Kids recant abuse claims after dad jailed 20 years

[babylonsister]

Kids recant abuse claims after dad jailed 20 years

July 11, 2009 07:22 PM EST | AP


VANCOUVER, Wash. — Former Vancouver police officer Clyde Ray Spencer spent nearly 20 years in prison after he was convicted of sexually molesting his son and daughter. Now, the children say it never happened.

Matthew Spencer and Kathryn Tetz, who live in Sacramento, Calif., each took the stand Friday in Clark County Superior Court to clear their father's name, The Columbian newspaper reported.

Matthew, now 33, was 9 years old at the time. He told a judge he made the allegation after months of insistent questioning by now-retired Clark County sheriff's detective Sharon Krause just so she would leave him alone.

Tetz, 30, said she doesn't remember what she told Krause back in 1985, but she remembers Krause buying her ice cream. She said that when she finally read the police reports she was "absolutely sure" the abuse never happened.

"I would have remembered something that graphic, that violent," Tetz said.

more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/11/clyde-ray-spencer-impriso_n_230096.html

[BlooInBloo]

1. Sigh. Too hard to know which is wrong. What was said then, or what is said now.

[paulsby]

2. these cases are sad and too common

the worst was the whole mcmartin preschool thang. it's not just that people lie, but that kids are SO frigging susceptible to suggestion, etc.

[Historic NY]

6. its a zealot mentality.

[politicat]

Everybody is susceptible to suggestion.

In a stressful environment -- and being questioned by cops is stressful for the most angelic, law-abiding, self-assured person -- repeated questioning will eventually lead to a capitulatory response.

It's been used since at least the Inquisition.

[Horse with no Name]

20. One of the worst offenses was also surrounding the kidnapping/murder of Kelly Wilson

in Gilmer, Texas. It was horrific what the people who were supposed to protect those kids did to them. I caught a 48 Hours a couple of years ago with one of the boys (now a man) confessing about what the kids underwent so that they could just go home. It was a terrible abuse of power. It was a very fascinating case study and there are plenty of internet references if someone is interested--this isn't necessarily the best one, just the most convenient.

http://www.skepticfiles.org/misctext/whunt2.htm
>>>snip
The first victim in this convoluted story was a 17-year-old girl named
Kelly Wilson. Kelly worked at a video store in downtown Gilmer and was
last seen leaving the store to make a bank deposit She vanished at about
8:30 p.m. on January 5, 1992, and her body has yet to be found. The
deposit was made, yet her car was found outside the store with slashed
tires. As it turned out the tires were slashed by a 17-year-old
skateboarder who had slashed quite a few tires that night. He was
questioned in the case, but it was deemed unlikely that he had anything
to do with Kelly's disappearance.
>>>>snip
The witch hunters weren't satisfied and contacted the Department of
Public Safety (DPS). They have their own expert in SRA, Stephen Baggs.
Baggs brought in another expert Brooks Fleig. Fleig is a police chaplain
from Louisiana who was a local preacher with cop car keys. Baggs and
Fleig trained the social workers to look for SRA and were paid $45/hour
to find it. Guess what? They "found" it.

A warrant was exercised in May 1993 on the Kerr home and the police tore
the home apart. Under intense questioning, one kid expanded his story
from sexual abuse to claims of baby killing. The two truck-driving Kerr
men supposedly abducted babies, took them home and slaughtered them in
the backyard. Baggs and Fleig used infrared photography along with
every other high-tech trick available to them to get evidence for mass
killings. They came up with nothing.

The affidavit used to get a search warrant had become public with its
horrific stories of sexual abuse and satanic rituals. There was a media
explosion and the media were caught up in the sensational story of the
Kerrs being Satanists. As Pusey said, "Truck drivers yes, Satanists
no." For one thing, people who actually invoke the name of Satan in
their rituals do not, in any way, fit the Kerr profile. Baggs and
Fleig, despite their findings, claimed to have vast evidence for SRA.
Sgt. Brown was called.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

3. Heartbreaking

The children were manipulated and the father was falsely imprisoned. Now the father has lost 20 years of his life and the children are adults who spent most of their lives without a father.

[Chemisse]

4. And the too-zealous prosecutor gets off scott free

[47of74]

5. We've got way too many Nancy Grace types...

...who see the office of prosecutor as either their ticket to bigger and better political things, or as a way to punish and enslave others.

[malletgirl02]

7. Something similar

Didn't something similar happen in the 1980's or early 1990s in regarding daycare workers. It had something to do with them being accused of satanism, which might have been made up.

[sharesunited]

8. McMartin day care travesty among many other hysteria cases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_care_sex_abuse_hysteria

[Raine]

30. I live about 15 minutes from where the McMartin Preschool was

it's a disgrace what was done to those people, they lost EVERYTHING.

[lindisfarne]

9. What this shows is how easy it is to manipulate kids.Manipulation happens frequently in divorce.

Parents need to be very cautious about not badmouthing the other parent. All too often, a parent deliberately works to manipulate the kids' view of the other parent, but it can happen even if not consciously deliberate or if the parent is nursing his/her own wounds and not careful about what they're saying.

The parent may not create kids who say (and actually believe) something as bad as in this case, but they are subtlely & negatively changing the child's view of the other parent, and in doing so, harming the child.

[Maru Kitteh]

10. Not just children - Alan Alda did a fascinating NOVA about memory and suggestion

http://www.pbs.org/saf/1402/segments/1401-4.htm

[Schema Thing]

12. I have a friend who accused her father

after suggestion from a therapist. She was well into her twenties at the time, maybe even past thirty.

[seabeyond]

14. i had a friend too.

never knew what to believe. just supportive of her. her whole family denied when she confronted them in her 30's. she was really missed up

[woo me with science]

17. Her family needed support, and, sadly,

the most compassionate thing you could have done for her early in the process would have been to help her gently challenge the therapy and do reality checks.

Sadly, once they are past a certain point, they shut out anyone who questions the memories or the effectiveness of therapy. It is the most heartbreaking thing in the world to watch someone's life fall apart, and they still doggedly insist that the therapy is "helping" them.

[seabeyond]

24. she was an employ

i had gotten her and gotten to know her after the fact. and there was no way to even suggest. she was the most vulnerable person i had ever come across. i told her i am so damn good at manipulating people (getting them to work when i needed, ect...) but with her i never never never did it. she was too easy and willing. couldnt do it.

[woo me with science]

32. Well, if you got to her after she was heavily involved in memory recovery,

you probably couldn't have had much effect anyway; she would have shut you out immediately. Survivors usually cut off anyone who questions the memories, and they train each other to do the same, all in the name of protecting their "truth."

It is very much like a cult in that respect and many others.

I understand how hard it is to watch, and how impotent you can feel. I used to try to influence survivors directly. I still do when I can, but as time has passed, I have shifted more to other strategies where it seems the efforts are more fruitful (e.g., educating about the problem; helping clinics screen out recovered memory therapists before they are hired, and supporting the families left behind).

It means something that you saw her pain and wanted to help. I'm sorry.

[Schema Thing]

38. my friend is aware that the memories where manufactured

she has a relationship with her family now.

[seabeyond]

13. so true so true. further, kids themselves dont get it right. i dont know how many times my kids

have told stories about earlier years and i tell them, that did not happen. my youngest thought he had surgery on stomach or something when a baby. what???? i say. i forget what it was but nothing like what he had said had happened. how many years he thought something happened that didnt cause he didnt comprehend a story

all the times kids interpret their experience incorrectly

[TexasObserver]

11. There was an epidemic of these false claims in the 80s and 90s.

All centered around police, therapists or social workers who manipulated children and asked them leading questions until getting the story desired. A lot of lives were wrecked, a lot of families wrecked.

[woo me with science]

16. Recovered memory therapy is still a major problem.

The therapists have gone under the radar and talk now about "dissociation" rather than repression, but they are still helping clients (both adults and children) "discover" buried satanic ritual abuse and torture.

It is a crying shame that they get away with it.

[TexasObserver]

22. The FBI has consistently said there is zero evidence to support those claims, too.

The whole thing is literally a witch hunt similar to the Salem witch hunt, propelled by people who believe such nonsense as demons.

[woo me with science]

33. You are absolutely right,

and most people would be shocked if they realized to what extent it still goes on in every city in America.

Most people talk of the Satanic Panic and recovered memory therapy as though they were a thing of the past. They are very much alive and well. The therapists and "survivors" just tend to be a little more discreet about what they are doing, is all.

[mitchum]

18. Janet Reno made her bones as a prosecutor during those witch hunts

[TexasObserver]

25. many prosecutors did

Fundies played a big role in all that, too, as they believe evil lurks.

[woo me with science]

35. I was driving through the mountains recently,

through some little towns where the radio reception is very limited. At about midnight, a call-in Christian advice show came on. The host took a couple of quick calls about parenting and such. Then a woman called in who was struggling with intimacy with her husband. I listened as, for the next 45 minutes, this pastor/therapist worked on this caller to instill her with the idea that she had been sexually abused as a child, even though she had no memory of such things whatsoever. At the end of the call, the woman was given the telephone number to the Christian clinic where she doubtless will meet her new recovered memory therapist.

I wanted to throw up.

You are right....There is a huge network of Christian therapists who push this garbage. However, there are also many very left-leaning feminist therapists who have also been deluded into believing this crap, both because of poor education and because of political and social biases that blind them to the possibility that any suggestion of abuse, ever, could be false.

[mitchum]

15. If there were any justice, those brats would now go serve 20 years

[tkmorris]

21. Dude, they were ages 6 and 9

And apparently they were badgered relentlessly by this detective. Don't you think SHE should be the one going to jail?

[mitchum]

23. All three of them should be going to jail

[Horse with no Name]

26. No.

These kids were tools used by professional manipulators. There isn't a 6 or 9 year old around that could compete with that.

[mitchum]

28. I'm surprised to discover that I must have been a lot smarter and tougher...

than your typical nine year old.
And I did a lot of stupid things as a kid, but I never would have fallen for that particular type of manipulation.

[tkmorris]

34. I think you over-estimate your 9 year old self

I could be wrong obviously, but in my experience most people who think they'd have no problem handling a situation they've never faced are quite mistaken when the opportunity arises to prove it. You will never get that chance, but I would ask you to consider that it might be a tad harder to do than you imagine.

[woo me with science]

36. I agree.

I have seen some transcripts and videotapes of the interviews of some of the children who were involved in these sorts of witch hunts. Some of the interrogation was extremely intense, leading, pushy, and shame-producing, not to mention extremely persistent and repetitive. In many cases, it would have been difficult even for an adult to withstand.

I honestly have more difficulty sometimes with adults who become recovered memory "survivors." After sitting in the groups for years and listening to "survivors" at every stage of their indoctrination, I realize that there is an initial period during which the newcomers almost always doubt their memories and worry that they are making them all up.

Usually they express these doubts to the therapist or other survivors, but they are repeatedly reassured that they wouldn't be wondering about abuse if something hadn't happened to them. In fact, their very doubt is interpreted as evidence of how manipulative and terrorizing the abusers were.

Eventually, their belief is solid. However, there is definitely a window of time during which these adults must choose to go down a path of accusing innocent people of horrific acts of child abuse, despite their own grave doubts and the total lack of evidence.

[mitchum]

41. No, I found the whole God, Santa Claus, Easter Bunny thing pretty hard to swallow...

as a child. And those were GOOD things.
I do know myself.

[rucky]

40. How about the cop that engineered it?

[mitchum]

42. The cop and the ex-wife who encouraged the witch hunt should both find their sorry asses in prison

[realisticphish]

45. They were children, and were manipulated

Children tend to have problems separating fantasy from reality. That is, if they are told a story (like what an investigator might say) they can eventually incorporate that into their own memories as reality.

They didn't LIE, they were manipulated into having false memories. Memory is not a video tape. It can easily be distorted, even as adults.

[mitchum]

48. Well, if that's the case, then the statements of children should have NO legal validity

EVER

[realisticphish]

52. yes

that's how I feel, actually. Though it depends on the questioning techniques, in general children's testimony is useless without corroborating evidence

[fishwax]

46. 6-year-olds should be criminally liable?

[mitchum]

47. But now they are...adults

I'm not advocating that children go spend 20 years in prison

[fishwax]

49. so if a six-year-old does something illegal we should wait a few years and charge them as adults?

I understand your outrage, and share it towards overzealous prosecutors.

[Wolf-Were]

19. Really goes to show what the police

will do to get a conviction huh?

[t0dd]

27. Why did it take them 20 years to realize their absent father never molested them? nt

[mitchum]

29. Maybe it took them that long to realize that their mother was an unscrupulous bitch?

Apparently, she also encouraged the witch hunt.

[LoZoccolo]

51. That's what I want to know. n/t

[Raine]

31. Just last week someone on DU claimed kids never lie about

sexual abuse ... WRONG obviously they do and it happens often.

[seabeyond]

37. i think so too. n/t

[rucky]

39. If you ever want to ruin someone's life...

just accuse them of molestation.

The worst part is that cases like this are rare, but they cast a shadow of doubt over every legitimate claim of abuse.

[seabeyond]

43. ya.

same goes for rape. i am more pissed at women that use rape as weapon and lie, than actual rapists.... as odd as that may sound. pretty disgusted with rapist, but i see it that the person that yells rape knowing not true makes it that much harder for all victims in the future and that bothers me so.

generally the children that do this have a parent (almost certainly mother) that is using this. put her ass in jail

[cornermouse]

44. This is a classic neo-con theme

which is usually employed when trying to restrict government's ability to interfere in abusive households.

[mitchum]

50. The simultaneous sentimentalization and exploitation of children...

is a legacy of the Victorian era.
Since I'm not a Victorian, I don't engage in either practice.