report. When he was released from jail in January, following a November probation violation, Sanford was fitted with a global positioning tracking unit on his ankle, according to the Washington Department of Corrections. Full story Here

Alleged killer's mother speaks: