JETSETA GAGE - 10 yo (2005) - Des Moines IA

Des Moines IA ---- Every year around Easter, it still gets to her, not that
she doesn’t think of her 10-year-old daughter Jetseta every day. But
it’s more difficult on the anniversary of her child’s death, even after
five years.
“I have some peace that they’re not going to hurt anybody anymore. And
the loss of her — people tell me it will get easier,” Trena Gage said
last week in Des Moines, talking about the girl the family refers to as
their angel and the men accused of abusing and killing her.



It was five years ago that Jetseta Gage was kidnapped, raped and
murdered by Roger Paul Bentley on March 24, 2005. His brother, James
Bentley, whom Trena Gage had dated some years before, sexually assaulted
Jetseta for years before her murder.
Both Bentleys are in prison for life — Roger, 42, of Brandon, at the
state penitentiary in Fort Madison for Jetseta’s murder, and James, 38,
of Vinton, at the federal penitentiary in Tucson, Ariz. for possessing
pornographic pictures of her.
After the murder, one of the most heinous in Iowa in recent memory, Sen.
Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, introduced a bill in Congress that toughened
penalties against sexual predators who assault and kill children. Trena
Gage was in Washington, D.C., in July 2006 when President George W. Bush
signed into law the bill that also created a national sex offender
registry and a national DNA database of sex offenders.
Iowa laws on sex offenders were also toughened in the wake of Jetseta’s
murder.

What happened

Roger Bentley was working on Trena Gage’s van on March 23, 2005, when he
abducted Jetseta from her grandmother’s home on Jacolyn Drive NW in
Cedar Rapids. At the time, Trena Gage was at a college class; Jetseta’s
grandmother, Teresa Gage, was inside the home. A statewide Amber Alert
was issued about the abduction. --TIMELINE OF EVENTS--
Jetseta’s body was found the next morning, stuffed in a cabinet of an
abandoned, trash-ridden mobile home in rural Johnson County. The child
had been raped. Her wrists and legs were bound. She died of suffocation
after a plastic garment bag had been placed over her head.
Trena Gage said she can’t imagine the suffering Jetseta must have
endured that night.
Gage, who now lives in the Des Moines area, said she has never
considered visiting Roger Bentley in prison to ask why he killed
Jetseta. She knows he wouldn’t tell her.
“What good will come out of it,” she said. “I don’t have a lot of anger
anymore. I don’t want to talk to them (Roger or James).”
Jenny Slight, Jetseta’s great aunt, said she feels the opposite.
“I want to know why,” she said. “Did she cry out? I would like to know
what happened. According to the autopsy, we know she put up a fight.”
Teresa Gage’s eyes tear and her voice become hoarse when she talks about
missing her granddaughter.
“This is something you wouldn’t get over fast,” she said. “I wouldn’t
wish it on my worst enemy.”

Death changed family

The three women said Jetseta’s death brought them closer together and
made each of them stronger. But it also brought a vulnerability to their
everyday lives.
“We have to make sure all the windows and doors are locked before going
to bed,” Teresa Gage said. “Everybody has trust issues. I check out
everybody who comes in.”
Slight hasn’t allowed her children, ages 9 and 12, to attend slumber
parties since Jetseta’s death.
Trena Gage said she didn’t know James Bentley was abusing Jetseta and
didn’t know Roger Bentley was a registered sex offender or she wouldn’t
have allowed them around her children.
She said she questions her other two children, Ian, 12, and Leonna, 7,
about their friends and checks out their parents if her children are
going to be in their homes.
Trena Gage, who is now divorced, said before she started dating the new
man in her life she did a background check on him, even though she’d
known him for 15 years.
“I know the red flags now,” she said. “I know what to look for now. I
look at everyone, the neighbors … question everybody.”

The investigator

Charity Hansel, a Cedar Rapids police investigator and a member of the
Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, was a lead investigator
into Jetseta’s murder.
It was the worst crime she’s seen in her 18-year law enforcement career,
she said, and it changed her forever.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t think of that little girl,” she said,
sobbing. “It crippled me professionally and personally.”
Hansel was one of two officers who went to the mobile home in Johnson
County after a man who’d heard the Amber Alert called police. He
remembered taking Roger Bentley to look at the mobile home weeks before.
Police may not have found the remote home without that call, she said.
“Roger was still there when we got there,” she said. “He was covered in
blood. It was under his cuticles … on his jeans. It was all over. He
laughed at us. I knew after seeing Roger that she wasn’t alive.”
Hansel said she waited for a search warrant and another officer found
Jetseta’s body in the cabinet. Jetseta had probably been dead for only a
few hours because blood was still set on a mattress and in the cabinet,
she said.
“Every child abuse case chips away at you,” Hansel said. “It chips away
at you as a wife, a mother and an officer. Her face will be burned in my
brain for the rest of my life. You don’t forget.”
Hansel said she knew “she was struggling with the case” when she was
preparing for the federal pornography trial against James Bentley.
She changed job assignments a few years ago, deciding to focus on
another area of child abuse and crimes. She now mostly works on Internet
crimes involving children.

‘A fresh start’

Trena Gage and her children moved from Cedar Rapids to the Des Moines
area about three years ago after she lost her job and her house.
“It was time for the family to make a fresh start,” she said. “There
were horrible memories there but also good memories, too. Her
(Jetseta’s) grave is there, and trees were planted for her by her
elementary school.”
Trena Gage said the family returns to Cedar Rapids at least twice a year
— on Jetseta’s birthday and at Easter — to visit the grave and where
she was killed.
“We talk about Jetseta all the time, and Leonna watches the video that
was played at the funeral that has photos of her. Leonna cries but then
she’s happy. They both remember her. She was the big sister who used to
read to them and played Barbies with Leonna.”
Trena said Ian and Leonna both have been in therapy to help them deal
with Jetseta’s death. Ian, she said, saw Roger Bentley take Jetseta that
night and still remembers it.
“They just started (therapy) again,” she said, “and usually go this time
of year.”

Bentley serving prison term in isolation

Bentley serving prison term in isolation


March 7, 2006


Roger Bentley is being isolated from other inmates at the Iowa State Penitentiary - a tactic prison officials say is meant to protect the convicted killer and other prisoners.

Bentley, who received two life sentences last month for murdering 10-year-old Jetseta Gage, was transferred to the prison last week after spending seven days at an inmate classification center in Johnson County.

Inmates usually spend 30-45 days at the center, but prison officials "weren't going to take any risk," said Fred Scaletta, spokesman for the Iowa Department of Corrections.

"We not only have to protect the public but also these people while they are here," Scaletta said Monday.


"We've done this for police officers or other law enforcement officers (who come to prison). This guy and his case was so highly publicized (every other inmate) in reception knew who he was and what he did."

Bentley, 38, was convicted of kidnapping Gage from her Cedar Rapids home last March and murdering her at an abandoned mobile home outside Iowa City. Bentley was arrested at the mobile home, and investigators found Gage's body stuffed inside a cabinet.

He was sentenced Feb. 24, arrived at the prison in Johnson County the same day, got a haircut and shave and underwent medical tests. On March 3, he arrived at the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison.

Bentley is being held in protective custody and can get out of his cell for an hour each day for recreation five days each week - less than most other inmates. He also must be allowed to shower and shave at least three times a week.

As of Monday, 485 people were serving life terms for first-degree murder in Iowa. Like Bentley, 215 others or almost 45 percent of the total are serving their terms in the southeast Iowa prison.

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