Child Safety: Sharing The Burden With The Memory Of Rachel Carver As Our Guide, Community Forum Brings Us Together To Put Our Children First

The 1994-95 school year ended on a grim note in Spokane. Rachel Carver, 9, never showed up for the last day of class. She had not been seen, a worried public learned, since her uncle walked her part way to Ridgeview Elementary School in northwest Spokane.

Neighbors, authorities and bloodhounds searched for two days. The entire community waited anxiously.

Late the second day, Rachel’s dead body was found in a cardboard box at Riverside State Park. The uncle, Jason Wickenhagen, was arrested on suspicion of murder. It turned out that he already had been convicted of attempted rape involving a teenage girl but was free while waiting to be sentenced.

Rachel’s life had been filled with abuse and neglect. She and her sister’s mother was in California, their father in Yakima. They were living with their aunt and uncle in Spokane under an arrangement worked out by child-welfare officials in California.

Now, following a restless summer in which Rachel’s story has remained on many minds, a new school year is about to begin. From 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, at the Shadle Park High School auditorium, The Spokesman-Review will host a public forum on child protection.

The people who have contributed articles to this page will participate as panelists for part of the program. The primary work, though, will be up to the audience.

If Rachel’s death and the kind of peril it exemplifies trouble you, if you would like to help craft a response and take a role in implementing it, you are encouraged to attend.

This will be a working forum, where members of the audience are active participants.

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1. Abuse prevention should be first step 2. State law needs to be reworked 3. We’re responsible for kids’ welfare 4. Tragedy puts projected measure in motion 5. By working as one, we’ll reach out goal 6. Registration - or lack thereof - of convicted sex offenders haunts our communities