Tarsha Perry came all the way from Jacksonville, Florida to Columbia Thursday to witness a bill signing. South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford signed into law two bills to strengthen the state's child abuse registry and sex offender registry.

She came so far because her 12-year-old daughter was sexually assaulted last year in a Wal-Mart in Orangeburg when they were here visiting family. The man who did it was a Wal-Mart employee who's on the state's sex offender registry. Wal-Mart didn't know that because it didn't check.

"Oh, gosh. You would not believe the devastation. I think that, with the incident that happened, that really hurt me," she says.

But what made it worse, she says, was to learn that a company she likes and has such a family-friendly reputation didn't even do a background check on its employees.

One of the new laws the governor signed makes it much easier for businesses to conduct background checks.

The other bill strengthens reporting requirements for the state's sex offender registry. Under the new law, an offender will have to register in every county where he owns property, not just where he lives most of the time.

State Law Enforcement Division chief Robert Stewart says there are also new reporting requirements concerning schools. They'll have to notify authorities, "If they attend any school," Chief Stewart says. "And another important thing is, if they work at a school or work for any company that requires them to be on school grounds, through a contract or maintenance or whatever. So that'd be very important for parents to know."

The new law also allows the state to put electronic monitoring devices on convicted pedophiles, so police can track where they are or alert a previous victim if her attacker is nearby. The monitoring won't begin right away, though, because the law does not include the money for the program. Supporters say they're forming a coalition to push for that next year.

Because of Tarsha Perry's work pushing the tougher law, Gov. Sanford gave her the pen he used to sign it and a copy of it.