an inch from murder - weblog

« Baltimore man pleads guilty to five rapes from the 1980s | Main | Hillsboro soccer coordinator nabbed on sex assault charges »

August 17, 2005

Molester's victims kept quiet

A decade ago, two families living in Sicklerville believed life was sweet for their daughters, who were 8, 9 and 10 years old.

The three girls had sleepovers with the daughters of another neighbor, played marathon Uno card games, and shared pizza dinners with each other's families.

None of the girls talked about what happened when they went to the home of one of those neighbors, an engineer who wouldn't let them use his personal computer without his supervision.

That supervision, the parents learned last fall, was so hands-on it was illegal.

The girls were fondled as they sat on the lap of the neighbor in front of the computer screen. For years, they never told anyone, not even each other.

The criminal sexual contact stopped before the girls reached puberty. The offender moved to Gloucester Township in 2002 and the victims drifted apart when they entered different middle schools.

But almost a year ago, one of the girls confided in a police officer about the abuse, and the officer, in turn, told that victim's mother. A younger sister next talked about the abuse as did their childhood friend, who lived only houses away.

The families are not being named in this story to protect the identity of the victims. Last week, they discussed the impact of learning of the abuse, reporting it to police, and enduring the 10 months that passed before the suspect, David Humphrey, pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of three children. The victims now are 18 and 19.

A plea agreement recommends Humphrey, 49, of Blackwood, receive a probationary term. The agreement requires him to undergo a psychiatric evaluation and comply with Megan's Law registration. He is due to be sentenced Sept. 9 by Superior Court Presiding Judge Linda G. Baxter.

Humphrey's attorney, Maury Cutler, last week declined to be interviewed about the case.

The victims speak

"It was hard to pinpoint when it happened. I had to focus on what I was wearing and work from that," said one of the victims, now 19.

Then came the waiting.

"Law and Order (the television show) ruined it for me. I thought they'd arrest him the day after I went to the police, that he'd be in jail," said the young woman.

She didn't expect the arrest and trial to be wrapped up in an hour, but neither the victims nor their parents expected to wait two months for an arrest.

Assistant Camden County Prosecutor Donna Spinosi, head of the child abuse unit in that office, "was very honest about what could happen," said the mother of one victim.

"She said it was one person's word against another's. It's not that they won't believe our girls . . . but she couldn't even guarantee a 50-50 shot at conviction. She said all he needed was one sympathetic juror."

Spinosi suggested the families think about what they could live with as a sentence if the suspect was convicted, but then they had to face the hard fact that none of the three victims had the emotional strength to testify.

"The only way to get jail time, we realized, was to revictimize the victims," said another parent.

The families also had to deal with feelings of guilt.

"I feel guilty that I let it happen, that I didn't shout at him to stop, and that I kept going back," said one victim.

"He took away something very important, a father's responsibility to protect his children. I felt like I let her down," said one father.

He said he learned parents have to be diligent about their children's safety.

"If you had asked me a year ago what a child molester looks like, I would have had a quick answer. I knew what he would be -- a guy with black hair going gray, wearing a T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up, maybe with a cigarette pack in the sleeve. He'd be driving a 9- or 10-year-old car, a Chevy, with some rust on it and a loud muffler.

"I never thought of a man who went to work at 5:30 in the morning in a suit and tie," he said.

Guilt is common

Experts who deal with sexual abuse of children said guilt shared by parents, and the victims themselves, is always present.

Dr. Z. Benjamin Blanding, an associate professor of psychology at Rowan University, and director of health, counseling, and psychological services for the Glassboro school, said therapy is essential to overcome the effects of sexual abuse.

"If the experiences aren't addressed, but are swept under the rug, there is an acquired kind of dysfunction that (victims) bring into their relationships. There's a lack of trust, anger about not being protected by their fathers and mothers. It's very much like post-traumatic stress syndrome. You may have an onset in three months or in years," said Blanding, who also is assistant vice president of student development at Rowan.

Blanding compared the effect of sexual abuse of a child to "a modest cut on your arm that gets infected. The cut goes away but the infection is still there. You may lose the ability to function with that arm. The treatment is the same. You squeeze out the infection. It's going to hurt but once the festering is squeezed out, the arm begins to heal.

"We still recognize the scar, but it can heal. Rehabilitation works," he said.

Similar to PTSD

Dr. Esther Deblinger, co-founder of the Child Abuse Research Education Service at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, based in Stratford, also compared the aftermath of a sexual assault on a child to post-traumatic stress disorder. Deblinger has developed a program that has been selected by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to train therapists on a national scale.

"We establish a comfortable atmosphere" and work with children and parents to talk about the abuse, said Deblinger. "Never talking about it doesn't mean you don't have worries and questions and concerns and confusion. It's very confusing for children."

The goal of a series of meetings with a therapist, Deblinger said, is to help victims "recognize that a crime happened to them and it's not something they have to keep secret and be ashamed of."

Deblinger referred to a startling report by Dr. David Finkelhor, a professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire, who found in reviewing records in the United States and Canada that one of every four girls and one of every seven boys experience a sexual assault by the time they reach 18. The assaults range from sexual contact to violent abuse, Finkelhor found, and his numbers do not include children who are exposed to an exhibitionist.

Victims and their families, said Deblinger, "naturally want to forget about it and move forward. But most children don't forget and they need to know it's OK to talk about it."

Parents feel guilty, she said, but the reality of the crime "is that none of us see it coming. Sex offenders have two objectives. One is to gratify themselves. The other is the child's silence."

Posted by Nealus at August 17, 2005 01:19 PM

Comments

Post a comment