RETREAT, LUZERNE COUNTY -- A Danville woman has a hearing scheduled this week for allegedly allowing a convicted murderer to have sexually implicit conversations with two children. Police reported he also molested the children during a prison visit.
Forty-one-year-old Rebecca Butler is charged with allowing an inmate to have indecent contact with two children. Charges against her and the inmate, Andre VanCliff were filed Friday in Luzerne County.
Investigators said in September she brought the children to the state prison in Retreat, near Hunlock Creek.
Investigators are not disclosing the relationship between Butler and VanCliff.
Also unanswered: How could these crimes happen in a state prison?
A women visiting a relative at Retreat this weekend told us supervision is tight.
"You are in a room that has a caged door and you can't go in and out unless a guard lets you in and out, and everybody's supposed to be in that room together," said Regina Thomasetti.
According to Pennsylvania law even people convicted of homicide can have contact visits but according to the handbook, "An inmate will be permitted contact visits under the supervision of the assigned Correctional Officer."
Was the procedure followed?
If it was, how did a supervising correctional officer allow the inmate enough contact for crimes to apparently be committed?
Those questions remain unanswered.
A spokeswoman for the State Department of Corrections said the Department monitors mail and visitations.
But the arrest report claims that the inmate, VanCliff sent a sexually explicit letter to one of the children.
And Rebecca Butler sent VanCliff what police describe in the arrest report as a sexually suggestive picture of one of the children.