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Family deals with trauma of sexual predation

by Jill Burke
Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2007

Anchorage, Alaska - Technology increasingly places the world at our fingertips: new places and new people are often just a click away. But technology also gives predators easy access to children.

One Anchorage family who took all the right safety steps learned that criminal minds have ways of manipulating children despite the best efforts of parents.

He is a 28-year-old music teacher from Colorado and she is a 13-year-old Alaskan with parents who knew men like him were out there prowling, looking and targeting. And still he got through.

"We didn't give her a computer of her own, we didn't give her a cell phone - she never had a pager and he still managed to get through to her," said "Jane."

"Jane" has requested her identity be protected due to her daughter's age and circumstance as victim of an Internet predator.

The parents even tracked their child's Internet use and e-mails. They had no idea an online pedophile had seduced their child until the seduction lured her away from home.

"It was not until this August, I went in, in the morning, to tell her goodbye and she was gone. No note, nothing; she was just gone," said "Jane."

Police found the girl, who had just turned 16, in Anchorage with Brock Purviance, a man she had met years ago in a music chat room. He flew to Alaska to have sex with her.

And the parents learned that it wasn't the first time.

A full year earlier and well after he had snuck into their daughter's life, he had come to Alaska to steal her childhood. It was a trip to have sex, a week after she turned 15.

"The first visit, my husband and I had made plans to go out of state to a funeral. He knew we were leaving the state and he bought his ticket after he knew for sure that we had bought ours," said "Jane."

The outraged parents wanted justice. Poring through e-mails the FBI helped retrieve, they started to learn how meticulously Purviance had chipped away at their daughter's sense of self and values.

"In the beginning my daughter started out with, ‘Oh, this doesn't make me feel good. My mom and dad are very protective. You know, I wasn't raised this way.' He was just relentless. ‘Well, go ahead and try this and see how it feels,' over and over," said "Jane."

Psychologists say there's a reason men like Purviance are able to weasel their way in to the hearts and minds of young people.

"Many kids waiver in their confidence about who they are and they turn to these chat rooms to start talking about their struggles, which makes them perfect targets for people who are tracking those kinds of chats," said Dr. Susan Lagrande, who is a child psychologist.

Predators use emotions like conveying trust and understanding as "ins" to take things a step farther with victims.

"Then, they slowly move this young person into considering options that they may otherwise not consider because this is a trusted person that they feel understands and appreciates them. Then they are more willing to move their own values away," said Dr. Lagrande.

In this case, Purviance got caught. He'll do nearly six years time in federal prison.

Meanwhile, the girl who was caught up in his scheme is working to put him and what he did behind her.

"Brock will not define who she will be," said "Jane."

Purviance was convicted with traveling to Alaska for the purpose of having illegal sex. The victim's family is particularly concerned that Alaska's age of consent, at 16, makes Alaska's children more vulnerable to predatory relationships from adults who want to take advantage of them.

State lawmakers say they are already looking at whether to raise the age of consent.

Experts say parents can never be too vigilant online. Information on how to do that is available at Project Safe Childhood.