Topic : 04/04 Did He or Didn't He?

The people you seen on that show are nuts i believe that he didnt do it for the plain fact  that same woman has accused me of looking at her daughter in appropriatly i had never met her or her daughter till that day and that day was a horrible one the lady is nuts im not the first nor will i be the last to get accused by these people. These people crave attention and they will do anything to get it !

I love the end to your message.  Great idea.  Have a show that talks the facts about how difficult it is to protect our children and what going through the system is all about. 

I am very currently going through this with my daughter (we pray to be going to court this July, the offense took place 2-1/2 years ago).  I will say that going through this that I completely understand why people want to just let go and try to move on.  Do NOT misunderstand me here, I do not mean "sweap it under the rug" and ignore that it ever took place.  I just mean, I understand those that choose not to seek justice in our so called "justice system".  I'm hear to say with quite the frustration that it is not a system geared for the victim.  Which I really believe is stating the obvious.  It is honestly a hell that feels never ending, but I stick with my faith and trust that God has gotten us this far he will get us to the finish line.

I have much more to say, but I'm going to enter a new message.  Thanks for taking a stand and noting we need to do more in our system to protect the children and not the perp.

Where do I begin?  I began reading the message boards and writing messages on the subject "Saving Grace" last week.  Unfortunately, I am living that situation (time frame and all) almost to the tee with the exception that my Father-In-Law is not admitting to what he has done.  This is what is currently going on, now let me lay down a little history to this, because it has very much to do with this particular topic of "Did he or didn't He".

My story actually begins 5 years ago when my daughter was 4.  My In-Laws were staying with me at the time and one morning my daughter in a playful manner tells her Grandmother (my In-Law) that her Paw-Paw tickled her toe-toe (this is what we called it, don't know why, it's what I grew up calling it).  My Mother-In-Law immediately calls for me and tells my daughter to tell me what she just said.  She does and at first I'm lost for words.  (A little more history, my Mother-In-Law's first husband horribly sexually abused her daughter, this is her second husband of, at the time, 27 years.)  We immediately confronted the situation (my Mother-In-Law, Father-In-Law, my daughter, and myself) and I explain to my daughter that she must only tell the truth.  That Paw-Paw should never do such a thing and that him doing so was very bad so not to be telling a story.  She never bugged, she was adamant that he had done this.  Now mind you, my Father-In-Law is present during this and he, just as adamantly says, "Honey, Paw-Paw would not do that.  Paw-Paw would never do that to you."  My daughter's response, "Yes you did Paw-Paw, you just don't remember."  This whole time my Mother-In-Law is agitated (she is acting like Ann, Grace's Grandmother currently).  We go over this for several minutes with neither one bugging (daughter and Paw-Paw). My In-Laws leave shortly after all this to go stay with my Mother-In-Law's Father.

This, of course, was huge.  Where do you go from here?  Who's telling the truth?  They are both quite believable.  I was very close to my In-Laws at the time.  I called them Mom and Dad, calling them by their first names didn't even feel right.  I felt very blessed to have two sets of parents, my biological parents and my husband's.  I considered my Mother-In-Law to be a best friend and we named my daughter (the victim) after her which was my idea.  Get the picture?  For him to have done this would be a huge betrayal and everything I thought I knew would come into question and our fun and loving lives would crumble.  I guess my real point is, that I would NEVER want to falsely accuse him and would have absolutely no reason to do so.

This was a huge dilemma for me.  Not to believe my daughter was to take a huge and I mean huge risk for her emotionally, because if it were true and I didn't believe her, would she tell again if it continued?  Then I had the situation with believing her and not my Father-In-Law, what would this do to him if he didn't do it and he was falsely accused?  What of my marriage?  The dilemma goes on an on.  I will tell you I was terrified to be wrong. There are HUGE consequences with whoever you choose to believe.  If you choose to believe him, and it is made up, then all is well, but how do you ever know for sure?  There is absolutely no winning in this.  Now to my decision.

I knew my daughter could not make this up.  Children at very young ages do learn to lie and they can make up stories, but the stories can only have in them what they know, what they've been exposed to.  They don't have thoughts of people touching them in a way that doesn't feel right, this they can not make up unless exposed to it by something said to them or something they've seen.  This much I was definite about.  So the question for me was, if my daughter made it up where could the idea have come from?  I thought I knew.  As I early stated my Sister-In-Law was also abused in my Mother-In-Law's first marriage.  I thought maybe she had said something to my daughter in hopes to help teach her about protecting herself.  I knew she had done this with her own children.  Or, maybe it came from a niece that my family had suspicions about, but were never founded.  Then there was my Father-In-Law, he was always so protective of his step-daughter regarding her Father.  He even went as far as claiming he might disown my husband and his brother for speaking to their biological Father (the one that molested my Sister-In-Law) when he found out they had spoke with him.  He never walked around the house in just shorts.  He always made sure not to go into the bathroom when my daughter was in there bathing.  I used all of this to support that he couldn't have, wouldn't have done this to my daughter.  So, there you have it I decided he didn't do this and that my daughter got the ideas elsewhere.  I believed in his innocence, but again I was terrified to be wrong and I told him so.  "I believe you, but I'm am terrified to be wrong.  I know that there are many emotions involved and they can be blinding.  I pray (and I did) that I'm not wrong, because she is my daughter and I have to protect her.  She has to come first."  Again, I was just as terrified to be wrong in believing  that he did do it.  I tried to make as much sense as I could with the information I had on what was the truth.  I didn't want him in Steven Jr's. boat and possibly being falsely accused, but what of my daughter?

Life went on as it always had, my In-Laws even lived with me again.  All seemed well, up until

2-1/2 years ago.  My daughter came to me in the middle of the night and made an immediate out cry that her Paw-Paw had woke her up touching her.  It didn't end there, he had penetrated her with his tongue!  I immediately knew she was speaking the truth.  Thank you God, she had the courage to come to me after I had not headed to her before.  I ask for God's forgiveness every day and apologizing to her everyday would not be enough.  I will add that I do believe things happened the way they did for a reason.  With the first accusation there was no way to prove anything and you were just left with questions, it's a horrible predicament, but unfortunately in these cases there is very seldom proof and your decision is going to have an effect on someone adversely.

As far a polygraphs go, with the second accusation, my Father-In-Law volunteered to take a polygraph and my husband immediately arranged for him to take one. This was a private polygraph, it was not required or issued by law enforcement, although the man that administered the test was the Chief of Police in this city in which it was taken.  When it was said and done, it was said that no deception was found in his answers (I should add that the man administering the test never did get my daughter's name right in front of my husband so we have no way of knowing if he did when giving the test).  I knew he would so call "pass."  If he didn't think he could he would have never volunteered to take it.  To no surprise of my own we have proof that the polygraph was a farce.  We were able to retrieve his DNA from her panties.  Argue with that.  I'm sure his defense attorney will give it his best shot.

Here's what needs to be said.  Protect your daughter at whatever cost.  She is the most important and she can not afford the gamble.  I would hate for Steven Jr. to be innocent in all this and have to go through so much, but I don't believe the chances are in his favor that he is.  Again, it is a huge dilemma, but you must put the child first no matter the cost.  I didn't initially and she's paid the price.  God forgive me.  You can always ask for his forgiveness, beg for it if need be, if your wrong about him.  You can not so easily ask for this forgiveness from your daughter and you definitely can not give back to her what she will loose.

I have to reply to my own message because I left out some very important information.  When my daughter made her first accusation against her Father-In-Law I also used the thought that he had never been "alone" with my daughter, he'd never been caught behind a closed door with her, and she wasn't afraid of him.  I used all of this to believe that he couldn't have violated her.

All of these are ill conceived MISCONCEPTIONS regarding pedophilia.  When I say she was never "alone" with him I'm referring to the fact she was never the only person in the house with him.  He often would go into her room (never with a closed door) and watch movies with her or just talk with her.  I thought he was just being a great grandfather.  It's at these times that he would usually touch her.  There were most often a minimum of four people in the house.  Then there were the opportunities when we're all sleeping.  So please, don't ever think that because they aren't  "alone" that these perpetrators do not have opportunity.  He was very brazen in what he did.  He always kept her door open.  I think that some of thrill was in the chances he was taking in getting caught.

As far as my daughter not being afraid of her grandfather, well of course not.  She loved him and trusted him, she had no reason to be afraid.  What he wasn't doing didn't physically hurt, it just didn't feel right inside.  She's a baby on this subject, there was no way for her to ever know just how wrong and hurtful what he was doing was and the aftermath it would cause.

So, keep your minds open and be very watchful.  It is a game of manipulation.  Manipulation of the child and the child's care givers.  Pedophiles are good at it and the longer they get away with it the more it fuels the fire. 

Thanks for taking the time to read this.  I hope it helps anyone looking for some kind of answers.

 I do agree with you that accusing someone of such a horrible crime is awful and it can and I'm sure does ruin one's life, but this type of crime is anything BUT black and white.  There is very seldom "proof" of the crime.  Perpetrators aren't violating children with a witness and often there is no physical evidence because just inappropriate touching on top of clothes or under them is consider (as it well should be) sexual abuse.  It's the only crime in the state of Texas that can be tried solely on circumstantial evidence for this very reason.

Please read my posted message "Another Situation I'm Familiar With".  It will clarify exactly what I'm speaking of.  I'm not saying that there aren't twisted, sick, individuals out there that won't go to any length, including coaching their children, to make very hurtful accusations.  People that would do such a thing should be dealt with harshly and should not have their children.  It's awful to think that someone would even expose their children to such things in the name of a custody suit.  However, a trained and well experienced counselor should be able to see through this, because a child's true emotions can't be coached (not easily) and that will help to get to the truth.  Although this does happen I believe it to be rare.

Anyway, please read my other message.  I hope it will provide some more understanding on this very difficult issue. 

I didn't see much of this show, but I was active on the Saving Grace Forum.  Without re-hashing my own situation, I'd like to address the very real dilllema which occurs when there is the case of "he said, she said".  Grace's Grandfather, Steve made me sick...you can't hear of that being done to a child and feel very well.  However, he admitted to it, thereby erasing all doubts.  How can a confession be compared to out and out denial?  A child says something, the adult denys it.  Suddenly, anyone and everyone is forced to be judge and jury...and face judgement themselves...depending on whose side they are on.  This man couln't be read on a polygraph...something with brain wave abnormality.  Maybe if the research, which is quite extensive, on the abnormalities of a pedophile's brain chemistry were not hushed, there would have been a commonality...but when that research, hoping to find a cause, control and cure is viewed to be pro-pedophile(which it is NOT), therby underfunded, will we ever really KNOW?

If this were me and I just could not believe that a particular person did this, I'd be strung up in the court of public opinion.  Here we have a man, Dr. Phil, who has certainly had greater training than most of us...more than the average therapist...and HE doesn't believe that this man is a sexual offender.  What if he is wrong?  Do we kill him too?  And if he's right, that man could have had his life ruined, along with his entire family of support.  There is no concrete answer without physical evidence, or a confession...or another eyewitness who broke it up.  So why is this man given the thumbs up, while others are not?  Dr. Phil was not irresponsible, but he can't KNOW..none of us can..we can only have opinions...very different from proof.

The harsh judgements on the Saving Grace boards were often directed at people who as Dr. Phil, did not or could not, believe that of the accused.  So they are bad people, negligent people...that is such crap!  A confession removes all doubt...Grace's Grandfather did one decent thing in this whole mess...he didn't leave room for doubt.  Don't diminish it...it is huge...as it took away these "what ifs" that if we were not to question, we'd not be human.  We need so much more information on this disorder...and if Dr. Phi was mistaken, he's not alone...as many people do side with the accused,  it is their right to an opinion.  Dr. Phil should stress this a bit more, as there are too many families at war over opinions...if one man is entitled to his, are we not ALL entitled to our own?  If we believe, and we are wrong, it's a mistake, if we don't and we are wrong, that too is a mistake.  It's very touchy, lives on either side can be ruined, and with the absence of any real evidence, the "MANDATED REPORTING" laws do more to harm, than to help.  You pick your belief to your best flawed by humanity judgement, hope you're right and procede to follow the course...but not the legal course...as it has been proven by this show, an expert witness can change the complexion of your stance, but more so, make a victim appear to be a liar...almost as cruel as the molestation.  Love, support and therapy...sometimes that's all you can offer.  If this man did it, he got a free pass and made a fool out of a victim and her supporters.  If he did not, then he deserves to be free.  But we DON'T and CAN'T ever know for sure, and there's got to be some major changes to serve in everyone's best interests...if not...this is heading back to the "good old days" of sweeping it under the carpet"...and those days were not so good.  Not being allowed your opinion is not much better...that goes for Dr. Phil and for all of us who have found ourselves in a very tragic situation.  O.K. for one...then it's O.K. for everyone...all you do is your best...and pray like crazy you are right.

The tax payers in the state of Indiana pay a great deal every year to support sex offenders and even their dangerous behaviors.  As our organization worked through the DOC and many other ways, to provide victim services and to teach empathy to offenders we were ask by an offender organization AIM (Aftercare in Indiana Through Mentoring) to join their operation acting as their counterpart to insure victim safety, educate their staff on victim issues, design and implement Restorative Justice programs, train graduate and undergraduate students in victimology, giving them 4-6 credit hours of criminology for working with our Exec. Dir., etc... AIM operates under the umbrella of I.U. and we decided to join them as AIM Victim Services.  At this point we had decades of experience with offenders and ended up with 10 years of experience and research on sex offenders exclusively.

As our Exec. Dir. and Dir. of Sex Crimes Div. worked on a high profile, first time for the state amelioration (referred to by others as a mediation) in a homicide, she used the opportunity to train the Exec. Dir. of the offender side of AIM.  We started getting clues about the true agenda of the offender organization.  During this first training opportunity the Exec. Dir. of AIM revictimized the homicide victim (or secondary victim - family) repeatedly.  Since this was a first time training we wrote it off as innocent mistakes.  The action that had the most impact, at that time, was when, despite being told to have NO contact with the victim's family, the head of AIM went behind our backs and contacted the victim's family asking them to sign a request for the release of the offender.  The student (head of AIM and recipient of hundreds of thousands of tax payer dollars) was sternly warned.

The abuse of Indiana victims and survivors not only continued but as we got deeper into the program we found the abuse also extended to the students that had internships with them, staff and especially the staff and clients of Victim Services.  Not only was this offender organization behaving as offenders on the tax payer dime, but they were teaching the offenders terrible behaviors, modeling terrible behaviors, colluding with them and actually helping some to avoid consequences.

The victims they had us luring in were terribly abused and we had to stop having any classes or groups in that office.  The abuse of not only the students, victims and Victim Services was coming from the staff of AIM and their Exec. Dir. refused to interfere. The training he wanted Victim Services to do - he never allowed.  Students were lured in from I.U. and treated terribly but had little recourse since their grade was dependent on the offender organization and the Dir. who, like offenders, always had his best, most compassionate "face" on.

After completely moving our program away from them because of constant and often shocking behavior from the offender organization, we got a call asking us to house an offender.  Had the request come two weeks earlier our Exec. Dir. would have had access to the DOC records.  She had just gotten back from working with human & animal trauma survivors in NOLA and we had decided to halt the DOC program. This decision was due to AIM's, the DOC's and a new Superintendent's determination to implement dangerous and abusive programs in Indiana.  We had provided the victims services for the facility for 10 years without a single bad outcome and raving praise.  Now they tried to force us to do things that were not only dangerous to us, the victims involved but the community in general.  Rather than compromise victim and the communities safety we halted our involvement.  Anyway-

We house battered women, rape victims and the homeless.  We received this call to house an offender and were told by the Exec. Dir. of AIM  that he had never committed a violent crime and had been terribly victimized - needing our help.  After he assaulted our Sex Crimes Dir. he claims AIM assisted him in evading arrest.  He then terrorized the victims on the property to the point of having to also halt offering them housing.  We found out that not only did he have a long history of assault but had assaulted the staff members of AIM.  They knew this and put all of the victims at risk, as they do the citizens of Indiana. 

When cutting ties with AIM we heard the line they often use when discovered, "You'll never work in this town again."  We are certain they have lured another victim organization in to make it look like the victim's of these offenders matter to them.  They put the community at risk by assisting the offenders in maintaining their thinking errors and even evading law enforcement.  Your tax dollars pay for this in the State of Indiana and I am certain these programs exist all over the U.S. without citizens knowing that when they go to work and pay their taxes, they are assisting offenders victimize.

I.U. was notified about the danger of this program along with the DOC and even the Governor's Office.  The State Victim Advocate (through the DOC) has revictimized the citizens and AIM operates apparently accountable to no one when they do harm.  This is ALL politics and doing what is in the best interest of victims requires telling powerful people and organizations things they may not like.  Many victim orgs do not feel free to do the right thing because they may jeopardize their funding.

I have no advice as to how to stop this.  Just a warning that it's going on. With the victims of these orgs we are currently producing a documentary.  Please feel free to contact us if you need info, but answers, at least to this problem, we don't have.  You can contact us at victimservices@ccrtc.com or call the hot line at (765)2922590.  If you have stories about being revictimized by service providers etc... we are interested in hearing from you for the documentary, web site posting etc...

Amanda Stone

Dir. of Funding Resources

Real Estate Dev. & Acquisition

Trust for the Human & Animal Restoration Project (T-4)

Jasper Jameson

Dir. Sex Crimes Div.

T-4