US paedophile may have 36,000 note entries of sex acts

SAN FRANCISCO - A convicted paedophile may have chronicled sex acts with children in 36,000 notebook entries over three decades as he moved across the United States, hiding his identity, police said.

The handwritten coded records were logged on more than 1,000 pages in seven notebooks that police seized at the home of Dean Arthur Schwartzmiller in San Jose, California, which he shared with another convicted child molester.

San Jose police said they were trying to decode the extensive notebook entries that have stunned local investigators working with the FBI on Schwartzmiller's case.

"A lot of them like to document their acts," said Detective David Gonzalez, referring to paedophiles. "But the scale, I've never seen anything like it or heard of anything like it."

Acting on a report by a suspicious parent, police raided the home on May 22 and also found binders filled with hundreds of pornographic photographs of children.

They also seized several computers and a business-grade computer server, which has been taken to a forensic laboratory specializing in computer crimes.

Police in Snohomish County, Washington, arrested Schwartzmiller on May 23 and sent him to San Jose. He is being held in Santa Clara County jail without bail on charges he molested two 12-year-old San Jose boys. His public defender could not immediately be reached for comment.

Authorities suspect Schwartzmiller, 63, had been abusing children for at least 30 years, moving from state to state and using aliases to conceal his identity as a convicted child molester.

Schwartzmiller was paroled from prison in Oregon in September 1996 after serving a little more three years following a 1993 conviction on three counts of third-degree sodomy, according to the state's prison system.

San Jose police suspect Schwartzmiller may also have molested children outside the United States, authorities said.

"We have reason to believe he was extradited from Brazil to New York," Gonzalez said, adding police suspect he had travelled to Mexico.

The notebook entries surprised experts who interview and evaluate accused child molesters because they are detailed and well organized.

"What is different here are the number of youngsters, presuming the names refer to youngsters, and the extent to which they are cross-indexed and categorized," said Dr. James Missett, co-director of Stanford University's Centre for Psychiatry and the Law.

"It's just monstrous in its proportion," Missett added. "Thirty-six thousand is an awful lot."

- REUTERS