Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 25, 1993 TAG: 9307250029
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
She likes the Washington Redskins, the Atlanta Braves and the Chicago Bulls.
This fall, she'll start sixth grade at a new school. She has the longest eyelashes you'll ever see.
When offered a soda, she requests Diet Pepsi.
She wears panty hose and a hint of makeup.
She looks older than you remember 11-year-old girls looking.
But then, this 11-year-old knows things 11-year-olds shouldn't.
She has known the unimaginable violation of being sexually assaulted - more than once - by her adopted father over a three-year period and allegedly by his father.
She has told her story too many times to count, again and again to her mother, police, counselors and lawyers.
She speaks matter-of-factly about such things as plea agreements, sentencing, parole.
About how her grades have dropped from the straight-A's she used to make.
She is lucky, though, because her mother believed her when she told her what her father had done to her. Because, her mother said, she knew first-hand how violent her husband could be.
Lucky because there was a conviction in his case. Her father, who is not being identified to protect the identity of his child, pleaded no contest to three charges of aggravated sexual battery. He was sentenced to serve four years in prison, then will be placed on probation for eight years.
But she is also unlucky, because she, her mother and her siblings - despite efforts to leave the man - were constantly driven back into the home, either because of believing his promises that he would get help or fearing his threats to harm them further.
It's a typical problem for children who are abused by a relative or loved one. The mother finds herself in the impossible situation of deciding to prosecute a man she once loved or who is the father of her children. And despite knowing that the environment is unhealthy for the children, women often don't have the resources - financial and emotional - to start a new life elsewhere.
In this case, the girl's mother would leave, but her husband's threats would bring her back.
"He was so nice; and two months after we got married, it was a disaster," the mother said.
Once charges are filed, the abused child may have conflicting feelings. While wanting to be free of the abuse, the child still may feel some sort of love or loyalty toward the abuser. If other, younger children are in the home, they may blame the child for pressing charges and sending Daddy to jail.
The 11-year-old knows when he is eligible for parole. She knows she doesn't have to see him again.
He pleaded no contest, he told them, because he didn't want to put the girl through the ordeal of testifying in court.
She says she wanted to testify, to tell her side of the story.
"I wasn't scared when we went to court," she said. She just wasn't sure what would happen.
"I didn't get to talk. I didn't get to testify," she said, but admits to this day she doesn't like to talk about what happened to her.
"It was really hard, and I hated it. I really hate it. I hated court and I also hated him. I can never tell how much I hated him."
She rolls her eyes in adolescent fashion when she recounts stories of how her father now claims to care for her.
How he sends letters and cards from jail. How he asked her to listen to a radio show when he was going to call in and wish her happy birthday.
"Like I was really going to listen to AM," she said with an adolescent's exaggerated disdain for anything as uncool as AM radio.
She views with distrust his claims of finding religion. He now quotes scripture in his letters home.
"Now he's faking like he's a Christian," she said. He often writes that "If I'd just read the Good Book," none of this would have happened.
She also disdains his apologies.
"Every time I saw him: `I'm so sorry.' I just said, `Shut up.' I got tired of listening to it."
The first accusations of abuse came in 1988. She and her mother didn't prosecute because he seemed remorseful. He promised to get treatment for a drug problem he blamed for his actions.
"I blame myself, because I actually believed it was the drugs and I believed him," the mother said.
He later adopted the girl, and she took his last name.
For a short time, the mother said, the man became the perfect father. He said he was going to counseling sessions. He'd return home with pamphlets on the topic. She later learned he never went to those sessions, but was attending Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous instead of sexual-offender sessions.
Three years later, the girl told her mother that her father had started touching her again, but she asked her mother to keep it secret.
"I was scared of him . . . because he said he'd hurt me and my family if I told anybody," the little girl said.
So deep was that fear that she leaped from the car as her mother drove to an appointment with social services when an agency worker - suspecting the abuse - called and asked the two to come in.
Once there, her mother tried - in a misguided sense of loyalty to her daughter's wishes - to honor her daughter's request and deny there had been any wrongdoing. In another room, the girl broke down and told what had been happening to her.
Social services pursued charges and promised to help the mother get free of the man.
The mother says she was only then finally able to leave him, "I guess because they provided me with the security and safety."
In the past, her family couldn't help her much because of the possible retributions.
"They knew the more they interfered the worse it was for us," the mother said.
Social services helped her find a place to live and offered other support, such as finding clothing for the children and calling her every day.
She filed for divorce a few weeks after her husband was charged.
Once, the girl went to a counseling session for children who had been sexually abused, and there was her best friend. The friend had been abused by her own grandfather.
The girl was at first surprised to see her friend, then glad to have her to talk to.
"I knew I wasn't the only one. I sort of had my doubts that I was alone," the girl said. "I just sometimes felt kind of worried."
Now, she's spending most of the summer with her maternal grandmother. Maybe it's an escape from her three younger siblings, ages 2 to 5, who miss their father and don't understand why he isn't coming home.
"We think that it's happened with some of my other brothers and sisters - the way they act - but we hope it didn't happen," the girl said.
Dealing with her siblings is just one of the problems she can expect to face.
Dennis Cropper, clinical services coordinator for the New River Valley Community Services Board's Mental Health Services, said long-term treatment is recommended for abuse victims who often have to cope with guilty feelings about the assault itself and its effects on the family.
"It can be tremendous," Cropper said. "Quite often, this guilt can be used by families" who try to cover up the abuse.
"It's quite obvious, from the number of cases that are coming to the forefront now, that these cases stick around for a number of years," affecting abuse victims well into their adult years, he said.
"Eighty percent of our entire caseload deals with victims of sexual offenses, including adults who may have been victimized as children."
The mother says that, if her other children say they were also abused, she doesn't think she could put them through the turmoil of prosecuting, after watching what her oldest daughter has gone through.
But the daughter is ready. A judge threw out charges against her grandfather in a jury trial. The girl still hopes to see him in court again, this time as a convicted child molester.
by CNB