(UPDATE 9/9/2014)

I started out writing this section, to sort of tell the story of Emma chronologically, but because I am limited on time, I decided to go back to writing essay style, and then when I have it all written out, I will put the story in order, but for now, I’m just going to leave this here, even though I don’t intend on working on it right now.

(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 claimed her mother poisoned her with DDT and that she had to move to Ohio to get away from her mother. She ended up moving in with her boyfriend’s family up until this young man began to have doubts about Emma and broke up with her. While she was in Ohio, she claimed her future mother-in-law, lived in fear that Emma’s mother would 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.)

Chapter 1 The Big Lie That Started it All

Why would a child make up a story about rape? Let me give you some details of what was going on with Emma in Dec. of 2010, when Emma made up the rape story about on on-line friend she had never met in person. Could all this have been over a boy? Read on and see what you think.

On Emma’s 16th birthday, her dad and I went to pick her up at her church youth group. Upon entering the parish hall, Emma ran up to me to tell me that her on-line friend from an English class pen-pal project had called her during her youth group meeting. Emma claimed that the friend, whom I will call “Lacey”, called Emma from the hospital after being raped. Emma was so shocked and shaken up, I really believed something had happened, but the whole thing seemed so bizarre. Emma went off with her friends, and I talked to one of the youth group leaders for a few moments, sharing with her what Emma had told me. One of the youth leaders had gotten a cake for Emma’s birthday, so everyone had cake and ice cream at the end of the meeting. Later, when we got in the van to leave, Emma was very angry with me for talking to the youth group leader about what she told me.

Over the next few days, Emma claimed she tried to call Lacey several times, but couldn’t reach her. She said she spoke to her older sister. Over that week Emma changed the story and said that Lacey had been raped some time previously and was in the hospital because she tried to commit suicide. Emma said Lacey’s extended family had been over for a family gathering, when Lacey had taken some pills, laid down on her mother’s bed, was found unresponsive by a family member, and then taken to the hospital. I did not know Lacey or her family, so I was not going to call them about such a personal matter. This turned out to be a big mistake. Later on, Emma said that Lacey told her that the man who raped her threatened to kill her family if she told anyone who he was so Lacey was afraid to talk about what happened. Over the next couple of months , I asked Emma how Lacey was doing . Emma said that Lacey was in therapy and didn’t want to talk about what happened. Emma told me that Lacey also had been molested as a child and volunteered with a group at her church that counseled or supported other victims of molestation.
Sometime during the summer of 2009, Emma told me that Lacey’s mother had breast cancer. She said Lacey had been homeschooled, but was going to public school for 10th grade because her mother was too sick to homeschool her. Emma told me that Lacey had called or texted her to tell her that her mother was hospitalized several times that summer. On at least two occasions, Emma told me that Lacey’s mom was in the hospital and was so sick, that the doctors thought she might not survive. Later, I was to find out that about the only truth to all the things Emma said was that Lacey’s mom did have breast cancer, but she was never hospitalized and never close to dying. She did outpatient Chemo and was never on death’s door as Emma led us to believe.

What would make Emma create such a bizarre story about her friend? Was it so she could get upset at youth group, feign concern about an emergency phone call, and let all her friends know how upset she was?

Over the summer and fall, Emma had been spending a lot of time around a young man in the youth group. The two of them seemed to like each other, and it was all very sweet, but after a while the young man pulled away from Emma. While it is my goal to get to the truth, it is not my wish to embarrass Emma as to why the boy lost interest in her, but Emma was still very interested in this young man. She talked about him frequently, had told me that he said he loved her, and said that when his dad was visiting from Va., the boy wanted Emma to meet him. I thought that seemed like a stretch considering the two had never even been on a date, but I just let it go.

I’ve spoken to a psychologist, a couple of social workers who work with problem children, and a Ph.D. counselor who told me that teenage girls often get so engrossed in young love, thinking that their love interest is “the one” whom they will spend the rest of their lives with, that these young girls don’t take it well when they are rejected. Is that what happened with Emma? She didn’t get the boy she wanted, so she made up all this drama? Did she just want attention, or was she hoping all the drama would get this boy’s attention? Kids lie all the time. We all know that, but wasn’t this a bit extreme? All this over a boy?

Chapter 2 Emma Turns on Her Dad

Emma Turns on her Dad

Around the time Emma came up with the rape story, we were having problems with Emma at home. She did what I considered the typical teenage things, treating Phill and I like we just weren’t cool, weren’t “with it,” we were an embarrassment to her, etc. Emma did this more so to her dad than to me, usually trying to make me an ally when she made fun of her dad. He was a “dork” a “nerd” a “geek” and I would remind her how handy it was to have a geeky father who could do just about anything with the computer that she liked to use so much. I let her get away with some of her talk because I did think she was a normal teenager, but I put my foot down when she went too far. Emma would speak poorly of her dad for not finishing college and for being a truck driver, saying things like, “All he does is sit on his butt in a truck all day.” Phill may not have a college education, but I always thought he was one of the smartest people I knew.
I would tell Emma that I would not listen to her speak that way about her dad. I reminded her that her dad made a good living, we had a nice home, and because he worked so hard (Granted, I was working when we bought the house, so I should get a little credit too.), I got to stay home with her, drive her to all her activities, and homeschool her.
Sometimes Phill was really hurt by the way Emma treated him, and he was a little envious of my relationship with Emma. We could argue like cats and dogs, but I was the one she wanted to talk to, cuddle with, seek comfort from when she was upset, etc.

Emma became much more vicious to her dad. She would hug me and make a point of not hugging him, and then give this little smirk like she was pleased with herself. She would say, “I love you, mom.” emphasizing the “mom” in front of Phill and act like he wasn’t even in the room. Sometimes, you could tell by her tone that she was trying to make it obvious that she was saying it to me and not him. Other times, she would come into our bedroom to say goodnight to me, and again, ignore Phill completely unless one of us said something to her about her rudeness.
When Phill was on the road, I tried to talk to Emma. I knew Phill was upset by the way Emma treated him, and it hurt me to see Emma treat her dad this way. He did nothing to deserve her rudeness and her wrath.
Emma and I got in many arguments when I did try to talk to her about the way she treated her dad. She said some horrible things about him. She told me she just didn’t like him and that she didn’t like him touching her or hugging her. This bothered me because we had always been what I would call a very touchy, huggy family. Emma probably hugged me 15 times a day. If I was in the kitchen and she walked through, she would stop and throw her arms around me. When we watched television, Emma would lean against me, snuggle up to me, or hold my hand. When Phill was working, she still wanted to have a “slumber” and we would usually watch some tv or a movie in our bedroom, and Emma would sleep in the bed with me.
Then Emma said something pretty bizarre. She told me that her dad called her a “bitch” and a “slut” every day. I was shocked and argued vehemently with her over this. I knew it wasn’t true and was not going to tolerate her saying such a thing.
There was one time when Emma was teasing Phill, and he was joking back with her and imitated Gilda Radner and said, “Bitch” in a high pitched voice, and then we talked about Saturday Night Live and he went on line and showed her some of the old SNL skits so that she could see the character he was referring to, and Emma knew it was a joke.
Emma continued to argue with me several times over her “bitch” and “slut” comment, and she told me that she had talked about it with her on-line friend, ”Lacey”, and her other “best” friend, Kayla Benefield, a girl Emma had met at church camp several years before, but only saw once or twice a year at most.
I was pretty angry that Emma would say these things to other people when I knew it wasn’t true.

Looking back at the way Emma was turning on her dad, I wonder if she was going to accuse her dad of abuse, but she knew she couldn’t get away with it with me, so that’s how she came up with the priest story. I defended and stood up for Phill when Emma turned on him. It’s a shame he couldn’t return the favor when I needed him to be there for me. I wonder how he would have reacted had he been the one falsely accused.
Edit
Chapter 3 Emma Accuses a Priest

Up to 10% of child abuse claims turn out to be false.

On her Dad’s 52nd birthday, Sunday, March 21, 2010, Emma told us she’d been molested.

Sundays were usually a family/church day. We went to church and Sunday school in the mornings, and then took Emma back to church for her youth group in the evenings. Emma had been the secretary to the youth group, and enjoyed the position. Maybe it was her need for control, but Emma liked knowing what was going on with everyone and keeping tabs on who was coming to what. The only complaint I heard about her was from a couple of adults who mentioned that Emma was a little pushy and somewhat rude in some of her e-mails, being a little bit ugly when people did not respond to her requests for head counts and such. I tried to discuss this with Emma, occasionally proof read her e-mails and point out that she needed to be a little more polite in her writing, but of course this did not go over well.

I don’t really remember what we did on that day. I think it was a quiet day, and it may have been the year that I’d found a recipe for brussell sprout stuffed meatballs, which sounded like something Phill would love, and I spent the afternoon cooking. Emma went to her youth group, and Phill picked her up and brought her home.

That night, I was sitting in bed, reading, when Phill came in and said Emma had something to tell us. Emma hemmed and hawed about wanting to tell us, but not wanting to tell us, and finally said she had been molested by someone at church. Again, Emma went back and forth about telling us and not wanting to tell us who it was. My mind seemed to be going about a million miles an hour. I could not see how it could happen. Emma was never more than a few minutes away from me. If I didn’t know where she was or who she was with, I went to check on her. When she served as an acolyte, I would go downstairs to the Parish Hall after church, and if Emma didn’t show up within a few minutes, I would go back upstairs to check on her. I couldn’t understand how Emma could have been molested. I couldn’t think of anyone who would have had access to Emma long enough to molest her. Phill had suspected a gentleman who trained the acolytes. That was something I could not see because when the acolytes were training, they were always in a group.

I got upset and kept asking Emma, “Who?………Who molested you?” and told Emma to answer me. Finally, Emma cried and said, “He Baptized my dad!” Phill and I knew immediately whom she was referring to. Phill was baptized by an interim priest who served at our church for one year. This gentleman was retired and worked as a supply priest, filling in for different parishes and had agreed to serve at our church the year our priest left and the church was in the long process of looking for a new priest.
To file a complaint with the church, we had to write up a statement. Emma was reluctant to do this, and I had to push her to get it done. She and I wrote up her statement, and here is an excerpt of her description of what happened:
The first time it happened was after I had taken off my vestments and went across the hall to the ladies’ room. I was wearing shoes with a strap, and they were a bit too big for me. The strap kept falling down, so I stopped, just inside the doorway, to fix it. He walked in behind me, closed and locked the door. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I knew something was wrong. I was really scared. I backed up against the wall. I could see he was saying something because his lips were moving, but I think I was scared and shocked and didn’t really hear what he said. I couldn’t move. I just stood there and watched him. He was still talking, and he looked angry. I started to cry, and I closed my eyes. I could feel him lift up my dress and pull down my panties. He stuck his fingers inside me. I kept crying. I don’t know how long it lasted. It seemed like a long time, but it wasn’t. Afterwards, I was starting to process a little of what was happening. He told me he was going to baptize my dad, which I already knew, and he told me that if I told my family about this it would break my dad’s faith and tear my family apart. He washed his hands, then he went out of the restroom and closed the door behind him. I stood there crying for a few minutes, then I dried my face and went downstairs. I was very careful about how I acted; I believed what he said about my family, and I wanted so much for my dad to be baptized. So I acted like nothing had happened, and I didn’t tell anyone.

It happened four times after that. The only difference was that after the first time, it always happened in the sacristy. He would shut the door and do the same thing. And he always told me that if I told anyone, I would break my dad’s new faith. The times were about a month apart, until he left the church. Occasionally I would get unrobed and downstairs fast enough that he didn’t have a chance, so it didn’t happen every time I served.

Some side notes:

Does it seem a little odd that Emma claimed her friend had been raped on her birthday, just a few months before, and then announces her own story of molestation on her dad’s birthday?

There was one other thing that was odd that night. Several months before, Emma had overheard something and had been carrying it around, ruminating on it, and possibly, like on many other occasions, I believe Emma may have taken something she heard and made the story about herself. Emma heard something about a case of molestation, and months later, Emma had to be the victim of molestation. Did she really believe she was molested? Did she need to top the story she’d heard? Several people have mentioned to me that Emma may be a pathological liar. Some of the characteristics of a pathological liar seem to suit Emma:

1. The stories told are not entirely improbable and often have some element of truth.

2. The stories told tend toward presenting the liar favorably. For example, the person might be presented as being fantastically brave, knowing or being related to many famous people.

Another interesting point about pathological liars is that the average age of onset it 16 years old, the age Emma was when she told us she was molested.

Looking back on Emma’s lies, there was usually some element of truth to her stories. For example, she talked about drug parties at school after reading about the drug parties in the Reader’s Digest.

Emma told a story about having to call 911 on a boy she was babysitting, and that she had to lock herself in the bathroom, although she never babysat that child, BUT she had heard about the parents having to call 911 on their son. This lie also put Emma in a favorable light, showing how brave she was.

Emma told stories about her friends on the school bus. According to Emma, the four girls she rode the bus with all drank, and/or smoked, and/or did drugs, and/or were having sex, etc.

I have many more lies to share, but you can see a pattern of 1) some element of truth and 2) Emma portrayed as favorable in her stories.

I’m not trying to diagnose Emma. I am just a mom, and will share from a mother’s perspective. After so many people mentioned their own thoughts to me, I had to look up and read about pathological lying, and I can see why people would think that about Emma.

Chapter 4
The Snowball Begins to Roll

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….)