5 men charged with sex crimes against children

[Percival]

More charges filed today including a new one alleging sex with HORSES.

This is getting crazy.

I really would like to see some evidence, LE continues to leak all sorts of wild allegations to the media but seemingly has no evidence to support any of it.

[lightningBugout]

Why do you think that's so far-out?

Bestiality porn is common above ground. Bet its the same with kiddy porn.

[Percival]

No, I dont think its far out, we already had reports of them forcing one of the victims to have sex with a dog. I just meant that everyday its something new and strange with this case.

[lightningBugout]

Well. The prosecution seems pretty bold, based on their media strategy. I won't be surprised if the "alleged perps" get off 100%. Nor will I think that means they are innocent. Who knows?

[Percival]

It is difficult for me to imagine why this young lady would want to subject herself to all of this if she just made it all up, on the other hand I really would like to see some evidence, perhaps they have some and are not releasing it yet so if more victims come forward they can confirm what happened without using what they heard in the media.

[Crow]

Well, LBO, I wasn't referring to your statements, but SW's:

I'm glad for the justice for these children.

But, it makes me sad the disparity when a child comes forward and the perps were common folk....all hell breaks lose as it should...but when the perps are politicians, nothing happens.

But I really don't care if you think I "don't get it." I can't be any clearer that I'm speculating and not promoting the scenario I put together and that I think it's certainly possible all the alleged crimes occurred. So if cautioning against jumping to conclusions and labeling accused people as "perps" bothers you, that's not my problem.

While it would be nice if everyone remembered to put in "alleged" every time, the forum members here are generally not professional journalists. sw left out a word that allowed for the possibility of these men's innocence while in the midst of making an entirely different point. That's a lot different than presuming their guilt and calling for their heads.

[Crow]

My own unscientific, unmeasured response to this story: The accused men look unsettlingly alike. I know they're related, but...

[compared2what?]

I chimed in because I've been paying attention to this case and because I think it's important to view it in a historical context and avoid jumping to conclusions and calling the accused "perps" as if they've already been sentenced. The case raises many red flags, beginning with the recovered memories

Wait. This is a teachable moment. Because my entire position is, in a nutshell, that while it is important to view the case in a historical context, as well as in several other contexts, that's not what you're doing. Rather, you're reading stories about the case without making an effort to consider, question, or even think about what you're reading in any context other than the context of the extant, unexamined assumptions about the handful of generic issues you happen to associate with it on reflexive rather than rational grounds. Therefore, unsurprisingly, you're either misconstruing what you read or unconsciously privileging stories that are premised on the same misconstruction of the charges you were in the process of reiterating when I so rudely interrupted you just now while you were in the middle of a sentence.

Because there isn't actually yet any evidence that the charges are based on recovered memory. Some reporters have managed to exercised their basic literacy skills in order to summarize the court documents -- all of which are available online, if the attention you're paying to the case is motivated by an interest that's serious enough for sidestepping potential media bias to be an issue for you,, btw -- without mistakenly reporting that they were. Some haven't. And, yeah Susan Saulny, I am looking at you.

In any event. Each and every one of the numerous Probable Cause Statement forms that immediately precedes the counts being charged specifies that in August, the Lafayette County Sherrif's Office was contacted by the Independence Police Department with information of criminal activity perpetrated on children under the age of 12, et cetera and so forth, subsequent to which, as the affiant (Cynthia L. Schroer, who apparently works out of the prosecutor's office as a victim's advocate, which would typically mean she had at least an MSW and some kind of legal credentials sufficient to act as an officer of the court and/or law) sayeth under penalty of perjury, she interviewed this or that complaining witness, who had suppressed many memories of the abuses perpetrated on her, was very fearful of her grandfather, and who during the course of the interview identified 8 specific memories of abuse (etcetera), that she has many memories of abuse, some of which occurred in other jurisdictions (yada, yada) and that she knows the events outlined below took place between DATE X and DATE Y. Here's a PDF LINK to the first of these filings, chronologically.

As you can see, it's anybody's guess whether the memories identified and outlined were among the many she had suppressed or not. And it's not at all unusual for something like that to be unelaborated upon at this stage of the proceedings, for completely non-suggestive reasons. In fact, it's typical, and in accordance with rational expectations. Prosecutors never want to show suspects any more of the hand they're holding than the law requires them to do, primarily during pre-trial discovery, which hasn't yet commenced. In any event, as I read it (in the context of the rest of the documentation) they're just giving the minimum amount of information necessary to make the filing while leaving the door for a number of future possibilities as wide open as they can get away with while also remaining more or less honestly compliant with the law.

It's also fairly clear,*** imo, that the reason they're so at ease shooting their mouths off about aspects of the investigation that aren't complete or pertinent to the charges in the public record is that they've got video corroboration for some or all of the specific incidents recalled. Check out the complete inventory of items recovered under the search warrant executed on November 12th. And don't fail to note that in addition to the commercial incest pornography titles, they came away with a bunch of homemade, hand-labelled VHS tapes, which the cops could honestly describe on the inventory as having "unk/" content -- ie, unknown.

that allegedly got the ball rolling, but also the sensationalistic aspects of some of the stories (3 little girls being forced to kill a man abducted from a mall), the chronological inconsistencies (a family member living in Florida when he was alleged to have committed sex crimes), and other details that make me go "hmm." I've been clear that I'm only speculating, and my speculation is based only on news reports which may or may not be accurate. I've also been clear that I'm posing "what if" scenarios and that I'm not saying "this is what happened" or claiming the accusers are lying.

True enough. But you're not making any intellectual effort to understand what you read in the context, both present and historical, in which it's actually, specifically occurring. You're just using default settings, which I will now say for the third time, is absolutely fine. It's just absolutely not rational, logical, or fact-based. As I said in my very first post. I don't find that offensive. I find it human. I have to go out now. More later.

***ON EDIT: "fairly clear" is an overstatement. But I still have to go out. So AMENDMENT TK, for now.

[sw]

sw has a hard time being impartial about child abuse or suspected child abuse.

People like Kathleen Sullivan get it right because they stay in the facts and out of the emotion.

I get all pissed and want to beat up Pan when he makes good points.

I read about these kids, their proximity to where I am from, check to see if I am related. It all brings up memories that I thought had faded. Then I start to get sick, feel like vomiting, feel sad, feel like crying alot, feel like never talking to anyone again besides my dogs.....so I stop reading about it and posting about it.

If these men are proven guilty...what will amaze me is not their guilt but that a story like mine made it to the light of day. One of my favorite dogs was raped to death. It could have been me. And, they wonder why I tried to walk into the tornado in Kansas when I was five. Going out the front door.

Forgive me for my tornado feelings. It is why I am very fond of Devine Mother Kali. Goddess of Justice who often sweeps evil like a tornado. I bow at her feet:)

[Joe Hillshoist]

Kali's way cool. My family have had a thing with her for generations.

[Project Willow]

sw, you just keep being you, because, well, I count on it for one, and not only is there nothing wrong with that, but you are generally inspiring to folks, (in case you didn't know it) soul warrior.

C2W, you are a star in the heaven of words (please do forgive me for that). IOW, just plain thank you.

[compared2what?]

sw, you just keep being you, because, well, I count on it for one, and not only is there nothing wrong with that, but you are generally inspiring to folks, (in case you didn't know it) soul warrior.

C2W, you are a star in the heaven of words (please do forgive me for that). IOW, just plain thank you.

You're welcome. But I didn't do nothing. I'm a close reader, it's just the way I am. FWIW, I think the coverage that's probably the most useful for divining auguries from is that of Donald Bradley, of The Kansas City Star. Because either he too is a close reader or, being local, he has some kind of informal inside line about the prosecutorial status quo. Or both. In any event, for whatever reason and/or reasons, he's doing the best job in the daily-reportage category, imo. And to me, also the most interesting. In a quiet way, he seems to be marching to the beat of a slightly different drum than the rest of the pack, in terms of where he's putting the emphasis. It's almost as if he were thinking about the material he's writing up. Also, the precision of his word-choices when characterizing documents on file with the court have quite captured my heart, to be candid with you. I think I may be deeply in love with him.

Now then. About that overstated "fairly clear." I'd like to walk that back to something a little closer to "reasonable surmise." Because what it really looked like to me from the dox was:

They caught the case in August and spent two or three months (apparently) talking to and maybe quietly checking out the witness statements in some way. And, in fact, it does look to me like they probably are anticipating a credibility problem of some kind in connection with a recovered-memory issue, although that's just a guess, really. Because the phrasing really is capable of more than one explanation. Still. FWIW, that's how it feels to me.

However, I'd still definitely say that whatever the problem is (if there is one) they seem to have been very confidently counting on turning up something pretty fucking difficult to rebut when they executed that warrant. Like photographic or video evidence corroborating....Hmm. On consideration, it probably wouldn't actually have to corroborate the events described by the victims in any detail. Or maybe even at all. As long as it unmistakably corroborates that they were badly sexually victimized by the suspects, it's functionally corroborative. Because video or photographic evidence along those lines would be bound to make a very vivid impression on a jury, you have to figure. Sufficiently vivid that most jurors probably just wouldn't feel like giving that much weight to any standard RA and/or recovered memory defense arguments about how the witness statements were simply too-bizarre-to-be-true stories being peddled by unbalanced opportunists with springs coming out of their heads, all circumstantial evidence of which must somehow be explained away or ignored for the good of the nation and (you know the routine). Or so I'd imagine, anyway. A little vividness tends to go a long way when it's terrifying and unforgettable, in court as in life.

So that's my conjecture, along with the reasoning behind it. Which doesn't make it any less conjectural than profpan's story was, really. Because it's still one hundred percent conjectural, for one thing. And I have no idea whether they found what I speculate they were looking for or not, for another. Also, you can't ever underrate how much of the outcome is determined by institutional stuff that has nothing to do with the case at all, per se, ultimately. Some cops, attorneys, and judges are good at what they do and some aren't, just in their baseline states, even when vicious forces don't succeed in bribing or blackmailing or otherwise fucking with them. Not that I'm predicting that, btw. I just meant that the best-laid plans of mice and men aft gang agleigh, and so forth.

Also, I'd REALLY like to hear a little more (IOW, everything) about that church.

And...Oh, right. I should probably say that if this reads as if I were being defeatist or doubtful or negative, just ignore that. I'm just practicing cautiously superstitious pessimism in order not to accidentally jinx the suffering by having expectations on their behalf. And yes, I know that's crazy, but at least it doesn't hurt anyone. In reality, based on what's in the record right now, so far they definitely appear -- at least, to me -- to be acting like they have a case they think they can win, as well as a strategy for winning it. And, um....The future lies ahead. I think it's probably safe to say.

sw has a hard time being impartial about child abuse or suspected child abuse.

I do too. It's a coping mechanism. Not impartiality, exactly. More like ostentatious pragmatism. Anyway. As a general rule, the more reasonable I'm sounding, the more distressed I actually am. And that's a reflex that I'm not so sure I'd retain if I really had a choice about it. It's got its pros and cons. On the other hand, at least it's got some pros, though. I think. Or at least hope.

[lightningBugout]

One of my favorite dogs was raped to death

That made me vomit, literally. But I want you to know I just held my pups close to my heart, for you.

[lightningBugout]

http://www.fox4kc.com/wdaf-story-mohler ... 9109.story

INDEPENDENCE, MO - A former member of the Mormom Church who attended services with the victims in the Mohler child sex case says that she remembers the girls talking about sexual abuse at the hands of their father, and even claims that one of the alleged assaults happened at church.

"Nicole," 27, who asked that her identity not be revealed because of fears of retribution, says that her memories of the victims fit with the shocking accusations of sexual abuse. Nicole says that one of the victims worked as a babysitter, caring for her and her siblings.

She says that she remembers the babysitter using Barbie dolls to demonstrate sexual acts.

"Ken was daddy, and little girl was daughter, or husband and daughter," said Nicole. "She was bending the dolls over, in multiple positions, making different noises, different sounds. I actually almost threw up thinking about it, but she in one scenario, the Ken doll and the Barbie, Barbie didn't want to do what Den doll wanted, so Ken doll stuck his hand out and was slapping her."

The alleged victims named so far in the Lafayette County investigation are all the children of one of the suspects, Burrell Mohler Jr. They were members of the Mormon Church at the time of the alleged crimes, and Nicole says that she remembers attending services with them.

Nicole says that her parents reported the incidents to the Mormon bishop but nothing happened. She says that when she was 11 or 12, she remembers another Mohler sister talking about being sexually assaulted while at church.

"She was crying, said Nicole. "I pretty much asked her why, what was going on, and she was saying her dad and some other gentlemen, she didn't say who, she said some other guy, they've been touching her private spots. She put her hand between her legs and was showing. Long story short I got up spooked out, walked off and told my parents."

Nicole, who says she left the Mormon Church before she turned 20, says this time her parents pushed the bishop to call police, but says that they back down after the church responded by threatening to excommunicate her family.

[lightningBugout]

Um, Ritual Abuse is being proven as a reality, as we speak. Hello?