Tipping The First Domino: The Investigation Begins
The revelations that sparked the largest, most complex sexual abuse investigation in Canadian history were shocking in their brutality. They opened the door to an unprecedented number of cases of child sexual abuse, which while less bizarre, were no less repugnant.
In August 1989, a little girl of seven told social workers that she and her two younger siblings had been subjected to sexual abuse by groups of adults dressed in gowns and masks, during activities she called "monster games in the basement". She said they had also been submerged in water, confined beneath floorboards and forced to eat and drink 'yucky juice". As well, the adults had terrorized the children with guns and knives and videotaped them in the course of the assaults.
We knew from when our initial investigation commenced that
it was going to be of greater magnitude than anything we had
ever done before. But we had no idea it would develop into
the magnitude that it did.
Matthew Hayes, Prescott Chief of Police
The social workers hearing these stories were alarmed and disturbed. For Pam Gummer, team leader at the Prescott office of Family and Children's Services of Leeds-Grenville (FCS), the impact of that first interview was devastating. Even after many years investigating child abuse, Gummer says she had 'never heard anything even remotely comparable before."
That was not all. The little girl went on to say that three young cousins had also been victimized in the basement games. More horrific tales emerged of bondage, disfigurement, the killing of animals and the alleged murder of a baby named Joshua. It was clear to FCS staff that this was not a routine or isolated case of child sexual abuse.
"So much of what I was hearing was so bizarre and emotional, I found myself in some respects backing away," says Gummer. "I was saying we need to corroborate this, we should be very cautious." Within a month they had their corroboration. "We had physical evidence, medical evidence. They were able to describe the places where they were abused, and we went there and we found what the kids said we would find," she says.
By October 1989, the local police had been called in and seven adults were under investigation. The Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services had also been alerted and provided $200,000 for a specialized team within Family and Children's Services to investigate what was presented as a family system in which sexual abuse had gone on for generations.
Rocci Pagnello, supervisor of the Prescott FCS team at the time, points out that the Ministry lost no time in making funds available for the child welfare investigation. "Without that support," he recalls, "I don't think we would have gotten off the ground."
The Ministry of the Solicitor General was also responsive. Brockville's Crown Attorney freed up two officers, Detective Rick Robins of the Ontario Provincial Police and Constable Gary Sluytman of the Prescott Police to conduct the criminal side of the investigation. The criminal investigation became known as Project Jericho and continues to operate to this day. The police named it Project Jericho in honour of the baby named Joshua who was alleged to have been killed. "Joshua led the battle of Jericho, and the walls came tumbling down," says Robins, alluding to the Bible story. 1
Pam Gummer, along with social workers Maureen McDougall and Marg McDade-Bowers from Family and Children's Services, formed the core child welfare investigative team called the Child Abuse Project. By late November 1989, the joint investigation had uncovered numerous new cases of sexual abuse. When questioned by the police, a man known to associate with the initial family investigated admitted to abusing 13 more children and named several other individuals he had witnessed sexually abusing children.
After this, Pam Gummer says "the investigation split somewhat" - with part of the team probing allegations of abuse inside the original family system and part of the team focusing on the new allegations of abuse by persons outside the family When interviewed, all but two of the 13 children reported being abused by more than one person.
It was at this point that the investigation really began to snowball. The number of victims and perpetrators began to mount steadily. Family and Children's Services was unprepared for the magnitude and scope of what was to follow. Gummer remembers this as a "really scary period" because there were no guidelines on how to conduct an investigation in which so many of the victims and perpetrators were linked to each other. Most of the available literature was based on the American experience and wasn't very helpful. No one in Canada had ever dealt with such a case before.
There was nothing to guide us. There was nothing to pull out
that said: this is step one, this is step two.
Pam Gummer, team leader, Child Abuse Project,
Family and Children's Services
Extra funding allowed the team to seek out needed expertise and receive training. They consulted with experts like John Yuille, a forensic psychologist and specialist in assessing the credibility of children's allegations from British Columbia as well as David Wolfe and Ross Dawson from the Institute for the Prevention of Child Abuse in Toronto.
The Crown Attorney who prosecuted the case, Desmond McGarry, says that everybody involved was forging new ground. The prosecution was unlike any that he had ever been involved in, he says, "because of its complexity the number of people, the number of accused involved, the number of children involved, and all the interconnections."
McGarry was initially called in to advise the police on the investigation surrounding the murder of baby Joshua. 2 Because of his expertise in the area of child abuse - he is one of a select group of Ontario Crown Attorneys designated child abuse specialists - and the fact that the number of prosecutions connected with the case threatened to swamp the local Crown Attorney's office, he was eventually appointed as special Crown prosecutor to work exclusively on the case.
By March 1990, the group that was to work closely together on the joint investigation was firmly in place and located in a waterfront building in Prescott. Pam Gummer and Rocci Pagnello of Family and Children's Services were assisted by four other child protection staff and a lawyer, Jennifer Blishen, hired by the agency to prepare their cases for child protection hearings. Rick Robins and Gary Sluytman of Project Jericho were joined by Constables Andy Teeple and Isobel McVey. Detective-Inspector Lyle McCharies was brought in to oversee the police end of the investigation for the Ontario Provincial Police. Janet Lee later became part of the group as Victim/ Witness Assistance Coordinator.
More at:
http://www.healthunit.org/carekids/jericho/STORY.htm