Shane Crum – Victim of Injustice

I have been incarcerated since November 4th 1996 for a crime that I not only did not commit, but one that never even took place. I am fully aware of just how skeptical people will be to hear of a man in prison for a crime that never occurred. It is not only true, but the innocence project reported that a full one third of the innocent inmates in prisons are there for crimes that never happened. If folks have the ability to get passed that idea, a large portion of them will stop paying attention once they learn of the nature of the false charges that have placed me here. So, my entire case file (including all of the evidence files, and the original newspaper articles written about the trial) will be loaded onto the website www.unfair-justice.org. You can look at the evidence, and decide for yourself whether I am telling the truth or no. All I ask when you look at the files is that you remember what Sherlock Holmes said, “Remove the impossible, and whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth”. What people always fail to comprehend is it could happen to them as easily as it happened to me. If we as a people do nothing to stem the tide, many more will fall prey to an out of control “justice” system. If you are one of those who believe our justice system does not incarcerate innocent people, or that the appeal process is the quality control agent for invalid court proceedings, you are simply misguided. The innocent project cannot even get everyone they think are innocent out of prison.

Here is some history. Christine and I began dating in 1986. The two of us would move to Florida in 1988. My daughter K.C. was born on September 4th, 1991. I could never know just how much she would change my life for the better. Another thing I could never fathom is that K.C.’s own Mother, and members of Christine’s family, would eventually use my daughter as a pawn to put me in prison. When K.C. was born; she, her mother, and I all lived in Florida. It did not take very long to see that Christine and I had very different ideas of what we each thought was best for K.C.. An example would be while I was working for a Chevrolet dealership. One Saturday morning, on my day off, I had slept in. When I woke up, I went into the kitchen to make some coffee. After I got the coffee started, I leaned against the counter and noticed K.C. siting at the table eating a cereal bowl full of M&Ms and drinking a glass of Pepsi. I looked around the kitchen and did not see any dirty dishes or dishes in the strainer. We had plenty of breakfast foods (cereal, milk, eggs, etc…). So, I wondered what they had for breakfast. I asked Christine what K.C. had, and Christine replied, “K.C. is eating her breakfast (M&Ms and Pepsi). That undoubtedly started an argument. That no doubt was nothing close to an isolated incident, and we argued every time. It got so bad that Christine and I would separate a few times. Finally, we decided to move back to Ohio in 1994, to be near family. Upon our return, Christine and K.C. would stay with Christine’s parents, and I lived with my Mother. Not only would this cause the arguments to increase in quantity, but in ferocity as well. Through Christine’s mother (Linda), I would learn where Christine got her mothering skills. A few months later, and we were living together again, and the arguments began anew. Only this time, it seemed Christine’s entire family was in our fights. We talked it over and decided to end the relationship.

Christine and I split up in July of 1995. Christine and K.C. would again move in with Christine’s parents, and I moved in with my childhood best friend Sean Mowery and his two brothers Christopher and Mark Mowery. By October of the same year Christine, K.C., and Johnny Confalone (Christine’s new boyfriend) were living together. Johnny had apparently only been in Christine and K.C.’s live for a few short months. I had met Elizabeth (Beth) Blackstone and we began dating after Christine and Johnny were already living together. Sean moved into his own place around this time.

Between the months of October 1995 and December 1995, I would get called home from work on two occasions to authorize a doctor to put stitches in K.C.’s head. Christine and Johnny were leaving K.C. with Christine’s alcoholic grandmother while they went to amusement parks and the like. I do not know the exact details of how K.C. got injured while in Christine’s grandmother’s care, but after the second incident, I had enough. While on the phone with Christine a few weeks before Christmas, I told her that I would sue for sole custody should K.C. sustain another injury. I really did not want to do that. I just wanted Christine to take care of our daughter. At this point, Christine and Johnny had been dating for less than 6 months, and living together for less than 3 months. K.C. spent some time with my family for Christmas, and we even have a few pictures of that day on the website. A few short weeks after that and in January of 1996, I would learn I was being accused of molesting K.C. when I was told I was no longer allowed to have any contact with her. It was shortly after this that Beth and I moved in together (along with Beth’s daughter Kelsey), and she was fully aware of these accusations from the start.

Honestly, I did not know what to think. Not knowing what was really going on, I assumed Johnny had done something to K.C.. The police detective (Jill Stevenson) from the Perry Township Police Department would call me and ask if I would be willing to go to the police station to speak with her. Never being in a situation like this in my entire life, I told her I would need to call an attorney first. I had to call around to find an attorney, but finally spoke to one who advised me not to speak to them. I called detective Stevenson back and told her what the lawyer had said.

Over the next few days, I thought about it and came to the conclusion I needed to clear my name so the police could focus their attention on finding the person responsible. I was still under the impression something had actually happened. I called Stevenson to set up a time and day to speak with her, which I believe was in February 1996. I arrived at the police station with Beth. However, detective Stevenson refused to allow Beth into the room with us. I went into the room only to find Jill Stevenson had a woman (Theresa Niewandowski) from the Department of Human Services in the room. They started asking me the obvious questions, “Did you molest your daughter?”, to which I told them I would never do something like that. They also asked me if I knew why K.C. would say something like that. I told them that I had no idea. They also asked me if I would be willing to take a lie detector test, to which I said I would. They asked me if I would be willing to sign a statement indicating everything I had just told them, and I said I would. They handed me a piece of paper with 3 questions on it; “Did I ever molest my daughter? My handwritten response was “in no way shape or form” Would I be willing to take a lie detector test? handwritten “Yes!” and I cannot remember the third question at this moment, but that form is on the website.

I then left the police station. For the next few weeks, I would call them asking if they had the lie detector test ready for me to take, and they would always tell me no. Finally, they told me to stop calling and that they would call me when they were ready. I not only never got that call, but they never gave me the lie detector test, and later at trial the prosecutor convinced the judge to forbid me or my attorney from mentioning the fact I was willing to take it, and redacted that question from my statement. From that point on, I would not hear anything else about it. Strangely, looking at the so-called evidence files, it would seem their investigation ended around that same time as well.

I went on with my life the best I could, but this stayed over my head. In late October, Beth and I broke up, and I moved in with my childhood best friend Sean Mowery. Then on Election Day, November 4th 1996, the phone rings around 8pm. Sean answers it, and then hands the phone to me saying the call was for me. I take the phone, said “Hello?”, and a man identified himself as a Stark County Sheriff Deputy. He asked me where I was, to which I responded, “I am at home, what does this pertain to?”, and he told me, “I cannot tell you that!” I asked him where he was, and he told me he was at a “7eleven” just up the street. I gave him directions to Sean’s apartment in “Perry Colony Hills”, and hung up the phone. Sean asked me who that was, and I told him it was a Sheriff Deputy, and that they were coming to arrest me. I then began putting on my coat, while Sean kept saying they were not going to arrest me. A few moments later, the doorbell rings, Sean buzzed them in, and they knocked on the apartment door. Sean answers the door, and I was arrested. I did not run nor flee. I believed that they were making a mistake, and the judicial system not only worked, but that I would be exonerated and the real culprit found and prosecuted. Remember, to my knowledge, I still thought something had actually happened to my little girl at this time.

I called Mom, and told her I needed a lawyer. Mom hired James B. Lindsey to represent me. Lindsey showed up and I told him I was innocent and that I would not take any plea bargains. He told me that he had a duty to inform me of the prosecutors deal. I said, “Okay! What is it?” He told me they offered a sentence of 10 to 25 years in prison if I would plead guilty. I told him definitely not, that I was innocent, and I did not want to hear anything about any more “deals”. A week or so went by, and Lindsey would show up again. This time, he had a portion of the “discovery”. Discovery is supposed to be the evidence they use to prove your guilt. Well, they did not give us everything, because they were also supposed to give us what evidence they had that also proved my innocence. What they had given us is on the website. I would not actually see any of these documents until years later. However, I instructed my attorney to give a copy to my family, and they would read them and pass them around to other friends and members of the family. The physical examination of K.C. was in the discovery, and it showed not only that there was absolutely no physical evidence indicating K.C. had ever been molested, but that there was nothing wrong with her at all. No DNA evidence, no bruising, nothing. I thought for sure the prosecutor and judge would see this, and I would be set free. That still left me to wonder why K.C. was saying the things she was. Even then, there were a lot of questions left unanswered. I went into that courtroom confident in my innocence, and that justice would prevail because the judicial system works. I did not account for regular citizens on the jury who would rely more on their emotions than the evidence and the truth. I also did not account for a prosecutor’s office who would be more interested in getting a conviction and simply punishing anyone, instead of the truth or justice. I was convicted and sentenced to 2 life sentences plus 2 years.

We hired an appeals attorney (James Manello), and began our appeals immediately. All the appeals we filed are also on the website. It would seem that the courts recognized the complete absence of evidence in my case, but they would continue to confirm my conviction for no other reason than K.C.’s statements. They kept coming back to, “Why would she say such things?” A question I could not answer for a very long time. We hired a third attorney (Nathan Ray), who would start the appeal process over again. He began by filing an open records request with the Perry Police Department

He would find statements from Christopher and Mark Mowery made to the detectives. Statements we had not seen before, and that validated everything we had been saying. It would seem that in one of the reports, K.C. had stated that Christopher was to have seen the alleged incident. When the detectives asked him about this, Christopher said that had never happened. We filed under Brady, but the courts ruled that we should have known about these statements if we applied a little due diligence. Denied again. It was during these last set of appeals that I asked Mr. Ray to send me copies of the discovery. I read over them again and again. I still could not explain the reason my daughter was making these claims. I would eventually hear about “False Memory Syndrome”, and I began to research everything I could find. One of the documents I read stated that “suggestive interview methods” could lead to false memories. So, I began to look into suggestive interviews. I would find a couple “peer review articles” on suggestibility, which are also on the website. One of the first articles I read was, “Suggestibility, Reliability, and the Legal Process” by Robert Rosenthal. It not only explained why K.C. would say some of the things she had, but why she continues to believe them to this day, and a road map on how to use this information in court.

We already have evidence of suggestive interview methods used in my case, and contained in the court record. There may be even more examples we have not seen, and possibly contained in the following documents;

1) Grand Jury Transcripts

2) Statements Made to Detectives and the Prosecutor by Johnny Confalone, Linda Mcnutt, Christine Mcnutt/Confalone, and K.C. Crum

3) The Recordings, notes and/or transcripts of Dr. Coleman’s, Nurse Practitioner Abbott’s, and Detective Jill Stevenson’s interviews and examinations of K.C.

THE REPORTS AND TRIAL TESTIMONY

None of the suggestibility or false memory” research mentioned was ever used in my case at any point. Johnny’s account of his interrogation of K.C. did not come out until he testified at trial. Obviously, Christine and I were in the middle of a bad separation, as is evidenced by all the lies she told the authorities about me during the course of the investigation. Christine’s initial response to Johnny telling her about the “open mouth kiss” was, “So!”, and then she would later state on the record that she witnesses K.C. performing sexualized acts. So, which is it? K.C. herself was 4 years old and in preschool at the time. She was obviously too young to comprehend what she was doing. Johnny’s account of his initial interrogation points to heavy-handed suggestive interview techniques. Johnny demonstrated a number of suggestive interview methods in his account. During Johnny’s testimony at trial, Johnny (a man who has been in K.C.’s life all of 6 months or less) waited for Christine’s (the mother of the child) to leave for work before he began to question her. K.C. was left alone with Johnny, the only adult, and he asked a 4 year old where she learned to kiss with an open mouth (which is both a specific and leading question) God only knows how long after the alleged incident. Johnny specifically told K.C. what he wanted to talk about. Johnny also stated that K.C.’s first response to that question was, “on T.V.” Johnny did not follow K.C.’s lead, but rather repeated the question and introduced the content about the kiss he wanted to discuss. K.C.’s second response was, “I don’t know!” according to Johnny’s testimony. He again ignored another alternative response for the one he was so obviously looking for. Johnny clearly had a response he wanted to hear from K.C., and was simply going to question her until he heard it. Only after repeated questioning did K.C. finally say, “Maybe Daddy!” Johnny says at this point K.C. was so upset and crying, that he had to put her to bed. Why was K.C. upset? She was clearly frightened and intimidated. What was Johnny’s demeanor? Was he threatening and hostile? Did Johnny force K.C. to suffer sleep deprivation? Was he yelling at her, or telling her she was dumb or lying? Did he indicate the interrogation would not stop until “she told the truth”? Did he deprive her of food, drink or bathroom breaks? Whatever it was, Johnny himself said she was upset. Yet, the mere mention of “Daddy” put an end to her nightmare, and Johnny rewarded her by allowing her to go to bed (the hallmark of negative reinforcement). “Maybe Daddy” was what everyone seems to believe was K.C.’s first statement of abuse. This statement was definitely not made voluntarily, freely given, spontaneous, nor a clear statement of abuse. All she did was mention “Daddy”. Not one statement of abuse or allegation was given by K.C. until well after Johnny’s interrogation, and even then only after a large number of “other interviews and conversations”. Either there exists an accusation prior to the interview corrupting the statement, or there is no reliable evidence, and Johnny’s interrogation was the initial and corrupting interview. Every subsequent report after Johnny’s interrogation should be viewed with extreme skepticism.

K.C. was interviewed or had multiple conversations a number of times by each of these; two case workers from the Department of Human Services, Stark County Prosecutor Office, Perry Police Department, Nurse Practitioner Abbott, Dr. Coleman (using anatomical dolls), during the Grand Jury, Christine, Johnny, Linda, other members of their family and friends, all before the prosecutor and defense attorney questioned her at trial. None of this is to mention the number of conversations about this non-event she has had in the years since. A large number of these interviews happened between Johnny’s interrogation and the trial. With each “interview” she would provide seemingly more peripheral details. K.C.’s accusations increased in quantity, and severity with each additional “interview”.

It went from learning an open mouth kiss on T.V., to daddy raped her at trial. K.C. is a victim of memory alterations due to all of these interrogations and interviews, and has resulted in her believing in a false memory. We still do not know if any of these interviews were recorded. The evidence shows that every one of those individuals ignored K.C.’s bizarre, inconsistent, and reluctant statements. They did not investigate, let alone acknowledge, the implausible reports, detractions, or denials. K.C. stated during trial, “We agreed that Shane is a bad man”. This is a textbook example of stereo-type induction. I wonder where K.C. got that idea. Using the court record alone, there can be no doubt suggestive interview methods were used on K.C. from Johnny’s interrogation and after.

Nurse Practitioner Abbott’s report, dated 2/7/96, was the earliest report in the discovery the prosecution sent to us, and was the actual physical examination of K.C.. Once an allegation of sexual abuse has been made, the physical examination should be the first thing to happen to collect evidence of any kind, including DNA. However, there are multiple statements by people involved that make it clear K.C. was “interviewed” by a number of individuals several times prior to the examination, and a full month between the accusation and examination. Everyone who “interviewed” K.C. did nothing more than ask K.C. to confirm the accusation, and not one of them re-interviewed K.C. after the physical examination reported no physical findings. Stranger still, not one of Christine’s family, or anyone “investigating”, thought to rush K.C. to the hospital to be examined to collect evidence or validate the accusation. Of course, we never received any recordings, transcripts, or reports of many of these interviews either. In his report, Dr. Coleman states that the initial accusation was made in January, but K.C. was not examined until February. It would appear that no one, including Christine’s entire family, the prosecution, nor the police, was truly concerned enough about the allegations to rush K.C. to the hospital. In Nurse Abbott’s report, on the page marked “historical data continued” there are boxes for Abbott to check. One column is marked as “patient” and the other marked “historian” with the word “Mom” handwritten next to it. Oddly, the majority of acts were not described by K.C., but rather Christine (the mother). Apparently, the worst thing K.C. describes is anal penetration by a penis (and is the first time K.C. made any statement that could be considered of a sexual nature), but Nurse Abbott does not find any physical evidence that supports any claim of physical trauma. With everything going on, all of this should have been called into question. This becomes more relevant later in the report, and as time goes on as the case unfolds. On the page marked “Narrative History of Incident”, it states Nurse Abbott and “Jamie Donohue” initially met with Ms. Mcnutt. This indicates much of the story being told is coming from Christine and not K.C.. Again and again, throughout the course of this so-called investigation, people were relying upon what others had to say, and not the “spontaneous” statements made by K.C.. This is because they had to wait until they had sufficiently coached K.C. on what she should say. This report goes on to say Johnny Confalone had moved in with Christine and K.C. only five months prior to the alleged incident (a very short period to his interrogation of K.C.). What the report does not say is that Johnny and Christine had only been dating since July, and one month prior to Johnny moving in with them. A grand total of 6 months prior to K.C. being left alone with Johnny during his interrogation of her. Is everyone supposed to believe K.C. just opened up to a stranger? It seems more than bizarre that K.C. did not say anything to anyone else, especially family, and before Johnny if any of this were true. Stranger still is how a couple of Christine’s family suddenly claim to have seen K.C. performing sexualized acts, but only after Johnny’s interrogation. Yet none of them thought to question K.C., get her examined, or mention it to the police. I guess they had more important things to do. This report adds a few details Johnny did not mention at trial. For example, K.C. supposedly saying her father taught her how to kiss with an open mouth, as well as other details that Johnny never claimed she said when he interrogated her. Some of which are extremely bizarre. The very next sentence in this report says, “K.C. was then interviewed alone by myself and Mrs. Donohue.” This means the entire account given to that point was given by Christine, and not by K.C.. According to them, the rest is an account given by K.C. which describes little if anything, and is considerably different than the details earlier in the report. The report says K.C. was in preschool, which the research says is the most vulnerable age for the influence of suggestive interview methods. The report also says when K.C. was asked if she knew why she was there, K.C. responded,” cause my other doctor came to my house to talk to me about my dad”. When asked what she talked about with the other doctor, K.C. replied, “cause my other doctor tried to call them private parts”. These statements are evidence of the fact not only that K.C. is not the one describing these sexual acts, but that she was interviewed by someone she considered to be a doctor (a person of importance) prior to the physical examination and of suggestive interview methods. The report says, “When asked what she talked to the other doctor about her private parts, she said, “My dad put his peepee here, here, and here””. These are leading questions that told K.C. what they wanted to discuss. Another such question in the report was when they asked, “if anything came out of his peepee?”

K.C. supposedly said, “He put his private parts inside my butt”, and then they asked her how that felt to which she replied, “I don’t know.” K.C. would have been traumatized by such an event had it actually occurred, and would have indicated as much. Moreover, Nurse Abbott would have found evidence to support that statement. This account also states that K.C. said Christopher (Mowery) clearly saw something going on, and is a statement K.C. would change when speaking to Dr. Coleman. The “physical examination data sheet” has a number of items they checked on K.C., and typed next to each one are the words “no trauma”. Next to the item “hymen (describe in detail)” is typed, crescentic, smooth, sharp rim; no tears or disruptions”. Yet, Nurse Abbott testified in court that a hymen could regrow. There are so many things wrong with these statements. How can you have penetration without damage to the hymen? Ask any women, and they will tell you a hymen cannot regrow. If for argument sake a hymen could regrow, wouldn’t there still be some tearing, scarring, or other indicators it had been damaged and regrown? In fact, some women are paying a lot of money to have their hymen surgically re-attached by a doctor. Why would they pay that kind of money, if all they needed to do is wait? Moreover, a claim about a hymen regrowing has never been supported by research, nor widely accepted by the scientific community. So, how then was Nurse Abbott able to testify as an expert in light of such a claim? The only written marks recorded on the diagnosis data sheet was to say an audio/visual recording was made of the examination, and these recordings may contain portions of the interview in question. Again, another page indicating no physical evidence. The evaluation summary page had a check mark next to the box that says, “No physical findings, history, and/or behavioral indicators consistent with”, and a typed section at the bottom saying that the physical examination indicates only the absence of residual penetrating trauma. The acts she describes can occur with no residual findings”. What acts did K.C. describe that could occur without physical evidence to support it? How can you have forced rape, and forced felonious sexual penetration (of a 4 year old by an adult) without residual findings and a hymen that could have been torn but then regrown, and nothing to validate any of it? How can you have the possibility of all these things happening and evidence of none of them? Nurse Abbott’s report and her subsequent trial testimony are full of inconsistencies and contradictions. The social work intake summary form gives Christine’s account and not K.C.’s. Nurse Practitioner Abbott can perform an examination, but is she also trained in the proper methods of questioning children? Unfortunately, Abbott’s report and testimony are not even scientifically sound. Was Jamie Donohue ever trained in the proper methods of interviewing children? They both obviously used suggestive methods, so it would appear they had no idea what they were doing. Additionally, the vast majority of this report relied upon Christine’s version of events and not K.C.’s. They relied upon the one person who had reason to lie, and ignored the physical findings they themselves reported.

Dr. Coleman’s report states the allegations were initially investigated by Denise Branson of the Stark County Department of Human Services, and Detective Jill Steveson of Perry Township Police Department in February of 1996. Yet, the report later states the allegations were made in January of 1996. What happened during that first month? He goes on to say that his first contact with K.C. and her Mother was on 4-11-96, and the “family” subsequently attended four out of 5 scheduled “sessions” through the writing of his letter dated 5-15-96. He would also write that K.C. was “interviewed” over the course of five sessions. This is direct evidence of “repeated interviews” (a form of suggestive interview methods). That is approximately 1 interview per week for four weeks, and it does not say how many interviews K.C. went through before that. Also, if K.C.’s family was present during these sessions, there can be no guarantee that K.C. was the only one answering Dr. Coleman’s questions. Moreover, Nurse Abbott’s report was completed in February of 1996, and it proved there was absolutely no physical evidence of K.C. being sexually abused. Why didn’t Dr. Coleman take any of that into consideration before he began his interview with K.C.? His report then states Christine’s false allegations about our relationship, but he never asked me a single question about it. If this is indicative of Dr. Coleman’s methods, then it would appear all he ever does is listen to one person’s story, and accepts that as fact. Apparently, Christine told Dr. Coleman that I had physically and verbally abused her from the beginning of our relationship that lasted years. Yet, no evidence of this abuse was ever presented at any time, by anyone. Again, this information was never considered. Such false and unsubstantiated claims are an indicator of a bad separation. Dr. Coleman also reports the alleged circumstances surrounding the initial so-called accusation. He mentions the attempted open mouth kiss, and the fact Johnny had questioned K.C. about where she had learned it. He reports only one of K.C.’s responses as being on T.V., and then says, “But upon further questioning, indicated that her father had taught her that type of kiss”. Coleman did not even question why no one accepted K.C.’s response about T.V. as being the truth. This not only shows interviewer bias at its best, but that it ran through every interview K.C. was put through. Every one of them wanted the molestation to be the truth they were after. Christine seems to tell Dr. Coleman that K.C. began to exhibit sexualized behavior around the age of 2.

Yet, Christine’s was never concerned enough to report any of this behavior. She never had a doctor look at K.C. during any of K.C.’s numerous check-ups. Christine never questions K.C. about it. I guess everyone who claimed to have seen K.C. exhibit this behavior was just waiting for Johnny to come into their lives so he could question K.C. after knowing her for only 6 months. Nothing and no one has ever produced anything to support Christine’s claims. These are simply baseless accusations told to make me look like a monster to people who do not know anything about me. Dr. Coleman’s report also said, “Unlike many children her age, K.C. required little time to emotionally prepare before detailing her allegations”. Here is an example of a non-abused child, seemingly credible and sincere, detailing events involving her own body, and showing appropriate facial expressions. Moreover, Dr. Coleman still did not see the obvious in front of him. He asked K.C. if she knew why she was visiting him, and she said, “because of the bad stuff Shane did to me.” When did K.C. start calling me “Shane”, and who told her it was “bad stuff”? This is yet another indication of stereo-type induction. When Dr. Coleman asked her what bad stuff, K.C. responded by listing several things she did not say to Johnny when he interrogated her. Some of that response was bizarre, and no one questioned it further. Dr. Coleman went on to say, “K.C. evidenced little upset while making these allegations”. As everyone knows, such events would be traumatizing to a 4 year old girl. So, why was K.C. showing little evidence of that? How many signs do you think Dr. Coleman ignored just to influence K.C. into confirming what he wanted to hear? Dr. Coleman said he asked K.C. if anyone told her what to say? He then asked her if Christine or Johnny told her what to say, and K.C. affirms they had told her to tell the truth. These are some very specific questions, and to a four year old child, there is a significant difference between asking; did someone tell you what to say?; are you telling the truth?; are you just joking? Or; did this really happen? The fact that Christine and Johnny had a conversation to tell K.C. to tell the truth is in itself evidence they were coaching K.C.. Dr. Coleman said he asked K.C. open-ended questions to “flesh out some of the details about the location and frequency of her father’s behavior”. As already shown, many of Coleman’s questions were far from open-ended, and he is telling her what answers he is looking for. Dr. Coleman’s report states that K.C. said the abuse only happened at her father’s friend (Christopher’s) house. It is true that I moved in with Christopher, Mark and Sean Mowery on Lyncrest in late July early August of 1995, and Christine herself said overnight visits were stopped at that time. I was told by Christine the police said I was not allowed to see K.C. by early January of 1996. This is where a few contradictions come into effect. The “amended bill of particulars” from the prosecution says that all of this happened between September 1st. 1994 and January 31st 1996, and at three locations of 725 3rd St.; 13th St. and Lyncrest. Christine said K.C. had been exhibiting sexualized behavior since the age of 2, which coincides with the prosecutions amended bill of particulars. Unless there is another statement made by K.C. the prosecution withheld, then the bill of particulars is wrong and Christine lied. The prosecutions bill of particulars follows Christine’s story and not K.C.’s. Every time a report is made, it indicates Christine is describing the events and not K.C., and as time passes, only then does K.C. say anything. Why did not one of the so-called professionals investigating this case catch any of that? No one needs to wonder why Christine would lie about these alleged behaviors she supposedly saw “years” prior and the conjectured abusive relationship. Dr. Coleman asked K.C. if anyone (more specifically Christopher or Mark Mowery) had seen the abuse occur. Is that an open-ended question? To know to ask that question, Coleman would have had to read Abbott’s report, because Abbott recorded that K.C. stated Christopher saw me naked in the kitchen. So, Coleman would have known there was no physical evidence to support any claim of abuse. Why then is he trying to flesh out the location and frequency of the abuse? K.C. apparently told Coleman that they (Christopher and Mark) were always at the store. So, K.C.’s story changed here as well, and only after Christopher made a statement declaring that account about seeing me in the kitchen naked never happened. Do we need to continue wondering where K.C. was coming up with all of this as time went on, and details could not be validated? Dr. Coleman says he used anatomical doll with K.C. (a 4 year old). Study reports 2 years before any of this took place proved that anatomical dolls should not be used on young children; they increase false reports of sexual abuse in non-abused children. Did K.C. draw the supposed “picture of my penis” before or after playing with the dolls? Additionally, Dr. Coleman says he got K.C. to demonstrate her allegations by attempting to put the dolls penis inside the other dolls vagina, only to ask K.C. how that felt. Is this another one of those open-ended questions? Coleman clearly asked K.C. to use the dolls as a representation of herself. Why is Coleman continuing to ask questions like this when he knows there is no evidence to support claims of abuse? Coleman wrote in his report that K.C. would be sufficiently emotionally stable to withstanding the rigors and stresses of a formal hearing process, and it would be helpful to provide K.C. with pretrial preparations to ensure her competent testimony. Again, another form of suggestive interview methods “repeated interviews”. If K.C. was so articulate in her interviews with Coleman, then why would she need prehearing preparations?

You mean to say, to this point, her testimony was not competent when she spoke to anyone? Dr. Coleman writes that Christine believes K.C.’s accusations. She did not seem so convinced in her testimony at trial. Nevertheless, she would need to keep some semblance of belief to achieve her true objective. Coleman reported K.C. was repressing a variety of emotions regarding her father that including fear, hurt, anger, and digest. Moreover, these emotions became more evident during her demonstrations with the anatomical dolls. Again, the studies on the use of anatomical dolls, Coleman (in his line of work) should have been aware of, indicates the children’s rejection of the suggestion to pretend the dolls were a representation of themselves, and using them caused the children anxiety when asked to do so. Yet, this is exactly what Coleman asked of K.C.. K.C.’s emotional expressions were related to the instruction to use the dolls and not indicative of her feelings toward me. Coleman suggested, and Christine accepted, additional therapy sessions for K.C. that would cover the emotional and “educational” aspects of her alleged abuse. All of these repeated questions and interviews are suggestive interview methods. More notably, they are the very foundation for a child to develop a false memory of an event that never occurred. Christine, Linda, and Johnny all knew K.C. was never sexually abused. Yet, they each allowed K.C. to endure suffer through a physical examination, multiple interviews and interrogations, and years of repeated conversations in which they kept telling her she had been abused. What kind of people would do that to a child, and worse still, a child in their family?

Research shows that experts and professionals could not distinguish between reports of actual events and those produced by suggestive means. Denise Branson, Theresa Neiwondowski, Jill Stevenson, Nurse Abbott, and Dr. Coleman are not exceptions to this fact. They each ignored the absence of physical evidence and never once tested the validity of these allegations. All of which became extremely apparent in Abbott’s physical examination of K.C.. In fact, the physical examination came well after K.C. already had multiple interviews and interrogations starting with an alleged kiss. How many of these so-called experts and professionals re-interviewed K.C. once the absence of physical evidence became known, and with the lack of physical evidence as the main proponent in those interviews. Dr. Coleman is the only one to interview K.C. in hind-sight of the physical examination and, he completely ignored it. All any of them ever seem to do, was nothing more than attempt to affirm what they already believed. Not one of the professionals in my case used the complete lack of evidence as a basis to ask questions, nor did they make a single attempt to test an alternative hypothesis. Once the complete absence of physical evidence became clear, the investigators should have made a determination as to the circumstances in which the alleged accusations were made, the methods that produced them, how many times K.C. was interviewed, who she initially disclosed the abuse to, at what point the suspicion of abuse became crystalized, and if any spontaneous allegations of abuse were initially present. No such determinations were ever made in my case. In the absence of evidence, the case rests primarily on the results of the interviews, and how the accusations were obtained. No one concerned themselves with the context of Johnny’s interrogation of K.C.. No one ever asked K.C. any common sense questions like; did this really happen, or are you just pretending?; did you see this happen or did someone tell you it happened?; are you sure this happened or are you telling a joke? Despite the prosecutions best efforts, not one accusation was ever proven to be freely given and/or spontaneous. The judge never held a hearing to determine if K.C.’s statements were reliable, even though they did hold a hearing to determine if K.C. was competent to testify after all of those interviews and interrogations. All of this needs to be looked in to.

A SYNOPSIS OF THE PEER REVIEW ARTCLES ON SUGGESTIBILITY

The decades leading up to 1994, saw an increase in the research on the accuracy of the memories of young children and how they can be molded by an adult interviewer. Not one study shows that suggestive interview methods do not corrupt a child’s report. The research shows preschoolers are the most vulnerable to suggestive questioning, and have difficulty in separating personal experiences as opposed to hearing about an event. They have difficulty in distinguishing between actual events and self-generated acts they imagined. They simply have trouble remembering where they learned specific information. One study indicates that suggestibility effects on young children reflects the tendency for them to believe they remember seeing details that were only suggested to them. Scientific research shows a substantial percentage of young children can be led to make false reports of events that never happened, and include events involving their own bodies that would have been traumatic had they actually occurred. Reasonably, many researchers believe the evidence is such that they anticipate even larger numbers of erroneous reports of sexual abuse. There are reliable effects in children’s suggestibility. Our memories of the first few years of life are likely to be the product of family rehearsal, recitations, and the retelling of stories. A child’s seemingly credible, yet highly inaccurate report of sexual abuse are likely a combination of repeated interviews with persistent and intense suggestion that build on prior stereotypes. A study showed that children who gave inaccurate reports seemed sincere, had appropriate facial expressions, and narratives of accounts that were full of peripheral details the children imagined.

Many researchers believe that children and adults who testify about events from the past may be victims of memory alterations resulting from suggestive interview methods by parents, therapists, and others. Thus, creating a lifelong false memory of an event that never occurred, belief in these false memories by the unsuspecting victim, and then giving vivid detailed accounts about these events. Studies show that children who agreed to false events during the initial interview were more likely to agree to them in subsequent interviews, and these children clung tenaciously to those claims despite the best efforts of the parents and therapists to explain the event never happened. Every subsequent report of sexual abuse from a child should be highly suspect once suggestive interview techniques have been used. The most elaborate circumstances of tainting would occur in cases where those interviews, even by parents, were not recorded.

Suggestive interview methods includes; interviewer bias, interviews by adults with high status, repeated questioning, selective rewards and punishments, repeated interviews, stereo-type induction, leading/misleading questions, and peer pressure. Maximum leading questions are aggressive, have accusatory and intimidating atmosphere, use harsh words, have questions that are asked in rapid succession, use nonverbal behaviors that communicate threats and hostility, include questions that tell the child what the interviewer wants to discuss, does not follow the lead of the child’s response but rather introduces the context, and often communicate the interviewers desired response. Maximum leading questions usually result in the child being intimidated or frightened. A child can change their answers because of uncertainty, perceived authority of the interviewer, the child’s desire to terminate the questioning, or the child feels they must have given the wrong answer. Repetition suggests the interviewer is unhappy with the child’s answers. A number of studies show that asking a child the same question repeatedly within an interview, or across interviews, often results in a child changing their original answer. Punishment has also been used in some interviews. The axiom that children never lie about abuse cause investigators to have the assumption the abuse occurred, and their task is simply to validate the accusation. Interviews would be conducted from the standpoint to simply get the child to admit the abuse happened. If the interviewer has a bias that the child was sexually abused, it would color their view of their interpretation of what the child said or did. Once the adult stops asking questions when the child gives the answer the interviewer is looking for, it reinforces the false answer and leads to the same false answer being given to the same or similar questions across multiple interviews. False allegations can occur without the deliberate complicity of the child, and parents caught up in a custody dispute could generate a false allegation that the child will come to believe. Children are quick to pick up on the emotional tone of an interview and act accordingly. The emotional tone can convey threats, bribes, and rewards. The children are also sensitive to the status and power of their interviewer, and will comply with their agenda. This single-minded attempt to gather only confirmatory evidence, avoiding or ignoring evidence contrary to the interviewers predisposed belief, and ignoring bizarre statements is interviewer bias. Stereo-type induction is to repeatedly tell the child a person is bad or has done bad things. The child begins to incorporate this belief into their reports. A full one third of the children in a study began to embellish on the stereo-type inductions in their reports, and always in the direction of the stereo-type.

The highest ratio of accurate to inaccurate testimony is obtained in the first interview. Frequent repetitions of questions could lead a child to feel there was something wrong with their first answer, and result in them changing their answer to provide the responses the interviewer is looking for. Changes in a child’s answer are greatest when they receive negative feedback. When an interviewer becomes impatient with the child during an interview, it could lead to children giving convincing detailed reports of abuse that are false. A review of interviews of children suspected of being sexually abused revealed interviewers blindly pursue a single hypothesis that abuse occurred. A study showed that if an interviewer’s belief is contrary to what the child actually experienced, the interview is characterized by an overabundance of misleading questions resulting in children giving highly inaccurate information. Many of the children in that study initially stated details inconsistently, or with reluctance, or even denials, but the interviewer persisted until the children abandoned their denials and hesitancies. Kindergarten children were most inaccurate in answering the first misleading question, and are more likely to change their answers to incorporate the interviewer’s desired answer. Not only can the misinformation become directly incorporated into the child’s subsequent reports, but it can lead to fabrications being incorporated into additional reports.

A child giving a false response creates its own memory and is perceived to be true. One study demonstrated the implantation of false memories. The tenacity by which people hold onto false memories, and the length of time they hold onto them, shows no court could determine the difference between a true allegation and a false one. Any hope of recantation (even under the guidance of a psychologist) years later is futile. The longevity of suggestibility is primarily influenced by the strength of the suggestion, the forcefulness of the suggestion, reinforcements of reports of abuse, negative reinforcements, ignoring denials retractions or implausible reports,

creation of accusatory atmosphere, the perceived authority of the person doing the suggesting, the use of threats and bribes, the suggestive use of anatomical dolls, continuing to think about the suggested event talking about the suggested event, and/or hearing others talk about them. All of which can serve to solidify and strengthen these false beliefs and reports. Suggestive interviews continue long after the initial interview and may provide a permanent architecture of suggestion that will maintain the child’s false beliefs and allegations. The mere magnitude of the reported suggestive questions could increase the number of false reports, cement the belief in the child’s mind, and produce even more details. The end result is that the child’s beliefs and reports may be permanently tainted.

The interviewer should not reinforce nor selectively reward information that confirms a given point of view, and should be willing to gently challenge a response to test it. The tone should communicate the interviewer will accept all of the child’s answers and not just those that conform to what the child thinks the interviewer wants to hear. In the absence of physical evidence, every interviewer who is investigating child abuse cases should ask some of the following common sense questions; was the child being questioned when the disclosure was made?; was there a clear statement of abuse?; what response did the child give when they disclosed the abuse?; what was the context of the abuse? I.e. are the parents in a custody dispute, is there conflict at home; is there evidence the child previously had a heightened awareness about sexual matters? did the person to whom the child made the report have a preconceived bias about abuse?

Anatomical dolls encourage children to engage in sexual play and are suggestive even if the child has not been abused. Children in several studies rejected the suggestion to pretend the dolls were representations of themselves, and at the time, professionals viewed this reluctance to play with the dolls as an indication of abuse. The use of these dolls is known to increase inaccurate reporting of various types of touching. The sexualized behavior in relation to these anatomic dolls does not reflect a child’s sexual knowledge or experience. The types of questions and props used in these interviews make the child think it is permissible and expected to respond to the questions using the interviewers own terms. These dolls serve as non-verbal suggestive devices. Research suggests these dolls ought not to be used with young children, and they promote false reports in non-abused children.

Absent physical evidence, a confession, or an adult witness, and if the accusation by a child is not freely given; it is crucial to know the circumstances by which the statements were disclosed, and the methods that produced them. One should not only be concerned with the actual question, but also with the context of the interview. Aggressive, coercive, and biased interview methods have been used on children. When disclosure was not spontaneous or was made in response to prompting, or the adult is predisposed to believe the child was abused, then the allegations should be viewed with skepticism. Studies show children incorporate misinformation from earlier interviews into subsequent reports which lead to fabrications and inaccuracies. A few studies also revealed repeated questioning by multiple people can be harmful to a child and traumatize them. It is important to determine how many times a child had been interviewed, to whom the child first disclosed the abuse and under what circumstances, at what point did the suspicion of abuse become crystalized, and whether a spontaneous allegation of abuse was initially present. An accusatory or intimidating context leads to increased errors in a child’s report. In cases where physical evidence does not exist, the case rests primarily on the results of the interviews.

Professionals in psychology, law enforcement, social work, and psychiatry in several studies could not distinguish between reports of actual events and imagined events produced by suggestive means, and were noted as “disturbingly unreliable”. A number of research reports concluded just how inaccurate professionals were in determining the difference between a child’s accurate and inaccurate reports of sexual abuse. The ability of professionals and clinicians to identify abusive parents was lower than chance. Professionals overestimate their ability to identify the perpetrators, and they should have overhauled their own hypothesis because of the difficulty to make valid assessments based on tiny samples of behavior. Improper, leading, and even coercive methods have been far more common than either mental health practices, social science, of legal practices should tolerate.

Most of the facts about pretrial interviews will not come out until trial. Either there exists accusations made prior to the suggestive interrogation corrupting the child’s statement, or there is no reliable evidence available. Defendants have a Constitutional Right to be prosecuted by only reliable evidence, and a Grand Jury verdict based upon bad information cannot be supported. It is the conduct of the interviewer that is the focus and basis for excluding such statements. If the record reveals suggestive methods were used, other situations have no bearing upon the case at hand. Therefore, we must make a showing of evidence that the victim’s statement was a product of suggestion. To do so, all we need to do is compare court records with the scientific research literature. The burden would then shift to the prosecution to prove accusations were made prior to the suggestion. This research in the legal context is that interview methods taint evidence, and there is no way to determine if a child’s statement is accurate after suggestion methods were used.

It is impossible to determine whether a child’s post-suggestion report is accurate or a product of the suggestion, and this would bear directly upon the legal reliability of those statements. Once the statements are determined to be unreliable, the statements cannot be used in court. Evidence is reliable if it is what it purports to be, and is a legal matter determined by a judge before it is presented to a jury. If a witness could not positively identify the perpetrator until after the identity was suggested, the witness report is not what it purports to be. Admitting this research into a courtroom will not result in large increase in needless litigation, nor will it create an avenue for appeal for cases with actual physical evidence or those who cannot demonstrate suggestibility. It is an argument based upon the protections the Constitution provides against conviction from unreliable evidence. Scientific research is admissible if the research results were adopted by a community of experts. A community of experts subscribing to the same hunch, intuition, or belief is insufficient to satisfy the ruling of what scientific research is admissible. The suggestibility research satisfies this criterion, based upon the sheer number of studies performed on this topic and number of researcher who have come to the same results. The research is beyond the comprehension of a jury, and should be decided by a judge in a pretrial hearing. A motion to exclude suggestive tainted statements is based in settled legal principles and scientific research. The two valid ways to educate the court and a jury about the scientific research are a memorandum and/or amicus brief, or an expert witness explaining the research. Presentation by an expert being the most effective way. A memorandum explaining the research should explain; 1) scientific research shows certain interview methods will cause children to make inaccurate reports, 2) It is not possible to distinguish between accurate and inaccurate statements once suggestion has been shown, 3) The research literature is uncontroverted, 4) How and where these methods were used in the case at hand, and 5) There is no way to determine the allegations are what they purport to be.

CASE LAW

U.S. v. Wade

Idaho v. Wright

U.S. v. Wade, 388 u.s. 218, 87 s. ct. 1926 (1967)

Foster v. California, 394 u.s. 440, 89 s. ct. 1127 (1969)

Idaho v. Wright, 497 u.s. at 827, 110 s. ct. at 3152

State v. Wright, 116 Idaho, 382, 775, p 2d 1224, 1228 (1989)

Daubert v. Merrill Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 u.s. 579, 113 s.ct. 2786 (1993)

Frye v. U.S. 293 f. 1013 (1923)

State v. Michaels, 525 a. 2d 489, 510 (n.j. super, a.d. 1993)

 

EXCERPTS FROM FORMER OHIO ATTORNEY GENERAL JIM PETRO’S BOOK

These excerpts speak directly to the files we claimed were “Brady Material”, and the files I listed that I believe mist exist but we still have not seen.

Jim Petro writing about the Dean Gillispie case;” The State cannot improperly lose or destroy reports and then argue that the ensuing “Brady” claim in not viable because the witness does not remember each and every detail of the missing report. Once the reports are deemed missing, the burden of overcoming any ambiguity about a fact created by the reports absence is on the State. It is impossible to claim a “Brady” violation if you cannot show the information withheld would be relevant to the trial and verdict, and could have changed the outcome of the trial. How then can a defendant show this when the information has been kept from them? The mere nondisclosure of reports should have been deemed a Brady violation. When a defendant first learns (even 20 years after their conviction) that relevant information was not disclosed prior to trial, and were written reports which had last been in the possession of the State, the defendant has a legitimate Brady claim. The State then bears the burden of proving the undisclosed report was not exculpatory, and is at fault for not disclosing the repots in a timely manner when memories were fresh. This failure on the States part prevents the defendant from demonstrating what exculpatory information existed in those reports. Furthermore, the defendant was prevented from their right to mount a proper defense, violating their Constitutional Right to adequately defend themselves. Additionally, the defendant was kept from knowing what questions to ask in cross examination of witnesses without knowing what information existed in those reports and violates their Constitutional right to confront their accusers