commentary by Patrick H. Moore
Right around 1980 when I was 30 years old and working as an estimator in the computer box-building industry, I worked with a good-natured, sex-obsessed young man named G___ who has been a successful businessman for decades now after, fittingly, inheriting his father’s mattress business. G___ and I were great pals but he had one habit which got on my nerves. He used to routinely refer to people as “real sick puppies” which was a common phrase at the time.
Things change and we live and learn and now, for equally inexplicable reasons, I rather like the phrase. It rolls right off of the tongue and is really quite evocative.
Well, as we know from following true crime so religiously, every state has its quota of “real sick puppies” and in the last week, it has come to light that Florida has produced one of “the sickest puppies” of them all who is fortunately now behind bars where he will probably remain until I am dead and in the grave.
Amy Pavuk and Rene Stutzman of the Orlando Sentinel write:
A Longwood man wanting to get his start in the child-pornography business planned to slash the throats of a mother and father so he could drug and rape their 9-year-old daughter, videotape their sex acts and then kill her, too, state law-enforcement agents said Friday.
Shawn Ryan Thomas, 29, was arrested Thursday night on charges of premeditated attempted homicide, attempted sexual assault of a child and 10 counts of possession of child pornography.
He told a police informant that the 9-year-old would be the first victim but that he planned to do the same thing over and over again and sell a DVD for $1,000, according to his arrest report.
During a brief court hearing Friday in Sanford, Seminole County Judge Jim DeKleva ordered Thomas held without bail.
Sometimes the authorities are “Johnny-on-the-Spot”, and they were certainly onto this guy after receiving tips back in March that he was downloading child pornography, but Sick Puppy Thomas still might have slipped through the cracks had he not been reported in early June to local Longwood law enforcement.
According to the arrest report, Thomas told the potential victim family that he was a film student was making an independent movie in which he wanted their daughter to appear.
His plan was to first kill the father first, slashing his throat with a knife. He would then eliminate the child’s mother in the same grisly fashion. That way they would be unable to file a missing-child report about their daughter after he raped and killed her.
What makes this even more hideous is the alleged fact that Thomas’s plan was to sell the videotape of him raping the child after he had completed his dirty work. It appears that video would not include him killing the child.
At some point, Thomas told a police informant that he had been plotting the combination abduction, rape and murders “for so long” and that once he had violated his first victim, he would do it over and over again for he would “not be able to stop.”
His business plan was for him to sell a DVD showing a number of child rapes for $300 per chapter, or for $1,000 overall, according to the arrest report.
* * * * *
According to the agents, Thomas met with his first intended target in Longwood on June 7th. Instead of a father, mother and child, however, the threesome consisted of a father, grandfather and child.
The arrest report said that Thomas lured the family to a vacant house on East Orange Avenue in Longwood, but the grandfather, who apparently possesses a certain protective intuition, had driven by the house earlier in the day and had seen a “for sale” sign in the yard. Once they actually went inside the house, ostensibly so that Thomas could start filming, they discovered there was no furniture. In one room, there was plastic sheeting on the floor. In another room, there was a tripod.
This was apparently way too “avant-garde” for the family and they left, we can assume, hastily.
The arrest report apparently does not state who then tipped off local law enforcement.
* * * * *
Thomas’s roommate, Anthony DeRosa, told the Orlando Sentinel on Friday that Thomas definitely acted strangely on June 7th.
That morning, according to DeRosa, Thomas showered, shaved, dressed neatly, and then left the house on foot carrying a bag, even though it was raining.
The vacant house where Thomas intended to swing into action was less than a mile away.
DeRosa told the Sentinel that when Thomas returned (after having his plans thwarted by the alert grandfather), “he was really quiet.” Then he stayed in his room the rest of the day. God only knows what was going through his head. He continued his reclusive ways for the rest of the week and didn’t go to work.
Thomas’ Facebook page states that he attended Edgewater High School and Lockhart Middle School and that he supports libertarian politician Rand Paul. He also enjoys Samuel Adams beer and reading The Canterbury Tales by the famous medieval English poet Geoffrey Chaucer.
(The Canterbury Tales are a collection of bawdy tales about English life during the middle ages full of cuckolded husbands and various types of entertaining raunch written in Middle English which makes reading them a bit tricky unless you have plenty of patience. To my knowledge, there is nothing about molesting children in The Canterbury Tales.)
Thomas’s record is shadowy. He told associates that he was working on a student film for Full Sail University, but the school has apparently stated that it has no record of Thomas ever attending a class there.
DeRosa has been friends with Thomas for about nine years. He said that Thomas moved into his home about three weeks ago, claiming he’d gotten into a fight with his father and needed to move out of his parents’ house in the Orlando area .
There was no indication, DeRosa said, that Thomas was violent or even unsavory.
“This scares the crap out of me,” said DeRosa.
* * * * *
When FDLE (Florida Department of Law Enforcement), in conjunction with the Longwood police, arrested Thomas, according to agents, he had a knife, plastic sheets, zip ties, a camera and tripod and a sex toy.
When agents searched his home, they found more plastic sheeting, a receipt for the sex toy and 10 images of child pornography.
The images were horrific, depicting children ranging from 1 to 5 years of age engaged in…
Assistant Statewide Prosecutor Diane Checchio told reporters in Orlando on Friday that agents have gathered “a plethora” of evidence against Thomas, that additional charges will be filed, and that he potentially faces hundreds of years in prison.
The prosecutor noted that Thomas tried to recruit girls using talent agencies and Craigslist.
Amy Pavuk and Rene Stutzman write:
After his unsuccessful attempt June 7, Thomas complained to a friend that if he’d had an accomplice or a gun with a silencer, he could have pulled off his plan that day, according to his arrest report.
* * * * *
I’m not generally one for long sentences but this particular sick puppy probably needs to spend the rest of his life in prison for the protection of society.