‘Satan made me’: NSW nursing home murderer, The rescue of Amanda Berry, suspected ritual murder, wants Family Court investigated by Royal Commission, DAUBERT FRYE CRITIQUE #1: LOST IN THE MALL, BY LOFTUS, ET. AL., Paedo probe at Catholic schools

- ‘Satan made me’: NSW nursing home murderer
- The rescue of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight: 30 minutes that ended a decade of nightmares
- Fear grips residents of Ahanta West over suspected ritual murder
- Child protection advocate Hetty Johnstone wants Family Court investigated by Royal Commission
- NEW ENGLAND LAW|BOSTON, JD/PHD PROJECT
DAUBERT FRYE CRITIQUE #1: LOST IN THE MALL, BY LOFTUS, ET. AL. By: Wendy Murphy, JD…
- Paedo probe at Catholic schools: 20 priests and teachers to be quizzed by detectives

‘Satan made me’: NSW nursing home murderer May 27, 2013

A registered nurse has become the worst mass murderer in New South Wales history, pleading guilty today to killing 11 elderly residents. Their nurse, Roger Dean….
On the first day of his Supreme Court trial on Monday, Dean, 37, pleaded guilty to the murders of 11 elderly residents who died as a result of the fires he lit at the home on November 18, 2011.

He also admitted to causing grievous bodily harm to a further eight residents who were injured in the blaze, described by paramedics and firefighters as one of the worst scenes they had ever come across.

According to crown documents, the registered nurse had stolen more than 200 pills from the nursing home the night before and police officers were called to the home during his November 18 night shift to investigate the theft….
He was arrested and charged later that evening, telling police, “It was Satan telling him to do it”.

As Dean stood up in court and softly said “guilty” to the 11 counts of murder, his victims’ families wept and one woman left court sobbing loudly….
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2013/05/27/11/55/dean-pleads-guilty-to-nursing-home-murders

The rescue of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight: 30 minutes that ended a decade of nightmares (video, slideshow)
by Henry J. Gomez, Plain Dealer Politics Writer  May 13, 2013
CLEVELAND, Ohio….

In these tense and emotional minutes of Monday, May 6 is the story of how bravery and swift action ended a decade-long nightmare. The heroes are the neighbors, the police officers and the women. Berry especially. Tonight, after 10 years, two weeks and one day of cruel incarceration inside Ariel Castro’s Seymour Avenue home, she summons her courage….

Castro had jumped into his blue sports car, leaving behind the women as he always does. Sometimes he takes the child — the 6-year-old girl who calls him Daddy. But not this evening.

Inside the house, Berry stares at the front door. Castro has left it unlocked. Is he testing her? He does that sometimes. She thinks about it some more. Will she have another opportunity? She moves toward the door, pulls it open. Another door. A storm door. Chained or bolted so it can’t open wide enough for her to escape.

Berry sees people outside on a neighbor’s porch. She cries out and reaches through the crack. “Help get me out of here!”….
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/05/30_minutes_that_ended_a_decade.html

Fear grips residents of Ahanta West over suspected ritual murder
Regional News of Monday, 27 May 2013 Source: GNA
Fear has gripped residents of Ahanta West District in the Western Region over suspected ritual murders of four innocent citizens in the area.

The victims were gruesomely murdered with parts of their body removed, and their corpses badly mutilated in what looks like a ritual murder.

The District Chief Executive (DCE) for the area, Mr. Joseph Dofoyenah, told the Ghana News Agency in an interview that the strange deaths had occurred within a period of three months.
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/regional/artikel.php?ID=275146

Child protection advocate Hetty Johnstone wants Family Court investigated by Royal Commission
by: Michael Madigan From: The Courier-Mail May 27, 2013
A FATHER winning custody of a daughter despite evidence he had sexually abused the toddler was just one of the cases warranting the Family Court’s inclusion in the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse, an advocacy group says.

Child sexual assault victims will suffer on in silence unless the Family Law Court is investigated by the Royal Commission, according to child protection advocate Hetty Johnston.

The founder and executive director of Bravehearts says the inquiry contains a glaring omission in its terms of reference.

The Family Law Court often hears disturbing allegations of sexual abuse.

“Every week in Australia the family courts are ordering children into contact with, and even into the custody of parents who are dangerous, toxic and abusive because Family Courts do not have the powers, expertise and resources to competently investigate allegations of child abuse,” Ms Johnston said….
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/child-protection-advocate-hetty-johnstone-wants-family-court-investigated-by-royal-commission/story-e6freoof-1226650909760

NEW ENGLAND LAW|BOSTON, JD/PHD PROJECT
DAUBERT FRYE CRITIQUE #1: LOST IN THE MALL, BY LOFTUS, ET. AL. By: Wendy Murphy, JD; Megan Mitchell, JD (expected 2013); Alexa Sardina, PhD (expected 2014)

Study Name and citation:
Loftus, E. & Pickrell, J. E. (1995). The Formation of False Memories. Psychiatric Annals, 25(12), 720-725.
(Commonly known as the “Lost in the Mall” study).

Theory Advanced by the Study:
False childhood memories can be implanted into adults by repeatedly stating the false memory as true.

Conclusion: The study’s theory and methodology are not reliable under either Frye or Daubert standards.

Overarching Observation: Irrespective of scientific reliability, no study should be admitted as evidence in a court of law, whether directly or via the testimony of an expert relying on that study, unless it is relevant to an issue legitimately in dispute in a particular legal controversy.

Relevancy standards applicable to scientific and “specialized” testimony and evidence refer to this as the “fitness” factor, which means the proposed evidence “fits” the facts because it will help to elucidate the truth on a disputed issue. For example, any attempt to use the Lost in the Mall  study to prove or disprove that a person is telling the truth about sexual abuse should be unsuccessful simply because memories about getting lost in a mall have nothing to do with memories of being sexually or physically violated.

Put another way, the capacity to make a person falsely believe they were once lost in a mall does not “fit” and bears no relevance in a dispute over whether a person can be made to falsely believe they were sexually abused as a child. This argument should be made first, before addressing more complicated scientific arguments about how the “Lost in the Mall” study was designed a nd conducted. It should be made clear to the judge that if a particular study, or proposed expert testimony relying on that study, is not relevant because it does not “fit” with the facts in dispute, there is no need to undertake a burdensome analysis of whether scientific standards were satisfied during the research process. Simply put, if it isn’t relevant, it doesn’t matter that a study is
scientifically unreliable.
http://wendymurphylaw.com/LOSTINTHEMALL.pdf

Paedo probe at Catholic schools: 20 priests and teachers to be quizzed by detectives 25 May 2013

School where sitcom Bad Education is filmed is at centre of inquiry as Met police launch investigation after claims of sex abuse dating back to 1950s
Detectives are investigating allegations of widespread child sex abuse at schools run by a Catholic order in Britain, the Sunday People reveals today.
The Metropolitan Police paedophile unit will quiz around 20 priests and teachers over claims of abuse dating back to the 1950s.

Thirty former pupils from schools run by the Salesians of Don Bosco order have come forward with allegations, an investigation by Exaro, the news website, with the Sunday People found. The probe – launched in strict secrecy two months ago – will go beyond the Salesians to examine historical reports of sexual abuse at other Roman Catholic schools….. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/paedo-probe-catholic-schools-20-1911825

Trial: Priest joked about abusing 3 boys in week

Trial: Priest joked about abusing 3 boys in week
By MARYCLAIRE DALE 4/3/12

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – Jurors in a landmark priest-abuse trial heard Monday about a priest-turned-camp prowler and another who allegedly bragged about having sex with three boys in one week….

Monsignor William Lynn is on trial for child endangerment and conspiracy. Lynn, 61, is the first Roman Catholic church official in the U.S. charged for his handling of priest-abuse complaints. Prosecutors say he helped the church bury them in secret files, far from the prying eyes of investigators, civil attorneys and concerned Catholics.

In the day’s most startling testimony, a detective read internal church memos about a priest who allegedly “joked about how hard it was to have sex with three boys in one week.” His accuser also stated that the priest had a “rotation process” of boys spending time sleeping with him.

Defense lawyers argue that Lynn tried to address the problem as secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004, but was blocked by the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua and others in the Philadelphia archdiocese.

The testimony Monday also included a 1992 complaint about a different priest who allegedly molested boys at a church-owned camp three decades earlier.

Several junior counselors complained in the early 1960s that the priest was on the prowl at night, molesting them in their tents. They said it was a well-known secret among teen counselors for several years.

The priest remained in ministry, working at three archdiocesan high schools and serving as assistant superintendent of Catholic schools through 2004. Confronted after a man complained to the archdiocese in 1992, the priest admitted to the “sin” of masturbation and said he had read up on that subject because so many people were mentioning it in the confessional….

His 28-year-old son, Arthur Jr., died of a drug overdose in 2006, after his civil lawsuit against the church accusing his high school principal of molesting him was thrown out because of legal time limits. The former principal, a Franciscan friar, is in prison for stealing nearly $900,000 from the school and the Franciscans, some of which fed the younger Baselice’s drug addiction, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors are detailing allegations made against nearly two dozen priests since 1948 to show that Lynn and other archdiocesan officials kept suspected predators in jobs around children.

On cross-examination Monday, defense lawyers Jeffrey Lindy and Thomas Bergstrom had detectives concede that Lynn promptly interviewed both complainants and accused priests, and sent the priests to a church-run hospital for mental health evaluations and treatment….

He remained there until 2004, when a church panel reviewing complaints in the wake of the national priest-abuse scandal found the allegations against him credible. The priest only then admitted molesting three boys, and explained earlier denials on the fact he had confessed and moved past it.

The archdiocese restricted his ministry — 40 years after the camp allegations first surfaced.
http://news.yahoo.com/trial-priest-joked-abusing-3-boys-week-205857367.html

Sex abuse often not reported, Secret church files detail anguish, teacher abuse

articles:
- Sex abuse often not reported
- Secret church files detail anguish – Unprecedented look at struggle to manage a child sexual abuse crisis
- Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell – A local teacher who molested his charges was allowed to take a new job in West Virginia, where a student died in his care

Sex abuse often not reported 2/18/12

Officials and victim advocates say a silver lining in the high-profile child sex abuse scandal involving a former Penn State football coach is that more people are now coming forward about the historically underreported crime.

Cases often aren’t investigated because victims are hesitant to report the offenses and adults who suspect a child is being abused don’t know what to do, experts say.

“I think it is underreported, and I think it always will be,” said Capt. Kathi Rhodes, director of the Montgomery County police’s family crimes division. She said children are often pressured not to tell, or are too embarrassed.

Boys often believe they should have been able to fight off their abuser, said Curtis St. John, past president of Male Survivor.

Another difficulty is that cases require children to make reports about someone close to them. In Alexandria, 95 percent of alleged perpetrators “know the child, and know the child very well,” said Giselle Pelaez, executive director of the Center for Alexandria’s Children.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/crime/2012/02/sex-abuse-often-not-reported/289231

Secret church files detail anguish – Unprecedented look at struggle to manage a child sexual abuse crisis Feb. 19, 2012

It was March 4, 2009, and the bishop’s right-hand man, Monsignor J. Thomas Cini, was sitting in a conference room in Bart Dalton’s Wilmington law office.

Cini, vicar general of the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington and pastor of St. Ann’s Catholic Church, was surrounded by lawyers, answering questions under oath about a priest who had sexually abused children while working as a teacher in two Catholic schools.

The priest in this case, Paul Daleo, was a Capuchin friar, not a diocesan priest. But he was under contract to teach in the diocese, and no priest can minister here without the bishop’s permission. So attorney John Manly was pressing Cini to learn what the diocese knew about Daleo before granting that permission.

Manly zeroed in on a controversy that arose in 1979, when Daleo was teaching sex-education courses at St. Edmond’s Academy and St. John the Beloved. “What in Father Paul’s résumé stands out at you as making him qualified to teach kids about sex?” Manly asked Cini.

“Well, he did a lot of it,” Cini replied.

“Well, you may think that’s funny,” Manly shot back. “I don’t, and I’m sure Mr. Conaty doesn’t.”

Matthias Conaty, sitting nearby, was in fourth grade at St. Edmond’s when Daleo first took an interest in him. For almost four years, Daleo raped and sexually assaulted him. Now a grown man with children of his own, Conaty was suing Daleo, the diocese, the school and the religious order.

He could file suit because he fought to change Delaware’s statute of limitations. A 2007 law opened a two-year window for suits that would otherwise have been barred. As scores of lawsuits were filed, the Diocese of Wilmington filed for bankruptcy protection….

Last week, as those files reached the public for the first time, Conaty was among those calling for the resignation of Cini and two other top diocesan officials — monsignors Joseph Rebman and Clement Lemon — for their failure to report predatory priests to the authorities, to warn parents of their presence in the community, and their failure to place the safety of children above their concern about public scandal….

But, Krebs said, Cini did talk to him about that remark in the Daleo deposition and said he believes the attorney took his comment out of context. Cini told Krebs he wasn’t saying Daleo had engaged in a lot of sexual activity, but that he had taught a lot of sex-education courses….

The files also reveal church authorities’ ongoing struggle to contain the abuse, control information and rumors, negotiate payments and confidentiality agreements (no longer permitted) with those who said they were abused, remove priests from parishes where they had abused children and respond strategically whenever problems became public.

Among the church documents included in the files is a 1962 publication explaining how church officials must handle allegations of a sexual nature. Complete secrecy is demanded, under threat of excommunication — which, in church terms, means eternal damnation.
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20120219/NEWS/202190358/Secret-church-files-detail-anguish

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

A local teacher who molested his charges was allowed to take a new job in West Virginia, where a student died in his care. By Aina Hunter Sep. 22, 2004

Former elementary school principal Edgar Friedrichs Jr. was convicted on four felony counts of child sexual abuse in January 2002. Last year he was indicted for the 1997 murder of a 12-year-old West Virginia boy. He began his career more than 30 years ago in Prospect Park, Pa….

From the stories extracted from the children–particularly those who served as crossing guards–Friedrichs had not only molested a number of boys, but had engaged in statutory rape.

The police were never involved. The parents, most of them now in their 60s, say principal Robert Castle and his superintendent believed it better if things were handled quietly. (Castle could not be reached for comment. His former secretary told PW that he’d moved to an undisclosed address in Florida.) Mr. Friedrichs and his wife simply disappeared….

Charol Shakeshaft, co-author of the Shakeshaft-Cohan study, the most recent scholarly work on sexual abuse in the classroom, says it’s not surprising that the Interboro superintendent in Prospect Park didn’t try to have Friedrichs’ teaching license revoked. In her 1995 study of 225 school districts across the country that had dealt with allegations of abuse by teachers, only 1 percent of the superintendents moved to have teachers’ licenses revoked.

Further, in the Shakeshaft-Cohan study, none of the surveyed superintendents involved police. “There is no excuse or rationale for that,” she says. “These are crimes, abuse and exploitation.”
http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/news-and-opinion/cover-story/dont_ask_dont_tell-38388094.html

Parental Alienation Disorder: Why Label Children with a Mental Diagnosis?

also: Revealed, six decades of ‘ritual’ child abuse: Catholic schools and orphanages damned in report

Parental Alienation Disorder: Why Label Children with a Mental Diagnosis?

Journal of Child Custody Volume 7, Issue 4, 2010, Pages 266 – 286 Authors: Lenore E. Walker; David L. Shapiro
DOI: 10.1080/15379418.2010.521041

Abstract
The proposal to include Parental Alienation Disorder (PAD) in the new proposed Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-V) creates a host of problems. The first major problem is the labeling of children with a mental disorder who may simply be reacting with anger to the changes in their lives from the separation and divorce of their parents by rejecting one parent and aligning with the other. Diagnosis may bring with it shame and have a chilling impact on parents report of domestic violence.

Although proponents of PAD are aware that it is inappropriate to diagnose children who have been exposed to child abuse and/or domestic violence with PAD, they do not clarify how to make such differential diagnoses. It is suggested that there are insufficient empirical data to differentiate abused and traumatized children from those who are alienated or estranged from the rejected parent.

Nor are there sufficient scientific data to account for other child vulnerabilities such as neurological immaturity, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), other anxiety and mood disorders, or oppositional defiant disorder. There are too few comparisons between the risks and benefits of adding a new diagnosis of childhood disorders to justify its inclusion in the DSM-V.

Appropriate intervention strategies recommended for PAD children include contact with the rejected parent, which differ widely from trauma victim/survivors who need assurance of safety and healing before contact is re-established. Ethical standards that may be impacted by this new diagnosis and admissibility issues raised by its predecessor, Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), are also discussed by the authors.

“As discussed, alienation is almost always alleged when the child does not want to be with a parent when there does not appear to be any ‘rational’ reason for these feelings. Of course, the definition of ‘‘rational’’ in these cases remains totally subjective to the person making the evaluation. Although proponents of labeling these children with PAD claim that using this label will assist in formulation of treatment goals and techniques, there are no empirical data to support this position (Bernet, 2010). Using the definition put forward by the American Psychological Association (APA) which requires two scientific studies replicating each other, there are no empirically validated interventions that support evidence that forcing a child to be with an unwanted parent will promote mental health.” (p.270-271)

“PROPOSED DIAGNOSTIC CRITERIA FOR PAD AND MAKING A DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS….Perhaps the most egregious part of this newly proposed diagnosis is the impossibility of making a differential diagnosis based on the child’s signs and symptoms and not the parents’ alleged behavior. Johnston (2010) discussed the confusion currently in the courts dealing with PAS=PAD and, in particular, defining who is alienated, the rejected parent or the child? There are so many explanations other than alienation for a child’s rejection of a parent during separation or divorce that to give children a new mental illness diagnosis is neither necessary nor appropriate. Surely anxiety disorders including PTSD from abuse are primary as has been discussed herein, as are other mood disorders, particularly depression. The criteria for children’s depression often include acting-out behavior and rejection of people and things that they used to like to do.
(p. 276 – 277)

“It is not appropriate to diagnose a child with a mental illness based on the parents’ behavior. In many cases known to the authors, both in practice and in supervision of other forensic evaluators, the child’s behavior could have been diagnosed as an adjustment disorder with anxiety or depression. Separation and divorce often means a new home or even two homes, new schools, new friends, and new schedules. Even when all goes well this can be a daunting challenge for most children.” (p. 277) http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all?content=10.1080/15379418.2010.521041

full article pdf and web page until 12/31/11 http://pdfserve.informaworld.com/903178__930160339.pdf http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a930160339&fulltext=713240928

Revealed, six decades of ‘ritual’ child abuse: Catholic schools and orphanages damned in report
By Tom Kelly 21st May 2009
Abuse was ‘endemic’ in childrens’ institutions
Safety of children in general was not a consideration
No abusers will be prosecuted
Victims banned from launch of shocking report

Church leaders and government watchdogs covered up ‘endemic’ and ‘ritualised’ abuse of thousands of children in Roman Catholic schools and orphanages in the Irish Republic, a shocking report revealed yesterday.

For six decades, priests and nuns terrorised boys and girls in the workhouse-style schools with sexual, physical and mental abuse.

But officials in Ireland’s Catholic Church shielded paedophile staff from arrest to protect their own reputations despite knowing they were serial attackers, according to the 2,600-page report, which took nine years to complete.

Irish government inspectors also failed to stop the chronic beatings, rape and humiliation, it found.

About 35,000 children and teenagers who were orphans, petty thieves, truants, unmarried mothers or from dysfunctional families were sent to Ireland’s network of 250 Church-run industrial schools, reformatories, orphanages and hostels from the 1930s up until the early 1990s.

The report by Ireland’s Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse found ‘a climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment, permeated most of the institutions and all those run for boys’.

It added: ‘Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from.’

Judge Sean Ryan, who chaired the commission, said that when confronted with evidence of sex abuse, religious authorities responded by moving the sex offenders to another location, where in many instances they were free to abuse again.

‘There was evidence that such men took up teaching positions sometimes within days of receiving dispensations because of serious allegations or admissions of sexual abuse,’ the report said.

‘The safety of children in general was not a consideration.’….
The report found that molestation and rape were ‘endemic’ in boys’ facilities, chiefly run by the Christian Brothers order.

Girls supervised by orders of nuns, chiefly the Sisters of Mercy, suffered much less sexual abuse but frequent assaults and humiliation designed to make them feel worthless.

‘In some schools a high level of ritualised beating was routine,’ the report said. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1184828/Revealed-decades-ritual-child-abuse-Catholic-schools-orphanages-damned-report.html