On a crusade

Sunday, December 11, 2005

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Jessica Lunsford was abducted from her bed, raped and killed.

Mark Lunsford is touring the nation to talk about the Jessica Lunsford Act.

The Florida law is named for his daughter Jessica, who was kidnapped from her Citrus County home and killed earlier this year.

Lunsford has been to New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Kentucky to try to get states to pass their own version of the Lunsford Act.

"I go to as many states as I possibly can, as funding allows me to go," he said on the Fisher Files on 970 WFLA radio Sunday morning.

Convicted sex offender John Couey is accused of killing 9-year-old Jessica.

Lunsford says his mission is to close the loopholes allowing sex offenders like Couey to slip through the system. The Lunsford Act mandates that every convicted sex offender be jailed for at least 25 years. But Lunsford says that's not enough.

"If you want a good registration, if you want to know where these people are at, then you better put a tracking device on them," he said.

For the first time, Lunsford is spending the holidays without his youngest child.

"I don't do birthdays," he said. "I don't do Thanksgiving, because I don't have anything to be thankful for."