Child molester gets life sentence
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Child molester gets life sentence
April 28, 1999
SACRAMENTO, April 28 (UPI) A serial child molester has been sentenced in
Sacramento to three life terms in prison. Superior Court Judge Jack
Sapunor
told 37-year-old David Allen Funston that he'd become "the monster
parents fear
the most" by using candy and toys to lure children into his car, some as
young
as 3 years old. Funston was convicted of 16 counts of kidnapping and
child
molestation involving six girls and one boy who were attacked in 1995
and 1996
while playing outside their homes. Three of the girls were Russian
immigrants.
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The following appears courtesy of the 4/28/99 online edition of The
Sacramento Bee newspaper:
3 life terms in child molests: Candy used to lure kids
By Ramon Coronado
Bee Staff Writer
(Published April 28, 1999)
David Allen Funston, a serial child molester who lured little children
into his
car with candy and toys, was sentenced Tuesday in Sacramento County
Superior
Court to three life terms in prison.
"You became the monster parents fear the most," Judge Jack Sapunor told
the
37-year-old Funston, who sat with a blank stare.
Sapunor, who is not known for making comments during his sentencings,
spoke
about how horrific the crimes were and how "the harm and the evil"
didn't stop
when Funston was through using the children as his sex toys.
Two of Funston's victims -- all under age 7 -- were abducted, then
dumped miles
away from their homes. One 5-year-old girl, a Russian immigrant who
barely
spoke English, was kidnapped from the front yard of her North Highlands
home
before being abandoned nearly four hours later and 50 miles away in a
remote
area in El Dorado County.
"The terror the children felt is too terrible to contemplate. From the
parents
you stole any sense of security they may have had to take their eyes off
their
children for but a few seconds," the judge said.
Funston was convicted March 30 of 16 counts of kidnapping and child
molestation
involving six girls and one boy who were attacked between June 1995 and
January
1996 while playing outside their homes.
Three of the girls were Russian immigrants. The youngest victim was 3
years old
when she was kidnapped for nearly six hours from outside her aunt's
Foothill
Farms apartment complex and lured into Funston's car with a Barbie doll,
testimony showed.
Deputy District Attorney Ann Marie Schubert said a 6-year-old Roseville
girl
was Funston's eighth victim, but that case will probably be dismissed
because
Funston is not expected to ever leave prison alive.
Sapunor used his discretion to sentence Funston to consecutive terms so
that in
addition to his three indeterminate life sentences, he was given an
additional
20 years and eight months of determinate sentence. That means Funston
will die
before he ever gets a parole hearing. "There is no man on the face of
this
Earth who deserves this sentence more than you Mr. Funston," the
prosecutor
told the defendant.
The mother of a 7-year-old girl whom Funston molested outside her
apartment
complex couldn't agree more.
"My daughter suffers from nightmares and her grades have dropped. I have
suffered. She has suffered," the mother told the judge.
The aunt of the youngest victim, the 3-year-old, said Funston has never
shown
any remorse for what he has done to the children.
"She can't be around men anymore. She can't be around little boys. She
use to
have this big smile, but he took that smile away from her," the aunt
said.
The mother of the 5-year-old Russian girl, whom Funston threw out of his
car
like a rag doll on the side of a road in El Dorado County, needed the
help of a
Russian interpreter to share her feelings.
"She has lost an entire year of school. It has slowed down her speaking
ability. She can't get along with her friends," the woman said of her
daughter
who sat in the audience cracking her knuckles as her mother spoke.
In closing arguments to jurors, defense attorneys Laurence Walton and
James
Sherriff said their client was innocent and that police were too eager
to clear
their unsolved cases. Circumstantial evidence, including DNA, left more
questions than answers, the defense claimed.
The judge disagreed.
"The evidence of guilt both scientific and otherwise was overwhelming,"
Sapunor
said.