Megan Kanka

On the evening of July 29, 1994, seven-year-old Megan Nicole Kanka went across the street from her home in Hamilton Township, Mercer County, New Jersey to see her neighbor's new puppy. The neighbor, Jesse Timmendequas, was a 33-year-old twice-convicted sex offender who shared a house with two other convicted sex offenders. Megan never came home.

After Megan's parents reported her missing, the community mobilized for a search. Timmendequas initially claimed he had not seen Megan, but investigators quickly focused on him. Under questioning, he confessed to luring Megan into his home with the promise of seeing a puppy, then raping and strangling her. He led police to a park in nearby Mercer County where he had left her body in a wooden toy chest.

Timmendequas was charged with capital murder. The Kanka family, devastated that three convicted sex offenders had been living across the street from their home without their knowledge, began a campaign for sex offender notification laws. Within three months, New Jersey passed 'Megan's Law,' requiring convicted sex offenders to register with police and mandating community notification of their presence.

In 1997, Timmendequas was convicted of murder, kidnapping, and sexual assault, and was sentenced to death. The federal version of Megan's Law was signed by President Clinton in 1996, and all 50 states eventually passed their own versions. In 2007, New Jersey abolished the death penalty, and Timmendequas's sentence was commuted to life without parole. Megan Kanka's legacy—the nationwide sex offender registry system—remains one of the most significant changes in American criminal justice policy to emerge from a single crime.