GPD encourages parents, childcare providers to listen to children

GPD Detective Desiree Russano speaks at the Wednesday press conference.
GPD Detective Desiree Russano at a Wednesday press conference asked parents and other childcare providers to listen to and believe children when they report abuse.

The Gainesville Police Department (GPD), at a Wednesday news conference on the heels of a child sexual abuse case, called for parents and those who work with children to take children seriously when they mention threats. 

A judge on Tuesday sentenced not only the sexual predator who lured an 11-year-old neighbor into his apartment, but also sentenced the child’s mother, who encouraged her daughter to continue seeking the man’s company. 

“We will seek out anyone who harms children,” Detective Desiree Russano said at the press conference. “We will make sure that justice is served, even if that means having to arrest a parent.” 

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David Wolfe, 65, was sentenced to 50 years in the Florida Department of Corrections for sexual battery or attempt with injury on a person under 12 by a person 18 or older; lewd or lascivious molestation of a person under 12 years of age; aggravated child abuse; and obscene performance.   

The judge also sentenced the victim’s mother, Kate Murray, 42, to 10 years in prison for aggravated child neglect and failure to report suspected child abuse, abandonment or neglect. 

The sentences are a result of a routine medical appointment in January during which the 11-year-old girl said she desired to harm herself and was confined for a mental health exam under the Baker Act. The girl reported during the psychiatric exam that she had been physically abused by her mother and sexually violated by Wolfe. 

The GPD patrol officer who took the child’s initial report found the content of the interview so disturbing that he brought it directly to the detectives. A forensic interview with the child was set up for that evening, and David Wolfe was arrested that night. 

The investigation uncovered that Wolfe, who was adjudicated in 1997 as a sexual predator in Hillsborough County, had lured the child to his apartment with cash gifts and video games. 

Murray, the child’s mother, told detectives that she thought Wolfe was a sexual offender and not a sexual predator and allowed her daughter to visit Wolfe unsupervised, according to a release.  

Russano said the 11-year-old had told her mother two months before the arrest that Wolfe was sexually abusing her, but Murray continued to allow and encourage the visits. 

At the time of his arrest, Wolfe was actively using a laptop computer, which GPD seized along with other electronic devices as part of a search of his home. Detectives learned that at the time of his arrest, Wolfe had been actively chatting with other self-identified pedophiles on the dark web about their methods. 

“These are real people. David Wolfe is real, and his victims are real,” Russano said. “So as difficult as it was to read those messages, the most difficult part was that it was real. This is a real problem – children being abused – so we need to take it as seriously as possible.” 

Russano said she often talks about how important it is for parents to listen when their children talk about things that have happened to them, and to believe them. She said this same message applies to people who interact with children at any level that allows them to be a listening ear. 

“I ask that our community band together to protect our children and report any type of suspicious, scary or strange behavior that a child might report to you and allow us to investigate it,” Russano said. 

For more information or to report child abuse, contact the Gainesville Police Department at (352) 955-1818, or reach out to the Florida Department of Children and Families’ Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-962-2873. 

The girl has been placed with a family member for the time being. 

“I personally met this child, this 11-year-old girl who had endured some of the most heinous things I’ve ever heard happen to a person,” Russano said. “She is courageous. She is brave. And she has a long road ahead of her to recover from everything that she went through at such a young age.” 

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Deborah Hill

OMG that mother deserves to spend time in prison. Doesn’t matter if sexual offender or predator……. her child should not have been exposed to that type of pain. My 🙏 prayers for that little girl.

Concerned Citizen

Absolutely!