Chapter 4
The Snowball Begins to Roll

(If you are new to this blog, you may want to read the posts “In a Nutshell” or go to July 2012 and read “Sending out a Letter.” Both of these posts give a brief description of what happened. As Emma’s mom, I am blogging my experiences with Emma and the things she did/does. This is a child who made up a story about rape, accused a priest of molesting her, and then as her attorney was about to file a lawsuit against the priest and the church, Emma accused her mother of physical abuse to stop the lawsuit because she knew her lies were about to be discovered. Emma is now living in Ohio at the home of her fiance’s grandparents, attending Wright State University http://www.wright.edu/, and talking about getting married. Emma claims her mother poisoned her with DDT and that she had to move to Ohio to get away from her mother. She also claims her future mother-in-law lives in fear that Emma’s mother will show up and kill her entire family.

Today’s post is to follow the numbered Chapters in the blog as I tell the story of Emma, so you may want to go back and read Chapters 1-3. I plan on putting the Chapters all together on a separate page. I appreciate those of you who have hung in there with me as I tell this story. This is really a rough draft as I will keep writing and re-writing until I get it all done and edited the way I want. It is a very slow project.)

Emma serving as an acolyte in 2002, aged 9.

Chapter 4

On Monday, March 22, 2010, the morning after Emma told us her story of “being molested” neither Phill nor I were sure what to do. Emma was adamant about not wanting the police involved. I called our Deacon, and left her a voice mail, and Phill called and talked to Emma’s youth group leader who also happened to be an educational psychologist who did school testing.

I had a dentist appointment, and remember I could hardly think straight to get through my dental
check-up. Because I’d called the cell phone and not the home phone, and our deacon was home that day, she didn’t notice the message on the phone until later in the afternoon, at which point she called me and wanted me to come to her home, not far from ours, to talk to her.

I went to Deacon F.’s home, and tearfully told her what Emma had told me. She told me that she had been planning to call me that day because Emma had been confiding in the assistant youth leader about being molested, who in turn spoke with the deacon, and legally, they could not keep this to themselves. We talked for a while, and the Deacon F. wanted me to call Phill and Emma and have them come over. When Phill and Emma came, we all talked and cried with our deacon.

Over the next week, we spoke to Deacon F. several times. That week, she also went down to the diocese in Atlanta to see what we needed to do to file a complaint against the priest. Deacon F. was a very caring, calming, kind person. For a while, she met with me once a week, to help me deal with my thoughts and feelings over what I believe had happened to Emma. Now, I hate knowing how much of her time we wasted, as she was a very busy woman and always ministering to others. She spent so much time ministering to our family over what, I think now, turned out to be a teenage girl’s desperate need for drama and attention.

During that week, I remember being surprised that we never heard from anyone from the church. I would have thought the bishop would have called us to let us know the church would be looking into what we reported. Our priest, being a new priest, preferred to let the deacon handle our situation and never called or came to see us. At that point, we hadn’t told any of our family or friends of Emma’s allegations, so I felt very isolated, not having anyone to talk this over with. Emma was home all the time because she was doing 10th grade on line that year.

On Tuesday, March 23, 2010, Emma and I took the dogs for walk in the afternoon. As we were coming up the driveway to go into the house, two cars came up. One was a Jackson County DFACs social worker, and the other was an officer from the sheriff’s department. Emma and I were both shocked and shaken, and Emma fell apart, crying and holding on to me, afraid that they were going to take her from her home. Of course, now I wonder if Emma’s hysterics were partly because she’d realize what a serious situation she’d created in involving the authorties. Both the officer and the social worker assured us that Emma was not going anywhere and that they just had to investigate and make sure that this priest no longer had access to her.

The DFACs worker recommended a place to take Emma for counseling, and the woman from the sheriff’s department told us she would be turning our information over to Gwinnett County, since the incidents took place in Gwinnett County.

Two days later Deacon F. came over and picked us Emma and I and took Emma and me to Mayfield Dairy for an ice cream. I was a nice day, and we sat outside at a picnic table, ate our ice cream cones and talked. Deacon F. asked Emma what happened, but Emma did not want to talk, so I told Deacon F. the details of what Emma had told me. Emma nodded and agreed to what I or corrected me if I didn’t say something right.

That evening, I received a call from a Gwinnett County Detective who wanted me to bring Emma to the police station for questioning. (I still have the detective’s card, but out of respect for his privacy, I will not post his name here.) Emma and I were shaken and scared that we had to drop everything and go, so I called Deacon F. and she agreed to meet us and go with us. As usual, here presence made both of us feel better.

If I remember right, I had to speak to the detective alone, Emma and I had to speak to the detective, and Emma had to speak to the detective alone. I think there had to be a witness in with Emma so she was not alone with the detective.

The detective told us they would be investigating the priest, and he would keep in touch with us. I didn’t know what to expect from the investigation. We had given the detective names of other acolytes at the church, so we knew the police would be talking to those families.

I don’t want to go into details of the priest’s life, as it would give away who he was and that is not my intent. I will just say he was in the public eye and Emma very nearly ruined his life with her accusations.

(To be continued….)