Eight years in Kafkaland.
`GUILTY! Guilty! Guilty!'' said the jury foreman, rattling off the
words with the efficiency of an auctioneer. ``Guilty! Guilty!
Guilty!''
``But this is absurd!'' I whispered. ``Impossible! I did not do these
things!''
Turning to look at the packed courtroom I scanned the hushed crowd
with horror. Amid people gawking and pointing fingers at this
notorious woman --now convicted of the most bizarre and preposterous
child-sex abuse crimes in anyone's memory -- there were journalists,
stuffed like sausages in narrow rows of wooden benches. Their heads
bobbing like balloons in a May breeze, they hunched over notebooks and
word processors, busily scribbling and typing with no look of
skepticism on their faces. What in God's name had just happened?
As a 22-year-old theater and English major just out of a small
Catholic college near Pittsburgh, I had come to the New York area
eager to be immersed in what I believed was the intellectual and
cultural center of the nation, as well as the fifth-column capital of
the world. Like many young people just starting out, I ended up
working outside my field of interest just to keep myself financially
afloat. In the fall of 1984, I accepted a job as a teacher's aide in a
private preschool called Wee Care Day Nursery in Maplewood, a small
suburb in northeastern New Jersey. I would later be elevated to the
position of full-time teacher. The following April, I left Wee Care to
accept a job in another day-care center because the higher pay and
flexible schedule were more appealing.
An avid student of English literature, black-and-white photography,
and the theater, I spent my evenings and weekends concentrating on
creative projects and eagerly planning my young future. Yet I was soon
to be yanked off course by a single sentence that began the twisting
of a legal noose that continues to encircle me.
Eight years ago, a three-year-old child, lying on his pediatrician' s
examining table and leafing through a coloring book while having his
temperature taken, made an idle comment that set in motion the
Kafkaesque destruction of my life.
``That's what my teacher does to me at school,'' the three-year-old
boy said, as he toyed with a handful of crayons.
``What does your teacher do?'' the nurse calmly asked as she continued
the procedure.
``Her takes my temperature,'' he replied, then returned to his
coloring book.
The nurse discussed the seemingly off-handed remark with the boy's
mother, who happened to be the daughter of a local judge. Puzzled by
the statement, the mother discussed it with the child when they got
home. Once the teacher was identified as ``Kelly,'' she phoned the
doctor, the school, and the police, feeling that something improper
could have occurred at the preschool.
After the police questioned the child, they obtained the names of
other children at the school. These children were then visited by
police and extensively questioned.
Within days, the Division of Youth and Family Services, a ``child
protective arm'' of the New Jersey state government, decided to launch
a major investigation of Wee Care. Their work with these children and
parents would act like a virus, contaminating everything it touched.
As word spread of the investigation, worried parents began phoning
other parents to share the latest allegations obtained by social
worker Lou Fonnoleras and his police assistants.
With a frighteningly focused zealotry, these investigators inundated
the three- and four-year-olds with graphic sexual material, including
details of anal and oral penetration.
Using anatomical dolls, complete with adult genitalia, these
``institutional abuse investigators'' would invite these very young
children to undress and name the ``private parts'' of the dolls. After
graphic sexual material was introduced into the discussion, the
children were handed various eating utensils, including knives, forks,
and wooden spoons, and, using the dolls, told to ``tell us where Kelly
might have hurt you or your friends. '' Transcripts of the interviews
reveal that children were routinely chastised for ``no'' responses
with such threats as ``I'm going to have to tell your friends [or in
some cases Mommy] that you aren't going to help us. ''
The delicately uncertain line between fantasy and reality in the minds
of these preschoolers was forever shattered by the shamelessly
coercive interrogations of these investigators. During the four years
until the trial, these little ones would be pressured by well-meaning
parents, as well as therapists and prosecutors, to ``disclose''
incidents of abuse.
[cont]
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