Iranian Girl Was abducted In California

**EverGreen** · 08-23-2007, 09:04 PM

Unfortunately oonai ke gom mishan dige joone salem be dar nemibaran. mesle oon dokhtare badbakhti ke too kansas gom shode bood. khanevadash vase peyda shodanesh ye alam kharj karde boodan akharesham khabar resid ke koshtanesh. 18 salesham bishtar nabood. faghat oon nabood, ye 2,3 nafar dige ham hamin bala sareshoon oomad.

**Rasputin** · 08-24-2007, 12:48 AM

Man tied to missing Rancho student held

The day John Steven Burgess was named a person of interest in the disappearance of a 19-year-old college honors student he met on the Internet, he packed everything he owned, skipped town – and called his mother.

Donna Jou, the woman he took up to his Los Angeles house on the back of his motorcycle June 23 for a party was missing and investigators thought he had something to do with it. He hadn't registered as a sex offender as he was required to do – and now he was a wanted man with a $1 million warrant. He was scared – and he was on the run.

"I told him, 'Steven' – his name is Steven, not Sinjin Stevens or whatever he calls himself – 'Steven, if you're going to run anywhere, you run here and we'll figure this out,'" said Patricia Berdet, a Jacksonville businesswoman, in a telephone interview. "My son has done some stupid things. He has screwed up. But I know with every core of my being he would not hurt that woman."

"They are trying to railroad my son," Berdet said. "But I'm not about to let that happen."

Burgess drove to Jacksonville. Berdet put him up with a friend – and then in a Motel 6 while she tried to find an attorney. On the other side of the country, Jou's family and friends converged on Orange County and waited.

Her grandmother cooked and cooked – but no one ate. Her mother, Nili, jumped for the phone, hoping it was Donna. Her brother, Daniel, a student at Harvard, stayed in the same clothes. And her father, Reza, lay in bed without sleeping – waiting for his daughter to call – as she had every night before he went to sleep. But on June 23 – her calls stopped coming. He just waits.

The phone rang Thursday morning. It wasn't Donna but a tired Orange County Sheriff's investigator who hopped the red-eye to Jacksonville to question the man they had so many questions for. Jacksonville police arrested Burgess on Tuesday in front of the Motel 6 after an officer said he saw Burgess ditch a bag of cocaine.

Burgess told his mother – and officer J.T. Whitcomb – that the cocaine belonged to a prostitute who showed up at his door Tuesday and begged him to hold onto it because the police were after her. When he locked eyes with Whitcomb in the parking lot, he dropped the bag and pedaled his bicycle across the street, said officer Melissa Bujeda of the Jacksonville sheriff's office. The drugs were recovered, and Burgess was arrested.

"It seems a little suspicious that this woman happens to knock on his door with the cocaine and that Donna Jou goes missing and he happens to be the last person seen with her," Orange County Sheriff's investigator Dan Salcedo said. "He's going under the assumption he is unluckiest person in the world where everyone is picking on him."

Burgess lied to Jacksonville police about his name, Salcedo said, but when they fingerprinted him and ran him for warrants, they discovered Burgess was wanted in California for failing to register as a sex offender and that Orange County detectives wanted to talk to him about Jou.

Berdet said she had planned to bring Burgess back to California today to address the failure-to-register warrant.

Detectives are backtracking Burgess' time in Jacksonville, hoping someone might know where Donna is or what happened to her. It will be at least two weeks before Burgess is extradited to California to face charges for failing to register as a sex offender. He has not been named a suspect in Jou's disappearance.

His blue 1998 Ford Ranger is missing. So is the motorcycle he used to pick up Jou.

"However suspicious John Steven Burgess' travels out of California may be perceived, nevertheless, it's not evidence he committed any crime," said George Bird Jr., the Torrance attorney representing Burgess.

On the road, Burgess sent an e-mail to the Orange County Sheriff's Department, trying to explain his thoughts about what had happened to Jou, Berdet said. Investigators won't reveal the specifics of the e-mail. He refuses to talk to investigators.

"He picked up my daughter, and he didn't bring her back," said Reza Jou. "He needs to explain why."

**DokhtarIrooni** · 08-24-2007, 12:33 PM

Ishallah zood peydash konan

**Rasputin** · 08-25-2007, 01:07 AM

Every weekend for the past year, Nili Jou would take a trip to San Diego to pick up her 19-year-old daughter Donna from her dorm.

They would spend their weekends relaxing in their tiny Rancho Santa Margarita apartment, shopping, watching Iranian movies, and lying by the pool. The mother-daughter weekends were always over so fast – and Nili would drop off Donna back at San Diego State University, where she was pre-med and on the fast track to realizing her dream of being a neurosurgeon.

Five weeks after Donna moved home for the summer, Nili watched as a tattooed man disappeared with her daughter – Donna's hands wrapped tightly around the stranger's waist, her long brown hair blowing as his motorcycle turned off the 241 Toll Road at Portola. Nili didn't know the man hidden under the helmet was a convicted sex offender her daughter met on the Internet. She didn't know it might be the last time she saw Donna.

Nili sat on her brown leather sofa Friday, staring at her son, Daniel, 21, a student at Harvard, wringing her hands and looking for answers.

Nothing made sense. It wasn't Donna – a straight-A student who called her mother every night on her way home from a summer physics class at Santiago Community College. But the lure of excitement and adventure may have been too much for a bored teenager.

"They look for somebody who's vulnerable and they exploit it," said Mary Davis, spokeswoman of Santa Ana-based Web Wise Kids, an Internet safety firm. "Meeting someone on the Internet is a Russian roulette situation. There are 100 cases of people falling in love with people they meet on the Internet, but there is always a change that that person is bad."

Donna's 75-year-old grandmother bustled around the cramped kitchen, stirring simmering pots, sending whiffs of garlic through the air. But Donna – the devoted granddaughter who took her for walks – is gone. There is nothing she can do but cook – and wait for her to come home.

On Friday, Sheriff's investigators narrowed their search to John Steven Burgess, a convicted sex offender who calls himelf SinJin Stevens. He drives around in a blue 1998 Ford Ranger pickup with the vanity plate SINJIN 1 – and a 1981 Yamaha motorcycle with license plate of 14X1224. He disappeared the same day Donna did – and authorities want to talk to him.

"He's wanted for questioning in the disappearance of Donna Jou," Sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said.

Burgess, who was convicted of lewd and lascivious acts with a child and of sending harmful material to a minor using the Internet, never registered as a sex offender. A warrant has been issued for his arrest.

The daughter of a hospital lab technician and a Boeing aerospace engineer, Donna scored 1570 on the SAT – 30 points shy of perfection. She reads, writes and speaks Farsi. One of her framed drawings hangs on her mother's wall. She volunteered at a Houston shelter, baby-sitting the children of battered women, and donated her time at a Houston hospital. She wanted to make a difference in the world, her brother said.

The Jous moved to Rancho Santa Margarita last July – after Donna graduated from high school. Her friends scattered across the country after graduation – and she had little time to make new ones before classes at SDSU started. When she moved home for the summer, she surfed the Internet on her mother's laptop – but no one knew she was planning to meet a random stranger.

"Maybe she was bored because all her friends are in San Diego," said Daniel Jou said. "Maybe she wanted to do something instead of spending all of her time around here."

"It's a shame these guys are out there able to use the Internet … that is used by so many young people," said Daniel Jou. "It's just a matter of time. If it wasn't Donna, it could have been someone else."

A plate above the Jou's door spells out in Farsi a holy verse promising protection. But authorities say Burgess never made it to the door June 23, parking his Yamaha motorcycle around the corner and calling Donna to come out. Donna ran out – and told her mother a friend's boyfriend – Kyle – was going to pick her up.

But authorities believe this was the first face-to-face meeting Jou had with Burgess, who she met a month ago on the Web site .

Burgess promised her to take her to a party at the house he rents at 3617 Faris Drive in Los Angeles, Amormino said. Burgess' roommates – mostly foreign students – told investigators Jou was at the party.

Around her neck hung a silver horseshoe charm her mother gave her. That was the last anyone has seen Donna.

"I believe heaven and hell are both here on this earth," said Nili Jou. "I haven't done anything to go through the hell and she hasn't either."

**Rasputin** · 08-26-2007, 01:12 AM

Missing O.C. woman's family struggles with her fate

In the two months since the disappearance of 19-year-old Donna Jou, a bookish, sheltered biology student who dreamed of being a neurosurgeon, clues to her fate have been both dramatic and maddeningly inconclusive.

There is an abandoned toolbox with ominous contents. There are puzzling text messages she may or may not have sent her mother.

And there is a feeling of certainty, among her family and investigators, that a convicted sex offender named John Steven Burgess -- described by one detective as "a very smooth-talking con man" -- knows more than he will reveal.

"It's torture," said her mother, Nili Jou. "My daughter only lived 19 years, and he's not telling me where she is."

It was Burgess, 35, investigators said, who somehow lured Jou from her mother's Rancho Santa Margarita apartment onto the back of his motorcycle June 23. It was Burgess' dilapidated rental house in Palms where witnesses last saw her alive. It was Burgess, investigators say, who repainted his 1998 Ford Ranger and fled after Jou vanished, and it was his tool box -- containing a motorcycle helmet, his truck's license plate, rope, rubber gloves and a scrub brush -- that turned up near his house.

So when police caught up to him late last month as he was trying to ditch a bag of crack cocaine in the parking lot of a Motel 6 in Jacksonville, Fla., everyone hoped the case would break wide open.

Instead, Burgess now sits in a Los Angeles jail on an unrelated charge of failing to register as a sex offender. He refuses to talk about Donna Jou, and though police call him a suspect, they have not charged him in her disappearance. Between him and the street stands $250,000 bail.

"It's an unusual case, where our client is being held on Case A, where clearly the focus is on Case B," said Burgess' attorney, George Bird Jr. He said Burgess could not answer questions about his whereabouts around the time of Jou's disappearance without the risk of incriminating himself in the failing-to-register case.

Jou's mother, an Iranian immigrant, is outraged that a Los Angeles judge reduced Burgess' bail from $1 million at his arraignment Monday, where he pleaded not guilty to failing to register as a sex offender. She said she was in disbelief when detectives warned her, before Burgess' capture, that his constitutional rights prevented them from making him speak about her daughter's disappearance.

"In my country, by now, they'd take it out of him," she said, but here "he has the right to keep it to himself and make parents suffer. A convicted sex offender can have a whole family hanging in the air."

After her daughter's disappearance, Nili Jou took two weeks off from her job as a phlebotomist at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach, but she has since returned to work. She found her mind fraying without something to focus on. Now and then, at work, she pauses to consider what grief and worry have done to her appearance.

"I tell myself, 'These poor patients haven't done anything to look at this face, when they're in pain themselves,' " she says.

Donna Jou's family is one of high achievers. Her father, Reza Jou, works in Houston as a systems integration manager for NASA's International Space Station. Her older brother, Daniel, studies physics and philosophy at Harvard. Her older sister, Lisa, is an attorney in San Diego. Donna Jou herself excelled academically, with a near-perfect SAT score and a brilliance for math. But in key ways, said those who knew her, she didn't understand the world.

"She believed people were good," her father said. "She never had any experience with bad people."

Her family describes her as physically tiny -- 5 feet 3, about 100 pounds. A biology student at San Diego State, Jou was staying with her mother in Orange County for the summer and working at a Payless shoe store. Investigators say Burgess apparently met Jou on Craigslist.com and passed off another man's photo as his own.

On the day she disappeared, she told her mother she was going out with a friend but didn't specify where. Her mother, who was about to leave for a party, said she saw her daughter put on a helmet outside their apartment and climb onto a motorcycle with a man, though she didn't see his face.

"I was sure that she knows this person," the mother said.

Because she happened to be heading in that direction, the mother said, she followed the motorcycle for a few miles on the 241 toll road but lost sight of it when it pulled off on Portola Parkway in Irvine. That night, she received two text messages. One said:

Goodnight Momy. Love you

**Rasputin** · 08-26-2007, 01:12 AM

battery dead. in san diego and be home later. love you Momy

She has doubts that her daughter sent them, since she usually abbreviated text messages, using "u" for "you," for example. After her daughter vanished, Nili Jou said, she was able to access her daughter's voice-mail messages and began dialing numbers she found on it, eventually reaching Burgess. She said he confirmed Donna had been at his house, and said he didn't know where she'd gone. "He was relaxed and very friendly," she said.

Two days after she disappeared, when she didn't show up for a physics class she was taking at a local community college, her mother reported her missing.

The case is being handled by Orange County sheriff's detectives and the Los Angeles Police Department. Police say they don't know what Burgess might have told Donna Jou to entice her onto his motorcycle, but her family says she was lonely and bored in Orange County and might have been looking to meet friends. Investigators have performed forensic testing on Burgess' truck and his toolbox but won't say what, if anything, the tests revealed.

Burgess, who uses the alias Sinjin Stevens, was convicted of three counts of battery in 2002. The next year, he was convicted of performing a lewd act on a child.

Police say Burgess made a living by using Craigslist to find international students -- many of them from Eastern Europe -- and charging them to sleep on mattresses strewn about his rented house on Faris Drive in the Palms area.

"He subletted it so many times, he probably had a good income," said Orange County Sheriff's Department Det. Dan Salcedo. He said some prospective tenants became wary of Burgess on meeting him, and others left after a few days even though they had paid a month's rent.

Tuesday afternoon, Donna Jou's father, Reza Jou, and his niece, Behnaz Nikfarjam, sat in the office of Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Amormino while he tried to explain the complications surrounding the case. Because Burgess is believed to have traveled to Northern California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida after Jou vanished, Amormino said, it's impossible to know where to look for her.

Amormino explained that the charge Burgess faces -- failing to register as a sex offender -- is relatively easy to prove. With his prior felony conviction, it carries a possible sentence of six years in prison.

"If he's put away for a while, hopefully we have time to put the case together," Amormino said.

"You're not worried that someone will try to bail him out?" asked Nikfarjam.

"I am worried," he said.

"Are there any legal remedies that you can do?" asked Reza Jou.

"I wish," Amormino said. "I wish there was something I could tell you that would increase it to $10-million bail. But there's another law in this country -- no excessive bail." He tried to reassure them that if Burgess disappeared again, they would find him. "The world is too small. He has no place to run."

"We don't have a life anymore," Reza Jou said. "For the past two months I haven't worked. I can't focus on anything else but Donna -- if she's hungry, if she's thirsty, if she's sick."

Jou's family did not attend Burgess' arraignment Monday -- they said they were not informed of it -- but they have read a news account that described Burgess as smirking.

"Some people are just sick, and it's a thrill for them to watch people experience pain," said Jou's older sister, Lisa Jou, a civil attorney in San Diego. She said the family wishes it had done more to warn Donna about the dangers of meeting people over the Internet.

"We feel guilty," she said. "How do you think any family feels that their child is facing something like this because you didn't prepare them?"

She has trouble thinking of a circumstance in which her sister remains alive. Donna was not the kind of person to run away from home, she said. Even if she wanted to, she did not have the savvy to do it. "She might run out the door and slam the door in someone's face and tell them off, only to come right back," she said. "It wasn't disappearing off the face of the earth."

Burgess, who pleaded guilty to the drug-possession charge in Florida and received time served, will appear in court again Sept. 5 for a pretrial conference on the failure-to-register charge. Jou's family plans to demonstrate.

Donna Jou's brother, Daniel, is a soft-spoken 21-year-old student at Harvard who is staying with his mother for the summer and studying for the LSAT. He is troubled by the $250,000 bail for Burgess. "I understand the constitutional issues at play here," he said. "It's not like they're going to change any time soon. It's just unfortunate to be on this side of it."

Sitting beside his mother in the small, well-appointed Rancho Santa Margarita apartment, he tried to think of hopeful scenarios in which his sister might still be alive.

"She might be extremely disoriented, living under a bridge somewhere. She might be restrained by some other person, some accomplice," he said. "You can imagine things."

**Rasputin** · 08-27-2007, 04:36 AM

"Persons of interest" sought search for a 19-year-old.

A registered sex offender and another man have been named as persons of interest in the case of a 19-year-old girl who disappeared two weeks ago after climbing onto the back of a motorcycle with a man wearing a black helmet to head to a house party.

Hours after Donna Jou left home, she talked to a friend over the phone for about 20 minutes and told him she had locked herself in a bathroom because the guy she was with was "freaking her out," Jou's parents said.

Friends and family said they haven't heard from the San Diego State University student since then, and authorities are asking for the public's help to find her.

Donna Jou told her mother the man who was picking her up June 23 was her friend's boyfriend, but authorities said she actually met the man on the Internet through craigslist.com.

Late Thursday, Sheriff's officials released the pictures of a man Jou's family says picked Jou up and whisked her away on his motorcycle. Authorities have not been unable to identify him – but investigators downloaded his picture from Jou's computer, Orange County Sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said. He is known as "Skinny Puppy" or "Kyle."

Authorities are also looking for John Steven Burgess, a registered sex offender who was renting a Los Angeles area house where Jou was last seen on June 23 or 24.

"Detectives just want to talk to both of these men," Amormino said.

Friends and family have tried to contact Donna on her cell phone since she went missing June 23, but attempts to reach her go straight to her voicemail.

"I don't know where to go, what to do and we know something bad happened," said Reza Jou, Donna's father.

Donna, who was staying at her mother's home in Rancho Santa Margarita during the summer, was headed to a house party in Santa Monica and mentioned the name Kyle to her mother before leaving the house.

When Donna climbed into the back of the motorcycle at 5:30 p.m., Nili Jou saw undistinguishable tattoos on the man's left shoulder, and described him as wearing a white sleeveless shirt, blue jeans and a black motorcycle helmet.

Donna's parents say her daughter talked to a friend from San Diego for about 20 minutes later that day, telling him that her friend didn't show up to the party and that she was locked inside a bathroom because the guy she was with was "freaking her out" and he "wouldn't get the hint," they said.

"She said the guy was acting weird and she was trying to avoid him," Reza Jou said. "I think this is the guy they have to look for."

On June 24, Nili Jou received a text message from Donna's phone saying her cell phone battery was dying and that she would be home later that day.

Now she wonders if it was her daughter who sent the message.

At first her parent's thought she might have spent the night at a friend's house, but she never came back home.

Donna, who aspires to be to a neurologist, didn't show up for her summer class at Santiago Canyon College in Orange the following Monday either, Nili Jou said.

**Rasputin** · 08-28-2007, 01:11 AM

Convicted sex offender named suspect in missing teen case

A convicted sex offender arrested in Florida on a drug charge has been named a suspect in the disappearance of a 19-year-old California college student.
John Steven Burgess, 35, made his first court appearance Monday after being extradited from Florida to answer to a charge of failing to register as a sex offender while he was living in Los Angeles.

While he has not been charged in the disappearance of Donna Jou, a prosecutor who asked the judge to set $1 million bail for Burgess said he was considered a suspect in the case.

Burgess denies any involvement in the teenager's disappearance, defense attorney George Bird Jr. said.

Superior Court Judge Keith L. Schwartz set bail at $250,000 and ordered Burgess to return to court Sept. 5. In the meantime, Burgess remained in jail.

Authorities said Jou was last seen on June 23 getting on the back of Burgess' motorcycle. She was believed headed to a party at his rented house in West Los Angeles.

The next day her mother received a text message saying Jou's cell phone battery was dying but that she would be home soon. Jou, a biology student at San Diego State University, has not been heard from since.

Burgess was convicted of three counts of battery in 2002 and of performing a lewd act against a child the following year.

Last week, he pleaded guilty to a third-degree felony charge for possession of crack in Florida and waived extradition to California.

**Rasputin** · 08-31-2007, 01:01 AM

Suspect in woman's disappearance leaves free on bail

The prime suspect in the disappearance of San Diego State biology student Donna Jou is again free. John Burgess, 35, was released from Men's Central Jail in Los Angeles on Wednesday after posting $250,000 bail while he awaits trial on charges that he had failed to report his address to the state's registry of sex offenders.

Jou, 19, of Rancho Santa Margarita, was last seen by family members June 23 when Burgess picked her up on his motorcycle after they met through the craigslist website, authorities said.

Burgess was found last month in Jacksonville, Fla., allegedly with a small amount of crack cocaine and was extradited to California. Burgess hasn't been charged in the Jou case.

Orange County sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said there were "no major breaks in the case."

**Rasputin** · 09-01-2007, 12:40 AM

Suspect In OC Student's Disappearance Posts Bail

The suspect in the disappearance of a Rancho Santa Margarita college student was freed on bail Wednesday on a charge of failing to register as a sex offender.

John Steven Burgess, 35, is due to appear at the Los Angeles Airport Superior Court next Wednesday for a pretrial hearing on the failure to register charge -- he has not been charged in connection with the disappearance two months ago of Donna Jou -- and the young woman's father plans to be there.

"I don't think they'll allow me to talk to him," Reza Jou said of the upcoming encounter, the first time the father has come face to face with Burgess.

"I've seen only pictures" of him, he said. "For me, it's something. My heart is broken. My dream has been shattered. This child was very special."

Jou was last seen by her family on June 23, leaving her Orange County home on the back of a motorcycle. She was later seen by witnesses at Burgess' West Los Angeles home at a party, authorities have said.

Investigators said Jou met Burgess through Craigslist.com, passing off another man's photo as his.

Burgess was convicted of three counts of battery in 2002 and performing a lewd act against a child the following year, and sentenced to 146 days in jail, placed on three years' probation and required to register as a sex offender.

Shortly after Jou was reported missing, authorities said they were looking to question Burgess, who also goes by the name, Sinjin Stevens, but he disappeared before they could.

Los Angeles police later found a tool box, 1 1/2 miles from Burgess' house in the Palms district of Los Angeles, containing a motorcycle helmet, and a license plate with SINJIN1, as well as rope, a pair of gloves and a scrub brush, authorities said.

Burgess was arrested on July 25 in Jacksonville, Fla. after dropping a baggie with cocaine inside when he saw police while riding a bicycle near a Motel 6.

Orange County investigators traveled to Florida to speak with him, but he refused to meet with them.

Earlier this month, Burgess pleaded guilty to felony possession of drugs and sentenced to time served, Bird said.

Burgess, who had been held on a $1 million warrant, waived extradition and was brought to Los Angeles to face the failure to register charge.

During his last court appearance, a judge lowered bail to $250,000. During that same hearing, authorities for the first time named Burgess a suspect in Jou's disappearance.

Reached at his office this afternoon, Burgess' attorney, George Bird Jr. said he had not heard from his client. He said he learned about Burgess posting bail through calls by the media.

Bird said in usual circumstances, prosecutors would likely make an offer to settle a case during a pretrial hearing, but that may change if Jou's family is in court.

Bird said his client should be prosecuted solely for failure to register, not for playing any role in the disappearance of Jou, for which he has denied playing any role.

"A prosecutor can't stand up and say (failing to register) is a victimless crime with the family sitting in court saying they're victims," Bird said.

The elder Jou said he is "very disappointed" that Burgess has left jail.

"My child still is missing," he said. "This man tells us it's his constitutional right (not) to speak. He doesn't tell where my daughter is or what he's done to my child."

"Now he's free on the street," he said. "This is a disservice to the community."

Reza Jou, who lives in Houston and is a systems integration manager and engineer for NASA's International Space Station, said he has contacted local politicians for help but feels little aid is forthcoming.

"It's extremely frustrating," he said. "We're desperately looking and seeking help. It's over two months now."

Jou, a San Diego State University honohonors student and a pre-med student who wants to be a neurosurgeon, had corresponded about a month before meeting Burgess, investigators said.

Her family has offered a $15,000 reward for information leading to her safe return.

Jou, who was taking summer classes at Rancho Santiago Community College in Orange, is said to have a 4.0 grade point average.

**Rasputin** · 09-03-2007, 01:41 AM

Suspect in woman's disappearance leaves free on bail

The prime suspect in the disappearance of San Diego State biology student Donna Jou is again free. John Burgess, 35, was released from Men's Central Jail in Los Angeles on Wednesday after posting $250,000 bail while he awaits trial on charges that he had failed to report his address to the state's registry of sex offenders.

Jou, 19, of Rancho Santa Margarita, was last seen by family members June 23 when Burgess picked her up on his motorcycle after they met through the craigslist website, authorities said.

Burgess was found last month in Jacksonville, Fla., allegedly with a small amount of crack cocaine and was extradited to California. Burgess hasn't been charged in the Jou case.

Orange County sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said there were "no major breaks in the case."

**Rasputin** · 09-03-2007, 06:05 AM

Brightcove | Leading video hosting & streaming platform

http://www.brightcove.com/title.jsp?title=1155074723

Brightcove's secure and scalable streaming platform empowers organizations to host, share, and monetize video content with reliability and ease. Elevate your video strategy—get a demo today.

**Rasputin** · 09-04-2007, 01:13 AM

Suspect in Missing Student Case Released on Bail

The family of Donna Jou is stunned and disappointed. The man investigators called their main suspect has been released from jail after posting a quarter-million-dollar bail.

Thirty-five-year-old convicted sex offender John Stephen Burgess is a free man Wednesday afternoon. He was released Wednesday morning after posting $250,000 bail. Last week, Judge Keith Schwartz reduced his bail amount from a million dollars, the lesser amount because there weren't charges filed against him in connection to the disappearance of 19-year-old Donna Jou.

Authorities had been holding Burgess for failing to register as a sex offender, but they didn't have enough evidence to charge him in the Jou case.

Joe's family is terribly upset and in an excusive interview Wednesday, Donna Jou's mother says she fears she will never know what happened to her daughter.

"Can anybody imagine that I will never get the answer. If he doesn't talk, if he doesn't help me, who will? I'm begging everybody out there, if they know anything, please, please. I don't know where Donna is, if she's alive, if she's hurt. What has happened to my daughter?" said Nili Jou, Donna's mother.

Donna Jou was last seen by her family June 23 driving away on the back of Burgess's motorcycle.

Burgess drove the 19-year-old to a party at his Los Angeles home. The straight-"A" San Diego State University student disappeared after that.

On July 5 Burgess left the L.A. area, the same day Sheriff's investigators named him a person of interest in Jou's disappearance. The same day they released his picture and the description of his blue 1998 Ford Ranger pickup to the media.

Three days later, authorities found a toolbox from Burgess's truck along with his custom license plate, a motorcycle helmet, scrub brush, gloves and rope, all suspicious, according to Sheriff's investigators.

However, charges were never filed against Burgess in connection with Jou's disappearance and Wednesday morning the convicted sexual predator posted bail and was released. Jou's family is outraged, upset and desperate for new information.

Meantime, Donna's mother sent a plea to the mother of Burgess.

"I hope his mother sees my tears. Please, tell your son, tell your son to help me," said Nili Jou.

**Rasputin** · 09-09-2007, 01:35 AM

Court protest by family of missing California teen

devastating," said Reza Jou, her father. "I cannot function without her. I live in misery not knowing my child's whereabouts."

Jou was last seen June 23 at a party at Burgess' rented house in West Los Angeles.

Burgess, a convicted sex offender, left California shortly after her disappearance and was arrested July 25 in Jacksonville, Fla., after police allegedly spotted him trying to dispose of a baggy of cocaine.

He was convicted of felony possession of drugs and sentenced to time served before being extradited to Los Angeles on an outstanding warrant for failure to register as a sex offender.

Burgess, who was formally named as a suspect in Jou's disappearance two weeks ago, is free on $250,000 bail, despite objections from Jou's family.

At the courthouse, Jou's family said they wanted to give Burgess a letter asking for his help.

"We just want to ask Mr. Burgess please, please, Mr. Burgess help us," said Nili Jou, her mother. "Help us to find my daughter."

Two weeks after the young woman disappeared, residents found a black plastic tool box in the street 1 1/2 miles from Burgess' house, authorities have said.
The box contained a license plate, a pair of gloves, rope and a scrub brush. The license plate read SINJIN1, which authorities believe represents Burgess' alias, Sinjin Stevens.

Investigators also found a motorcycle helmet in the box. Jou was last seen hopping on the back of a motorcycle and wearing a helmet.

Jou is a biology student at San Diego State University and was living with her mother in Rancho Santa Margarita for the summer when she vanished.

Iranian Girl Was abducted In California

Iranian Girl Was abducted In California

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment