TRILOGY OF TRAGEDY

Three children, three perpetrators, two reported, and none prosecuted.

Child sexual abuse may be closer than you think.

As a writer and researcher on sexual offending and sex offender laws, I have spent considerable time and effort focusing on those that have been needlessly caught up in the “sex offender net”. Children, teens, and young adults mostly, who have been placed on the sex offender registry and unnecessarily carry the proverbial “mark of the beast” by being labeled as such.  

These are cases in which the conduct was consensual or arising out of childhood sexual curiosity ( ie., playing doctor) and teenage experimentation that the media and lawmakers have convinced society is something new, unusual and deviant, when in all actuality, have been occurring for generations. It was not an uncommon thing for people to be married while in their teens.

Then there are the OTHERS - hiding insidiously around us. Perpetrators and monsters who are fully conscious of what they do and take pleasure in harming children for their own sexual and often times violent gratification. Not a one time perpetrator but perpetrating many times over and often with multiple victims. They KNOW what they are doing is wrong but they do it anyway. They use threats and lies against their victims to keep them from telling.

In my own life, there are three people that I have known for many years and who are close to me who have been victimized by the latter. Their stories are nothing short of horrifying. In all three cases I knew these people for several years before discovering their trauma and abuse which they hid so well. The anger and heartache I feel for these people leaves me literally at a loss for words. I try to imagine what it must have been like for them and what it is like for them now as they try and move on with their lives. The picture is not a pretty one. I don’t have all the answers to life’s problems and many days don’t know what to make of this world at all. But one thing I do know is that there are definitely two very distinct kinds of offenders on America’s sex offender registry, and many more that have committed unthinkable crimes, yet are un-prosecuted and living among us undetected.

My Grandfather, long since deceased, repeatedly raped one of his own sons beginning when the child was just three years old. When his son grew up he began having flashbacks, anxiety attacks and nightmares. He eventually sought counseling where the truth was discovered. His son had tried confronting both his parents shortly before seeking counseling, demanding that they tell him what happened to him. His father told his mother not to say anything. “Don’t tell him anything” he said. The wall went up and all he got were denials. Both my grandparents have now passed away and even on her death bed my Grandmother refused to admit or acknowledge in any way what happened to her son as a child. Their son grew up to be an alcoholic, albeit a highly functional one. Yet to this day nearly every night he cries out in his sleep and shakes reliving his childhood nightmares again and again.

I never saw this side of my Grandfather while growing up. In my eyes, as a child, he was the most wonderful man in the world and I adored him. No one in my family ever told me the truth about him until I reached adulthood. It defies all reason that this man, whom I thought was so wonderful was, in all actuality a brutal monster with a dark side that he cleverly kept hidden from view from the rest of the world.

Two of my children’s friends have also been victimized. One, a girl aged 10 who was living with her Aunt while her parents were imprisoned on drug charges - the girl was repeatedly molested by her Aunt’s live in boyfriend – a man she met on a City bus. He was in his mid to late thirties and had been fondling the girl for more than a year – beginning when she was just 9 years old. I was the one that she finally told. She was scared to death. I will never forget the look on her face and the fear in her eyes and the tears that never seemed to stop falling.

She had spent a great deal of time at our house and with my daughter. She was a wonderful kid, straight A student, kind, helpful, polite, just a really great kid all around. It wasn’t unusual for her to spend several weeks at a time at our house with her custodial Aunt never even calling to see if she was there or to check in on her. Our family loved her and we always will. When she told me I was shocked and devastated and my mind began to race. I felt awful because I should have sensed something was wrong. I should have seen the signs and connected the dots. There had been signs that became so obvious once she told me what was happening to her. For one thing, she never seemed to want to go home to her Aunt’s apartment and that is why she spent so much time at our house. When we did take her home, the sweet, cheerful young girl she had been at our house would suddenly become silent and sullen during the ride to her Aunt’s apartment. You could almost hear a pin drop in that car when I look back on it. Also, my daughter never wanted to go hang out over there, they always wanted to be at our house.

When she told me I called CPS, she was so terrified. I told her it would be alright and that she would never have to go back to that apartment again or see that man again. He would not be able to hurt her anymore.

She was immediately placed in a foster home. The Aunt and her boyfriend were questioned, the authorities felt he was indeed guilty of the accusations and after CPS interviewed the girl they were convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt. The Aunt later called me in a fit of rage calling the girl a liar. She was a miserable excuse for an Aunt and a human being. I have no doubt at all that the girl was telling the truth and I told her such.

Fortunately, the fondling hadn’t progressed to the point of the girl being raped. Unfortunately however, there was not enough evidence to prosecute him.

Just recently I discovered that the boyfriend of my niece, who our family has come to know very well over the past few years, was also violently, sexually and physically  abused. His abuse began at the age of five and continued for two years. The perpetrator was his 13 year old half-brother. The details of what has happened to this poor young man has left me and still leaves me literally sick to my stomach. Worse still, even though the abuse was reported to authorities – the perpetrator was NOT convicted. The boy was repeatedly raped for two years, tied to a chair and beaten with objects. He was threatened something worse would happen to him if he ever told and for two years he didn’t. But when the teenaged brother began targeting another even younger brother, the boy fearing for his young brother tearfully told his father what had been happening. The police were called, the boy was interviewed by a child psychologist using dolls to depict what had occurred. For whatever reason, this very violent and dangerous teenage perpetrator was not treated, prosecuted, assessed or in any way held accountable for what he did and I have no doubt that he still abuses children, to this very day.

The child now almost 17 has never received counseling for his past abuse. His family refuses to talk about what happened or to let him talk about what happened. All that pain has had to be bottled up. Despite all of this, again, he is a wonderful, outgoing and intelligent young man - a straight a student and Eagle Scout, active in the community and various sports. The only person he has had to talk to about what happened to him is his girlfriend, my niece. He says he keeps busy so he doesn’t have to think about what happened. He tells her he just wants people to like him and to believe that he is normal, like anyone else. He, like my grandfather’s son also has sleeping disorders with twitching, sleepwalking, yelling and acting out in his sleep. He is tired all of the time.

I am angered that his parents never got him the help he so desperately needs. That instead of allowing him to grieve and talk about what happened to him, they instead demand that the issue never be spoken of. This has to leave him feeling shame and guilt that is NOT his to feel. He knows that I know, and that I care very much for him as does my niece. He is lucky to have her as a girl-friend and a friend. It is the first time in his life he has been able to really talk about what happened but to this day refuses to cry because when he told his father all those years ago he was crying. His father, a former marine told him to quit being a baby and to stop crying. “Men don’t cry”. Maybe they don’t, but 7 year olds who have been violently abused do and should absolutely be allowed to.

I don’t know which angers me more, what happened to my niece’s boyfriend as a child or his parents’ cold hearted refusal to deal with aftermath and effects of what happened to their own son. Both make me sick - for the young man whose childhood and innocence was brutally stolen from him at such a young age.

I pray for these three and the countless others out there like them. I also pray that our lawmakers will stop putting all their focus on stranger danger and expensive and inneffective laws that sound good but do little if anything to stop the cycle of abuse. To focus on real solutions by attacking the  root of the problem - ending incest and its tragic cycle.

Please See "INCEST - A Family Tragedy" -

http://www.shazzamfilms.com/history.cfm