VIDEO: Five years later, child’s murder haunts family, investigator

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.

VIDEO: Interviews with the Gage family

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.

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.”