It's been 30 years since Megan Kanka was murdered. Her parents say her legacy is protecting children
It's been more than 30 years since Megan Kanka was murdered. The 7-year-old girl from Hamilton Township became the motivation for Megan's Law, enacted in New Jersey exactly 30 years ago on Halloween of 1994, which notifies the public about child sex offenders.
Maureen Kanka will forever be known as Megan's mom. In the summer of 1994, in a house across the street from her own, Maureen's 7-year-old daughter was murdered. The tragedy dominated news headlines across the country, and somehow, amid her anguish, Maureen and her husband, Rich, became trailblazers in the country's new crusade to protect children.
In the weeks following Megan's murder, CBS News Philadelphia attended vigils, memorial services and the prosecution of Jesse Timmendequas, the man convicted of Megan's murder.
At one event held in Hamilton Township in the summer of '94, Maureen Kanka addressed the crowd, saying, "I don't want to see this happen to any one of your children. I want you to scare your children. I want you to tell them. Don't sugarcoat it. Tell them what happens to little children by sex offenders."
The Kankas promised hundreds of people they would fight for legislation to prevent other children from what Megan endured in the final moments of her young life.
On July 29, 1994, Timmendequas, a man who lived in a house across the street, lured Megan into his home by offering to show her his puppy. He then raped and murdered her. He was convicted and sentenced to death, but New Jersey abolished the death penalty in 2007, and he's serving a life sentence.
More than 30 years later, Maureen and Rich Kanka still live in the home they shared with Megan. Pictures of their children and grandchildren are displayed in frames around the house. The photos of Megan's siblings range from childhood to graduation and adulthood. The pictures of Megan are frozen in time, at age 7.
The Kankas said they're grateful to be able to spoil their grandsons and enjoy quality time with their daughter and son, Megan's two older siblings, but the pain of losing their youngest child never goes away. They said they've just learned to live with it.
"There's always a conversation that we have about what could have been," Rich Kanka said.
The couple has been married 46 years, and Maureen Kanka said they've relied on their faith.
"Would she be married now? Would she have children? What would she be like? And for me, that was, she was a little me," Maureen Kanka said. "She looked like me at that age."
Maureen Kanka said the family had considered moving a few years before Megan was murdered because they needed a bigger house. Instead, because they loved the neighborhood, they put on an addition. When Maureen and Rich Kanka learned the man who murdered Megan was a convicted sex offender who had served prison time, they said they had to do something.
"When Megan was raped and murdered by a neighbor, I realized how little I knew about my neighborhood," Maureen Kanka said.
Megan was gone, but just a few months later, in October 1994, Megan's Law was born. First in New Jersey, when then-Gov. Christine Todd Whitman said just before signing the legislation, "Government can't legislate away sexual offenses, but Megan's Law demonstrates our best efforts to minimize the likelihood of repeat offenders."
A federal law requiring law enforcement to make information available to the public regarding registered sex offenders, including online registries, was later enacted, and all states have their own additional versions of Megan's Law.
"Somebody said to me, well, how do you know it's working? Well, we don't know, it's working," Rich Kanka said. "We just know about the ones that got away. We'll never know who you saved, but you always know the ones that you didn't save."
The Kankas recognize that Megan's story has done more than just create laws. It started a nationwide movement and three decades worth of conversations with kids about safety, strangers and how to avoid danger.
It was a directive from Maureen Kanka 30 years ago: "Don't sugarcoat it. Tell them what happens to little children by sex offenders."
To this day, her message and mission is still the same. Honor Megan by protecting children.