Why children will continue to be abused

A reader sent me this link of a YouTube video prepared by a video blogger about the Investigative Discovery show Children of the Snow.  This woman understands the horror of the combination of rich, powerful men and pedophelia and child pornography.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kREQSncAK-c  See working link in comment section.

Here we are more than four decades after the Oakland County child murders (and Frank Shelden’s N. Fox Island boys’ camp/house of horrors), and we get terrible current-day reminders of how men in powerful positions get to bend the rules after they sexually abuse and rape children.  These are monsters and the people who protect them and cut deals are not much better.

Consider the “no prosecution” agreement that benefitted ultra-wealthy American financier, pedophile and registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, overseen by then U.S. Attorney for Southern Florida (and now Trump’s labor secretary): https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-cabinet-member-s-leniency-toward-sex-offender-stirs-outrage-1387897923761

In this segment on The Rachel Maddow Show, Marci Hamilton, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses the shocking discrepancy between the nature of the sex crimes Epstein is accused of and the very light and unprecedented sentence he received in a deal overseen by Acosta.  That “no prosecution” agreement sounds a lot like that nolle prosequi deal admitted admitted child rapist and abuser Chris Busch got from Oakland County.  Nolle prosequi is a Latin phrase meaning “will no longer prosecute,” and amounts to a dismissal of charges by the prosecutor.  Right, Dick (“No deals!) Thompson and L. Brooks Patterson?  As Professor Hamilton points out, this is why children continue to be abused.  If a kid crosses paths with a pedophile, god help him or her, but if it’s a rich pedophile, it’s almost always game over.  Hamilton observes that failure to protect children is a failure across our culture, which makes the problems of children irrelevant and protects these men.

Hamilton is the founder and CEO of Child USA, whose mission is “to investigate, impact and inform the laws that should protect our children and their civil liberties to keep them safe from abuse.”  https://www.childusa.org/

There was another recent reminder of how the Catholic Church has used its power and influence to protect pedophile priests at every turn. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/illinois-attorney-general-catholic-church-priest-abuse.html  The Illinois attorney general found the Catholic Church in Illinois withheld the names of at least 500 priests accused of sexual abuse of minors.  The AG issued a scathing report accusing the church of failing victims of clergy sex abuse by failing to investigate their claims and/or finding lame reasons to dismiss the claims.  The report tries to quantify the vast gap between the number of accusations made by victims who dared to contact the church and the number of accusations the church deemed credible.

This is further evidence that the church is utterly incapable of investigating itself and that kids will continue to be abused by priests.  A powerful institution running defense for criminals at the expense of children’s safety and lives.  Go back to the Child USA website and read about how statutes of limitations protect these freaks.  First they take advantage of a child and then they use the passage of time in a situation where victims rarely speak up immediately after the abuse (if ever), to cover their own cowardly asses.

Conversely, consider this awesome use of energy and channeling of grief in the case of Sierah Joughin, 20, who was abducted and murdered in the summer of 2016 by a man who was previously convicted of abduction.  http://www.sierahslaw.com/  Her family was the impetus behind Sierah’s Law, a proposal to create Ohio’s first geographically searchable registry of violent offenders. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/sierahs-law-database-of-violent-offenders-unanimously-passes-ohio-house-85-0

Another reader messaged me tonight and reminded me that truth is stranger than fiction.  But fiction parallels truth.  In the 2010 film Edge of Darkness, “Captain” Jedburgh describes how a case, especially one with political or influential overtones, can go unsolved.

“Jedburgh:  Now, you know better than anyone, cases like these are never solved.  They’re simply too complicated, too much hard work.  There’s a lot going on out there in this world.  And you can just never connect A to B.

Thomas Craven:  How do you know that?

Jedburgh:  Because I’m usually the guy that stops you connecting A to B.  It’s part of what I do.”

Jedburgh’s explanation is very instructive in the OCCK case:  “Anyone who looks at the rest of this is going to see something happened but no one’s going to be able to figure it out.  That’s your objective; to make it so convoluted that anyone can have a theory, but no one’s got the facts.”

Michigan State Police Lt. Robertson closed his letter to my parents informing them that the task force would be shutting down in late 1978 without any answers with “godspeed.”  I’m sure it was an earnest prayer for the arduous journey the living take after a death like this.  But looking at where this thing has ended up, it just might as well have meant  “you’re fucked.”