James S. Weems Jr., 57, was arrested in the hospital on multiple charges Monday, accused of sexually abusing at least three children at a day care center in Owings Mills, Maryland.
By Marlene Lenthang
A former Baltimore police officer shot by his wife, who accused him of sexually abusing children at her day care center, was arrested Monday in the hospital on child sex abuse charges, police say.
Shanteari Weems, 50, of Randallstown, shot her husband, James S. Weems Jr., 57, on Thursday at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in the 1300 block of Maryland Avenue in Washington D.C., according to a police news release.
Caution tape at the scene of a shooting at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington on July 22.WRC
Detectives with the Metropolitan Police Department arrived to the scene after 7:30 p.m. on a report of a shooting and found James Weems in a hotel room suffering apparent gunshot wounds, the release stated.
He was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries.
At the scene, police found two guns in the room and letters Shanteari Weems wrote apologizing to the children, saying she didn’t know what was going on at the day care, NBC Washington reported.
Shanteari Weems was arrested by responding officers and charged with assault with intent to kill with a gun. A preliminary hearing is set for her Friday.
NBC News has reached out to her attorney for comment.
Days after the shooting, an arrest warrant was issued for James Weems on accusations of child sex abuse Monday.
The warrant came after “allegations surfaced that Weems sexually abused at least three children while working at a day care facility in Owings Mills,” the Baltimore County Police Department announced Tuesday.
According to records, Shanteari Weems owns Lil Kidz Kastle Daycare Center, which is in the Baltimore suburb of Owings Mills.
Detectives with Baltimore County began to investigate James Weems this month after they were notified of the abuse, and he now faces multiple charges, Baltimore County police said.
Baltimore County Police said he remains hospitalized in police custody in Washington pending extradition. It was not immediately known if he has legal representation.
Baltimore police did not immediately respond to an NBC News request for details on the charges.
Weems was hired by the Baltimore City Police Department in June 1996. He retired in 2005 and continued to work for the department as a contract specialist until 2008, the department said. Shanteari Weems told police she and James Weems were married for five years, according to NBC Washington.
The investigation into James Weems is underway by Baltimore County detectives, Metropolitan Police Department, the Baltimore County State’s Attorney’s Office, the Maryland State Department of Education and the Maryland Department of Human Services, Child Protective Services.
Police are asking for families who may have been affected to contact Baltimore County detectives.
A new report released Tuesday reveals that, over the past eight years, the Catholic Church has spent $10.6 million in the northeastern United States to fight legislation that would help victims of clergy sexual abuse seek justice.
"At the most basic level, we were inspired by frustration," says attorney Gerald Williams, a partner at Williams Cedar, one of four law firms that jointly commissioned the report. "We represent hundreds of people, who have truly been victimized by clergymen in the Catholic Church. We've heard a lot about the church's desire to be accountable and turn over a new leaf. But when we turn to the form where we can most help people and where we can get the most justice — the courts of justice — the church has been there blocking their efforts."
In New York, for example, the Catholic Church spent $2,912,772 lobbying against the Child Victims Act, which Governor Andrew Cuomo ultimately signed into law on February 14, 2019. The act gives survivors more time to seek justice against their abusers, increasing the age at which victims are able to sue from 23 to 55.
Similarly, in Pennsylvania — where in 2018 a grand jury report detailed evidence of more than 300 priests credibly accused of sexually abusing more than 1,000 children — the Catholic Church spent $5,322,979 lobbying to keep current restrictions in place on the statute of limitations in which victims can seek criminal or civil charges against their abusers.
The report, CHURCH INFLUENCING STATE: How the Catholic Church Spent Millions Against Survivors of Clergy Abuse, was commissioned by Seeger Weiss LLP, Williams Cedar LLC, Abraham Watkins and the Simpson Tuegel Law Firm and is believed to be the most comprehensive analysis of the Church's campaign to fight statute of limitations legislation. COURTESY WILLIAMS CEDAR LLC
The funneling of such a large chunk of money to the Church's lobbying arm, the Catholic Conference Policy Group, with the intention of combating reform that would benefit sexual abuse victims seems directly counter to recent statements the Church has made publicly, vowing to take accountability.
In August 2018, Pope Francis himself said, "The pain of the victims and their families is also our pain, and so it is urgent that we once more reaffirm our commitment to ensure the protection of minors and of vulnerable adults."
"CHURCH INFLUENCING STATE" / COURTESY WILLIAMS CEDAR LLC
"They make a lot of positive statements, but when the Churchliterally puts its money where its mouth is, it's on the side of self-protection and not help for the survivors," Williams told CBS News. "I believe the church has a long way to go to show that it stands with survivors. I believe that these data indicate that it's not standing with the survivors, that in fact it's standing against the survivors."
The data in the report is based entirely on public filings in the individual states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. And Williams believes it's "likely" that at least some of the money used by the Catholic Church to combat extending the statute of limitations for survivors came from Sunday collections from the faithful.
"It's hard for us to tell just from the raw numbers, but it's likely," he says. "We can't say for certain where the money comes from. We can only say that it's a lot of money that could be spent for more constructive purposes."
Every proposed amendment detailed in the report would benefit all victims of child sex abuse, not only those abused at the hands of the Church. And yet, more than $10 million of the Catholic Church's money has now gone to fighting statute of limitation extensions for those victims, as well.
"I hope, frankly, that Catholics who come across this report take away from it the same thing that I take away from it, as a Catholic born-and-raised person myself," Williams told CBS News. "I had 16 years of Catholic education. Catholicism teaches a lot of important and noble values, but the institution has really acted in ways contradicting those values. So, what I take away from this are really two emotions: sadness and anger. The sadness is a little stronger even than the anger. But maybe if Catholics themselves get angry about this, then maybe the institution itself will change… It just has to change. And that has to start with members of the church."
At the time of this article publishing, neither the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, nor the Archdiocese of New York had responded to CBS News' request for comment.
Operation Southern Impact III child sex sting mug shots
A 4-month long investigation spanned eight southeastern states including both North and South Carolina. Author: Phillip Kish
A firefighter. A business owner. A dishwasher. They were among 82 people arrested as part of a massive, multi-state child exploitation operation conducted across eight southeastern states, including Georgia.
Seventeen children were recovered in the operation, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
"It's not uncommon at all for us to find children in the homes of people who are collecting and viewing child pornography and it's not uncommon for them to be victims of that person," said GBI Special Agent in Charge Debbie Garner.
The operation began four months ago and culminated in three days of investigative actions to include search warrant executions, undercover operations, arrests and sex offender compliance verification visits in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.
In Georgia, 31 people were arrested during the sting, which was dubbed "Operation Southern Impact III." Seven of those arrested had traveled to meeting a minor to have sex, the GBI said.
Investigators in Georgia "targeted those seeking out and distributing the most violent sexual abuse material involving infants and toddlers," according to the GBI news release.
A total of 56 search warrants were executed and 41 knock and talks were conducted in Georgia during Operation Southern Impact III.
During the operation, four registered sex offenders were encountered and arrested in Georgia on charges related to child pornography. One of the registered sex offenders arrested during Operation Southern Impact III was initially arrested by the GBI during a very similar operation in 2015.
The GBI said 972 digital media and devices were seized as evidence and illegal drugs and firearms were also found.
Those in custody and charged in Georgia as part of Operation Southern Impact III are:
Operation Southern Impact III child sex sting mug shots
Jimmy Abadio Lopez
1/10
James Barfield IV, 51, Atlanta, GA, home improvement store employee
The Boy Scout logo is displayed in a store on July 27, 2015 in San Rafael, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
More than 100 former Boy Scout leaders who appeared in the so-called "Perversion Files" were being singled out Tuesday. The law firms of Greg Gianforcaro and Jeff Anderson & Associates named leaders in New York and New Jersey at a livestreamed press conference where sex abuse survivors were to share their stories.
More than 7,800 Boy Scouts of America leaders nationwide were accused by the lawyers of child sex abuse. Many of the former Scout leaders appeared in a sweeping Los Angeles Times database dating to October 2012 that tracked thousands of men and women who were kicked out of the organization between 1947 and January 2005 due to suspected sex abuse.
Jeff Anderson said he planned to file multiple lawsuits against the Boy Scouts on behalf of many victims.
"When we got this information, we had to sound this alarm," he said.
There are about 35 Boy Scout leaders from Connecticut who appeared in the "Perversion Files." Patch is not naming the individuals as many were not charged. The Times noted that an unknown number of files were purged by the organization before the 1990s and an unknown number of additional cases were created after 2005. The most recent Connecticut file is from 2004 and the oldest dates back to 1956. All but four of around 80 files are from before 2000.
There are more than 100,000 scouting units nationwide, the organization wrote on its website.
The Boy Scouts said in a statement to media outlets Monday night that it cares "deeply about all victims of child sex abuse" and sincerely apologizes to "anyone who was harmed during their time in Scouting." The organization stressed that it has enacted "strong youth protection policies" to prevent future abuses. This includes mandatory youth protection trainings and a formal leader-selection process that includes criminal background checks.
"We believe victims, we support them, and we have paid for unlimited counseling by a provider of their choice," the BSA said. "Nothing is more important than the safety and protection of children in Scouting, and we are outraged that there have been times when individuals took advantage of our programs to abuse innocent children."
The BSA added that it never knowingly allowed people accused of abuse to work with kids. All leaders, volunteers and staff members are required to immediately report abuse allegations to law enforcement.
The cases in the "Perversion Files" database originated from secret Scouting files submitted in court cases, The Times wrote. Specifically, the cases originated from a 1992 California lawsuit, a release order by the Oregon Supreme Court and summary data on additional files.
On Tuesday, the law firms said they'd demand identifying and background information in every BSA leader accused of child sex abuse in New Jersey and New York.
The "Perversion Files" documented horrific sex abuse allegations. In some states, Scouts were stripped naked and rubbed with ice cubes. Others were forced to have oral sex with their troop leaders and molested on camping trips, according to the report.
Patch staffers Noah Manskar, Tom Davis and Dan Hampton contributed reporting.
Monsignor William Lynn was the first U.S. Catholic Church official to be convicted of covering up clergy sex abuse. After Pennsylvania's Supreme Court vacated Lynn’s conviction, he faces another trial this year. (AP file photo) In 1995, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops commissioned an internal church study on child abuse. The two-volume study surveyed bishops in more than 100 dioceses nationwide about their use of treatment centers to assess and care for priests believed to be sexually abusing children. The result: 87% of bishops (127 out of 145 dioceses surveyed) reported using treatment centers for clergy accused of child abuse. Two decades later, following the August release of the Pennsylvania grand jury report on sex abuse in the Catholic Church — one of three released by the state attorney general since early 2000 — dioceses in multiple states and at least one state attorney general have disclosed their own lists of credibly accused priests. The Pennsylvania report focuses on many small towns throughout the state. One of those towns — mentioned more than a dozen times — is an outlier. It’s a town you wouldn’t think to look for unless, like me, you were born and raised there. In 2002, around the same time the Boston Globe published its bombshell report on sexual abuse of children in Archdiocese of Boston, I was a freshman at Bishop Shanahan, a Catholic high school in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. I don’t remember paying much attention to the Boston Globe report. Nor was I aware that, during this same time, multiple priests accused of child abuse were being sent to a clergy treatment center directly across the street from my high school. Downingtown is home to the longest-running behavioral health facility in North America still in use by the Catholic Church. It’s a place where — according to the reports — at least 50 priests accused of molesting children in Pennsylvania were referred for evaluation and treatment. That treatment time was often referred to in their employment history as “sick leave,” and many priests were inevitably discharged and permitted to return to active ministry. Others were transferred to church-run retirement homes where they received fully paid benefits. The church commonly called that retreat a “life of prayer and penance.” St. John Vianney Center Founded in 1946, the St. John Vianney Center in Downingtown is staffed by clergy, psychologists, and nurses. It offers inpatient and outpatient services for behavioral and emotional issues, addiction, compulsive behaviors, and weight management. It is fully funded and administered under the purview of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. In detail, the grand jury report — much like the 1995 USCCB study — offers rare insight into the church’s use of “treatment” centers, the psychiatric facilities for clergy with addiction, depression, and sexual disorders, among other conditions. According to the grand jury report, the Catholic Church used these treatment centers to “launder accused priests, provide plausible deniability, and permit hundreds of known offenders to return to ministry.” The report goes on further to state that Catholic bishops relied on three treatment centers in particular: Servants of the Paraclete in Jemez Springs, New Mexico; St. Luke’s in Suitland, Maryland; and St. John Vianney Center. All three remain open. Downingtown, less than an hour south of Philadelphia, is no stranger to scandal involving the church. Most recently, in 2017, a pastor at the nondenominational Calvary Fellowship Church, across the street from Downingtown East High School, pleaded guilty to institutional sex assault, corruption of minors, and child endangerment after sexually assaulting and impregnating a teenage girl. He was sentenced to up to six years in prison. Five years earlier, Monsignor William Lynn — who was serving at St. Joseph’s parish across the street from Downingtown West High School — became the first high-ranking U.S. Catholic Church official to be convicted of covering up clergy sex abuse. In addition to three priests and a parochial school teacher, Lynn was charged and convicted of one count of endangering the welfare of a child. He is now free after serving nearly three years of his three- to six-year sentence. He may face another trial on the charges this year. St. Joseph’s Church in Downingtown remains the second largest parish in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The recently renovated facade, with its towering white steeple, sits just off Route 322. Every Sunday, parishioners fill the parking lot before Mass. Every summer, the same lot is transformed into the annual Community Festival: a five-day carnival that is a hallmark of the small suburb. On the opposite side of town is St. John Vianney Center. Unlike St. Joseph’s parish, on display as a beacon to area Catholics, the treatment center is hidden from public view. It sits at the end of a long driveway at the top of a hill, surrounded by trees and nestled between a country club and Bishop Shanahan High School across the street. The only clue toward its existence is a small sign outside the entrance. It’s a fitting appearance for a place shrouded in a culture of secrecy characteristic of the church itself. A look at two cases One of the four men charged along with Lynn in 2012 was the Rev. Edward Avery, who received treatment at St. John Vianney over the course of four days from Nov. 30 to Dec. 3, 1992. Following his evaluation, the treatment center recommended further in-patient care. Philadelphia Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, who had allowed Avery to remain in active ministry for nearly 11 months after his victim first reported the abuse to the archdiocese, approved the recommendation. Avery was discharged from St. John Vianney on Oct. 22, 1993. In a memo to the church, Lynn shared the treatment center’s recommendations for Avery, which included a ministry excluding adolescents and with a population other than vulnerable minorities. The treatment center also advised that an aftercare team supervise Avery. Yet Lynn recommended that Avery return to a parish with an elementary school, and Bevilacqua ultimately agreed. Avery would later testify before the grand jury that he continued to celebrate Mass, with altar servers, usually twice a weekend. He heard the confessions of children and was never told to restrict his activities with the youth of the parish. The aftercare team that was supposed to be supervising Avery didn’t meet with him for more than a year after he ended treatment. Furthermore, the chaplain at St. John Vianney warned Lynn that Avery was “neglecting his duties” and instead “booking numerous disc jockey engagements” to gain access to children. Avery remained in active ministry until Dec. 5, 2003, a decade after first receiving treatment. Avery’s case is one of many revealing exactly how the Catholic Church used St. John Vianney and other treatment centers to launder accused priests and, in some cases, return them to ministry in defiance of the treatment center’s own recommendations. And while it’s worth noting that many of the allegations contained within the grand jury report are from decades ago, the case studies involving treatment centers cover allegations ranging from as early as the 1960s to as recent as 2004. In a separate case, on April 22, 2004, diocesan documents show that Pennsylvania State Police searched the room of the Rev. Ronald Yarrosh — then assistant pastor at St. Ambrose in Schuylkill Haven — and found a “tremendous amount” of child pornography. A week later, he was suspended from ministry and placed into treatment at St. John Vianney. Across the street, I was just about to finish my sophomore year of high school. On May 12, 2004, State Police filed charges: 110 counts of sexual abuse of children. Yarrosh was sentenced pursuant to a negotiated plea agreement that included three to 23 months in prison. He was discharged from St. John Vianney on May 3, 2005, and was later incarcerated for nearly four months until his release on Dec. 6, 2005, as a convicted and registered sex offender. According to the grand jury report, upon his release, Yarrosh remained a member of the priesthood and the diocese granted him residence at a retirement home for priests in Orwigsburg — only a few miles from St. Ambrose parish where he had been arrested two years earlier. In 2006, according to the grand jury report, Yarrosh took trips to New York City with a 7-year-old. Yarrosh was also found to be in possession of pornography in violation of his court supervision. He was sentenced to four to 10 years in state prison. In June 2007, the Yarrosh was finally dismissed from the priesthood. The current president of St. John Vianney, David Shellenberger, did not return requests for an interview. Time for a mea culpa: I’ve driven past St. John Vianney hundreds of times in my life. I spent four years, every day, directly across the street. And yet, I never knew what that place was until I discovered it on my own, by accident, reading the grand jury report. Much like the abusive priests written about in the reports, the truth was always hiding in plain sight. If the Catholic Church is serious about reform within the priesthood, it will do more than simply condemn the accused. The church must acknowledge and recognize that bishops across the country have, for decades, institutionalized a culture that not only fosters abusive priests but also aims to protect the accused and silence victims. Simply put, the only reason child abuse has become an epidemic is because the Catholic Church has allowed it to happen. What the #MeToo era revealed, beyond a litany of heinous acts committed by sexual predators, is that the allegations themselves rarely tell the full story. Instead — whether it be the Catholic Church or Michael Jackson or Jeffrey Epstein — the full story often involves those in power exploiting their influence and privilege to circumvent the criminal justice system and maintain the appearance of infallibility. Perhaps the first step toward reform in the Catholic Church is a collective confirmation that members of the clergy are no more pious than anyone else. They are, in fact, only human — some of them deeply flawed — and all of them in need of self-reflection. Perhaps, a life of prayer and penance is in order.
By Daniel Burke and Rosa Flores, CNN In a remarkable admission, German Cardinal Reinhard Marx said Saturday that documents that could have contained proof of clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church were destroyed or never drawn up. "Files that could have documented the terrible deeds and named those responsible were destroyed or not even created," said Marx, the archbishop of Munich and president of the German Bishops' Conference. "The stipulated procedures and processes for the prosecution offenses were deliberately not complied with," he added, "but instead canceled and overridden. "Such standard practices will make it clear that it is not transparency which damages the church, but rather the acts of abuse committed, the lack of transparency, or the ensuing coverup." Marx's stunning admission came on the third day of a historic Vatican summit focused on combating clergy sexual abuse. The day's theme was transparency, which Marx said could help to tackle abuse of power. A member of Pope Francis' inner circle of advisers, Marx is one of the most powerful men in the Catholic Church. The four-day summit of 190 Catholic leaders, including 114 bishops from around the world, will conclude Sunday with an address by Pope Francis. On Thursday, at the beginning of the unprecedented summit, Francis urged the bishops to take "concrete measures" to combat the clergy abuse scandal.
At a press conference later Saturday, Marx said that the information about destroying files came from a study commissioned by German bishops in 2014. The study was "scientific" and did not name the particular church leaders or dioceses in Germany that destroyed the files. "The study indicates that some documents were manipulated or did not contain what they should have contained," Marx said. "The fact in itself cannot be denied." Marx said he doubts the destruction of files related to clergy sexual abuse was limited to one diocese. "I assume Germany is not an isolated case." The report commissioned by the German bishops also revealed that "at least" 3,677 cases of child sex abuse by German clergy occurred between 1946 and 2014.
CNN's Lauren Said-Moorhouse and Livvy Doherty contributed to this report.
New York Sen. Brad Hoylman, center, flanked by former Assemblywoman Margaret Markey, left, and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, right, join survivors and advocates speaking in favor of the legislation.
New York (CNN) The New York State Legislature passed a bill on Monday that will increase the statute of limitations for cases of child sexual abuse.
The Child Victims Act will allow child victims to seek prosecution against their abuser until the age of 55 in civil cases, a significant increase from the previous limit of age 23. For criminal cases, victims can seek prosecution until they turn 28. The bill also includes a one-year window during which victims of any age or time limit can come forward to prosecute.
"New York has just gone from being one of the worst states in the country to being one of the best," in terms of the statute of limitations for child sex abuse cases, said Marci Hamilton, CEO of Child USA and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
Hamilton said the bill "represents over 15 years of work by survivors and advocates trying to get around the stiff opposition from the Catholic bishops and the insurance industry" and is a step forward in the national conversation. There are eight other states considering similar legislation.
Survivors and supporters gather at the New York State Capitol Monday to celebrate the passage of the New York Child Victims Act.
What's the law nationally?
Many other states allow victims to sue their abusers for decades after their abuse. Oklahoma, for example, allows victims to come forward until age 45 in both civil and criminal cases.
"The fact that New York has stepped up and vastly improved its statute of limitations, it helps to pave the way for other states who haven't yet taken steps to improve their statute of limitations," said Stephen Forrester, director of government relations and administration at the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
Forrester stressed the significance of the one-year window in the bill that will allow victims of all ages and time scales to come forward. "That's an aspect that really goes a long way at restoring justice," he said, and it is less common nationally. According to advocacy group Child USA, nine states have no statute of limitations for civil cases, which would allow child sex abuse victims to come forward at any point in their life -- as they will be able to during the one-year window.
New York's law will also give victims significantly more time to disclose their histories of abuse. Experts, including Forrester, say there is a need for a long statute of limitations in cases of child sexual abuse because it can take victims years to come forward. "For many different reasons, victims need time to come forward to report their abuse," Forrester said. Victims can often suffer from prolonged or delayed trauma.
According to statistics from Child USA, the majority of child sexual abuse victims do not choose to disclose, if they do at all, until the average age of 52.
Child USA's Hamilton said that extending the statute of limitation for civil litigation will help expand the public knowledge of how widespread child sexual abuse is. She said it is often during civil cases that experts learn about how patterns of abuse operate.
"We have this silent pandemic in this country," she said. "We didn't really understand that this was everywhere."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 1 in 7 children have experienced child abuse and/or neglect in the last year.
Catholic Church opposition
Monday's bill passage comes after more than a decade of opposition from the Catholic Church in New York. In a news conference on Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is a Roman Catholic, blamed the church directly for preventing the bill's passage.
Speaking about why the bill took years to pass, Cuomo said, "I believe it was the conservatives in the Senate who were threatened by the Catholic Church." The bill passed the Senate unanimously on Monday. In November 2018, Democrats took over the Republican-held Senate.
Cuomo also referenced Pope Francis, who has spoken about the Catholic Church's need to confront its history of child sexual abuse. "I don't think I'm against the Catholic Church," Cuomo said, "I think the bishops may have a different position than the Pope, and I'm with the Pope," he said.
New York's Catholic Conference previously opposed the bill but dropped its opposition after the bill was amended to allow prosecution of both private and public institutions.
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian has prosecuted thousands of clergy abuse cases over the past 25 years, including those stemming from the Boston Globe's investigation of the Archdiocese of Boston.
In an interview Monday, Garabedian told CNN this legislation will be hugely significant. "I think there will be a flood of litigation," he said, adding that he has more than 100 cases waiting to be filed.
"It's a model for many, many states in the United States for them to follow," Garabedian said. In a statement, he added, "There is now hope for justice, respect and validation for thousands of sexual abuse victims sexually abused in New York."
Cuomo's office said he is expected to sign the bill into law soon.
Joy Evans Ryder was 15 years old when she says her church youth director pinned her to his office floor and raped her.
“It’s OK. It’s OK,” he told her. “You don’t have to be afraid of anything.”
He straddled her with his knees, and she looked off into the corner, crying and thinking, “This isn’t how my mom said it was supposed to be.”
The youth director, Dave Hyles, was the son of the charismatic pastor of First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, considered at the time the flagship for thousands of loosely affiliated independent fundamental Baptist churches and universities.
At least three other teen girls would accuse Hyles of sexual misconduct, but he never faced charges or even sat for a police interview related to the accusations. When he got in trouble, Hyles was able to simply move on, from one church assignment to the next.
Hyles’ flight to safety has become a well-worn path for ministers in the independent fundamental Baptist movement.
For decades, women and children have faced rampant sexual abuse while worshiping at independent fundamental Baptist churches around the country. The network of churches and schools has often covered up the crimes and helped relocate the offenders, an eight-month Star-Telegram investigation has found.
More than 200 people — current or former church members, across generations — shared their stories of rape, assault, humiliation and fear in churches where male leadership cannot be questioned.
“It’s a philosophy — it’s flawed,” said Stacey Shiflett, an independent fundamental Baptist pastor in Dundalk, Maryland. “The philosophy is you don’t air your dirty laundry in front of everyone. Pastors think if they keep it on the down-low, it won’t impact anyone. And then the other philosophy is it’s wrong to say anything bad about another preacher.”
The Star-Telegram discovered at least 412 allegations of sexual misconduct in 187 independent fundamental Baptist churches and their affiliated institutions, spanning 40 states and Canada.
Twenty-one abuse allegations were uncovered exclusively by the Star-Telegram, and others were documented in criminal cases, lawsuits and news reports. But victims said the number of abused is far greater because few victims ever come forward.
One hundred and sixty-eight church leaders were accused or convicted of committing sexual crimes against children, the investigation found. At least 45 of the alleged abusers continued in ministry after accusations came to the attention of church authorities or law enforcement.
Compounding the problem is the legal statute of limitations. For many alleged offenders, the statutes on the crimes have expired.
Many of the allegations involve men whose misconduct has long been suspected in the independent fundamental Baptist community. But most of their victims have not publicly come forward, on the record, until now. Even pastors have for the first time — in interviews with the Star-Telegram — acknowledged they moved alleged abusers out of their churches rather than call law enforcement.
From Connecticut to California, the stories are tragically similar:
A music minister molested a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina and moved to another church in Florida. Another girl’s parents stood in front of their Connecticut congregation to acknowledge their daughter’s “sin” after she was abused by her youth pastor, beginning at 16. This year, four women accused a pastor in California of covering up sexual misconduct and shielding the abusers over almost 25 years.
To understand how this systemic, widespread abuse could happen again and again, some former members say it is necessary to understand the cult-like power of many independent fundamental Baptist churches and the constant pressure not to question pastors — or ever leave the church.
“We didn’t have a compound like those other places, but it may as well have been,” said one former member who says she was abused. She requested anonymity because, like many others, she is still intimidated by the church.
They were terrorized, trapped and even sexually abused. Now, these former members of independent fundamental Baptist churches share how their experiences will affect the rest of their lives. Click to hear their stories.
‘MEN OF GOD’
Current and formers members say many independent fundamental Baptist churches rule by fear.
Pastor Jim Vineyard was an expert in the tactic.
Vineyard had a tattoo snaking around his forearm and liked to talk about the days he said he was a Green Beret. He began his preaching career under Dave Hyles’ father, Jack, in Indiana and left to begin his own church, Windsor Hills Baptist Church in Oklahoma City.
Former members in Oklahoma City remember the story about a photo of a dead man Vineyard kept in his desk. It was a favorite of Vineyard’s to tell from the pulpit.
In one version of the story, the picture was of a man who voted against Vineyard coming into the church to pastor. The man subsequently got into a car crash and broke his neck.
Or there was this version: The photo was of the son of a Windsor Hills family who told Vineyard they were going to leave the church. Vineyard warned them: If they did, God would punish them. They left, and the son died in a car crash.
Defy Jim Vineyard, the message went, and God would punish you.
To go against the advice of the pastor of an independent fundamental Baptist church is almost unthinkable. The “man of God” is chosen by God and is the church’s direct link to him. To question the pastor is to question God.
“I see a culture where pastoral authority is taken to a level that’s beyond what the Scripture teaches,” said Tim Heck, who was a deacon at Faith Baptist Church in Wildomar, California, and whose daughter said she had been abused by the youth pastor there. “I think the independent fundamental Baptists have lost their way.”
Many pastors build authority through fear and interpretation of Bible verses. Children learn the story of Elisha and the she-bears: As the prophet Elisha walks up the path toward Bethel, a group of children surrounds him and makes fun of his baldness. Two she-bears emerge from the woods and maul 42 of the children. The lesson: Don’t challenge the man of God.
Even if they leave, some ex-members wonder for years whether bad events in their lives were caused by an angry God. Jennifer McCune, who came forward this year to allege that Dave Hyles raped her when she was a 14-year-old in Texas, still wonders 36 years later if God punished her by giving her late husband cancer.
Dave Hyles, son of influential pastor Jack Hyles, continued in the ministry after facing sexual abuse allegations at multiple independent fundamental Baptist churches.
Other ex-members said they believed that if they disobeyed the pastor or left the church, God would kill them or their loved ones.
The authority of the men of God extends far beyond the church. Pastors often have a heavy hand in who church members can date. Pastors are asked by members for their advice on where to vacation or whether to take a new job. When one congregant wanted to buy a new house, he had the pastor drive by first and approve it.
Independent fundamental Baptist churches preach separation: Stay separate from the world, separate from non-believers and separate from Christians who do not believe as they do. That includes Southern Baptists, who are deemed by the strict sect as too liberal.
Members instinctively go to the pastor first with problems, including those of a criminal nature.
“Any issues, even legal issues, go to the pastor first, not the police. Especially about another member of the church,” said Josh Elliott, a former member of Vineyard’s Oklahoma City church. “The person should go to the pastor, and the pastor will talk to the offender. You don’t report to police because the pastor is the ultimate authority, not the government.”
Stuart Hardy was a youth and music pastor at an independent fundamental Baptist church in Michigan. He witnessed the same authoritarian approach.
“You can’t question your leaders,” Hardy said. “And when you can’t question your leaders, we’ve seen it in politics, you know what happens. It’s not a good thing.”
Hardy left in 2014 and now describes the experience using one four-letter word.
“Those of us that have gotten out definitely know it as a cult,” he said.
The independent fundamental Baptist movement began to grow in the 1950s and ’60s as the churches positioned themselves as the true way to Christ in contrast to less conservative churches and a godless secular world.
While there’s no official count, an online directory assembled by a pastor in Maine lists more than 6,000 independent fundamental Baptist churches in the United States, as well as churches in countries from Germany to Nicaragua.
The churches operate independently. But many pastors are linked by the church-affiliated colleges they attended: Bob Jones University, Hyles-Anderson College, Pensacola Christian College and Golden State Baptist College, to name a few. Friendships are forged at preaching conferences — and, just as often, alliances are rearranged when there’s a rift.
Pastors use their connections in this informal network to help abusers find new churches, the Star-Telegram found.
Many of the churches identified by the Star-Telegram that have faced abuse allegations are in the Southeast and Midwest, with the most being in North Carolina (17) and Ohio (12).
Nine of the churches are in Texas, including Open Door Baptist Church in Mesquite. In April, police arrested pastor Bob Ross on charges that he failed to report the alleged sexual abuse of a minor. A month earlier, one of his ministers and a youth volunteer were jailed on suspicion of sexually abusing children at the church.
While many abusers in the ministry are never caught, there’s a collection of church officials in prison for their crimes. Carlton Hammonds, who pastored Willows Baptist Church in Willows, California, served three years for molesting four girls from his congregation in the mid-2000s. In 2012, Joshua Gardner was sentenced to six years for sexually abusing two boys at his parents’ church on an American base in Okinawa, Japan. (His Minnesota church stood behind him.) Two officials at Kettle Moraine Baptist Church in Wisconsin were sentenced to prison for sexually assaulting children at the church’s Camp Joy. One of the Camp Joy workers already had a sexual offense conviction.
Jim Vineyard would also face misconduct allegations when his leadership-by-fear style was finally challenged in 2004.
Multiple women say the Oklahoma City pastor made sexual comments to them from the 1990s to 2000s when they were teenagers during one-on-one counseling sessions. The allegations went public when the brother of one of the girls put together a packet of letters and sworn affidavits describing the comments and sent it to the church’s deacons.
Vineyard, who died in October 2017, denied he’d done anything wrong and led Windsor Hills until 2007.
Vineyard’s son Tom took his place as head of the church. Ross, the pastor from Mesquite who was arrested in April, had worked for Jim Vineyard in Oklahoma before coming to Texas, and has found refuge back in Vineyard’s church as he awaits trial.
Tom Vineyard and Ross did not respond to requests for comment.
Ex-members of Windsor Hills say they’ve been contacted by Mesquite officers as part of the investigation into Ross. They said police also asked them about allegations that Ross had failed to report abuse when he worked at Windsor Hills.
'HE DOES THAT WITH EVERYONE’
In Joy Evans Ryder’s mid-1970s church-driven world, skirts had to go past knees, men and women had to be separated by six inches, and a good daughter’s gift to her father was to save her first kiss for the altar.
A father himself, Jack Hyles was nicknamed the “Baptist Pope” for the sway he held over the nationwide independent fundamental Baptist movement from his power base in small-town Indiana.
His son Dave was tall, skinny and already balding by his mid-20s. He had his father’s eyes that pulled down at the corners. No one would have called him traditionally handsome, but he had his father’s ability to make you feel a part of the in-crowd with a compliment or sarcastic joke. And he could just as easily push you out with a cutting insult.
Dave Hyles had taken an interest in Ryder when she was 14, and it scared her.
One Sunday morning after service, she stood in line to speak to Jack Hyles — the most important person in her world — about his son’s repeated calls to her house. The attention made her uncomfortable, she said.
The pastor sat at his desk and took her in for a moment.
“Joy, you’re not special,” he said. “He does that with everyone. So don’t think he’s trying to do anything with you.”
Not long after, she was raped by Dave Hyles. It continued for two years.
Reached by phone, Dave Hyles declined to comment. The Star-Telegram followed up by sending him a list of written questions. He did not respond. Jack Hyles died in 2001.
At 16, Ryder thought about suicide, fearing she might be pregnant with Dave Hyles’ child. She imagined ramming her car into a telephone pole or a tree, killing her and the baby.
She didn’t think about going to police.
“I went to somebody I thought would be my protector,” Ryder said. “Not my dad, because this shows you how we were taught to think about our pastor, Dr. Hyles.”
Dave Hyles had warned her to stay quiet or he’d get her parents fired. Her father was president of Hyles-Anderson College, a school started by and run from First Baptist Church. Her mother was the school’s dean of women.
To her friends, Ryder looked happy. She was popular, secure in her social status, and had a spot in the church school’s coveted choir, called Strength and Beauty. She liked to run off to the mall with friends every chance she got and had her light-brown hair feathered, Farrah Fawcett-style.
But she was also angry and ready to rebel against the system that entrapped her. She sneaked to movies, wore pants and swiped cigarette packs, all verboten in the church.
At 17, Ryder snapped. She called her parents from a payphone at the church school and told them to meet her at home. She told them everything.
The next time she met Hyles, her father would follow.
He drove behind her to a Holiday Inn, and waited in his car as he watched Ryder walk into a first-floor room and shut the door.
Joy Evans Ryder says Dave Hyles raped her when he was her youth director. Her father followed her to this hotel room in Illinois, then a Holiday Inn, when she told Hyles they were done. Hyles has never been charged with a crime.
COURTESY: JOY EVANS RYDER“ I’m leaving,” Ryder told Hyles. He asked what she meant. “I’m leaving,” she repeated. “I told my parents, and my dad is outside.”
Hyles pulled back the curtain and saw her father’s car. She says he shoved her against the wall, his forearm pressed on her throat.
“What have you done to me? You’ve ruined my ministry. How could you do this to me?’”
He let her go and paced the room. Ryder walked out, got in her car and drove home. Her father followed her. He didn’t confront Hyles.
He did, however, go to Jack Hyles, who dismissed the report about his son because Ryder’s father didn’t record Dave Hyles’ license plate number.
Her father dropped the subject.
Ryder’s father, Wendell Evans, wished he could do it over, he said 35 years later in a notarized statement provided to the Star-Telegram, taken because Ryder was seeking evidence to take to the church.
At the time of the abuse, Evans’ career was blossoming in the church. Pushing Hyles, his boss, on the allegations would have been difficult, he said.
“I mean, Hyles and I were still good friends,” he said. “We marveled sometimes that our friendship survived this situation.”
But in an interview with the Star-Telegram, Evans was not so forgiving of Dave Hyles. He regrets not calling the police on him.
“I think it’s remarkable that in 40 years, Dave didn’t find time to ask forgiveness from his victims and their parents,” said Evans, now 83.
It was not the first time Jack Hyles heard allegations against his son, nor would it be the last. One woman alleged Dave Hyles raped her at 14 when she attended the church’s high school, years before Ryder. The woman’s 10th-grade teacher also confronted Jack Hyles about his son, only to be brushed off.
Dave Hyles’ ministry wasn’t ruined. Instead, he got promoted.
A few months after Evans and Jack Hyles spoke about the encounter at the Holiday Inn, Dave Hyles became the pastor at Miller Road Baptist Church in Garland, Texas — the church his father led before moving to Indiana. Jack Hyles would later say he never recommended his son to any church, but deacons and staffers at Miller Road said their search committee called Jack Hyles about Dave. No one heard any warnings.
Two more women would accuse Dave Hyles of molesting them in Texas. One woman, who went to Hyles-Anderson for college, said she tried to tell Jack Hyles what had happened. He told her not to tell anyone else.
Then, she said, he kicked her out of his office.
It was a Friday in May 2018 when one of Stacey Shiflett’s associate pastors pulled him aside after a staff meeting and said they needed to talk — and that it was urgent.
Shiflett, a native Georgian with close-cropped hair who hasn’t lost his Southern accent or his penchant for the Bulldogs, was in his fourth year of pastoring Calvary Baptist Church in Dundalk, Maryland. His predecessor, Cameron Giovanelli, had recommended him for the post and was president of the prestigious Golden State Baptist College in Santa Clara, California, where Shiflett’s daughter attended.
Shiflett liked Giovanelli. He was a funny man with a young family. He’d beaten cancer and written a book about how his faith — and family — got him through it.
But it was Cameron Giovanelli whom the associate pastor had come to talk to Shiflett about. Giovanelli had allegedly molested the associate pastor’s granddaughter, Sarah Jackson, when she was 16, in 2006.
Shiflett called Sarah Jackson, now 29. Jackson told him of kisses in Giovanelli’s office, the secret phone he bought for her on the church plan so they could text, of gifts of diamond hoop earrings (he didn’t like studs) and how Giovanelli said his wife would never give him oral sex, so it was something special for the two of them.
A few hours after her conversation with Shiflett, Sarah Jackson posted her story on Facebook, naming Giovanelli. She logged off immediately, shaking. But she felt free. For the first time in years, she wouldn’t have to lie.
“I was raised in a way where you respect your elders and your leaders,” she wrote on Facebook. “Your Pastor in the Baptist faith, is pretty much right under God. You trust him. With everything.”
She then accused Giovanelli of abusing his power to instigate a physical and emotional relationship with her. “Why now? Well, now I am a mother. I will do whatever I can in my power to not allow something to happen to my son that happened to me as a 16-year-old girl. So this is my story, and with this, I let go.”
Stacey Shiflett, a 45-year-old with 25 years of ministry behind him, hoped the allegations weren’t true. But the more he investigated, the more credible Jackson’s story became.
When Giovanelli resigned from Golden State Baptist College after the abuse allegation went viral, the chancellor of the college and the pastor of its affiliated church asked the congregation to pray for the church, the college, and the Giovanelli family.
The pastor, Jack Trieber, dressed in a yellow tie and matching pocket square, reached into his pocket to put on his glasses before reading a statement that “allegations of inappropriate conduct” had been made against Giovanelli.
Trieber took his glasses off. The video posted on the church website ends. Then, say people who were in attendance, he proceeded to praise Giovanelli.
Trieber did not respond to interview requests. Reached by phone, Giovanelli said he had no comment and hung up. He did not respond to specific questions that were sent to him.
Jackson filed a police report. The investigation is ongoing. Still, Giovanelli found a soft landing at Immanuel Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, where he is an associate pastor and head of the church’s book publication arm. He is supported by the pastor, Greg Neal, and his Twitter feed shows him traveling around the country, welcomed at churches.
Neal has had his own brush with the law.
In 2011, police investigated Neal over allegations that he videotaped unsuspecting women as they changed their clothes in his church office a decade earlier. By then, the one-year statute of limitations on the allegations had run out.
Neal did not respond to requests for comment.
Stacey Shiflett saw the video by Jack Trieber, the chancellor of Golden State Baptist College. He decided to speak out because he felt Trieber downplayed the allegations against Giovanelli. He put up an 18-minute YouTube video, recorded in his office — the same office in which Sarah Jackson said Cameron Giovanelli molested her.
For Shiflett, the issue was personal. He’d twice been a victim of attempted sexual misconduct in the church world. Both times, people knew about his would-be abusers’ behavior and did nothing to stop it. One alleged abuser went on to serve as an administrator in a Christian school in a different state, even after Shiflett warned the school’s pastor.
“It’s been the M.O. in fundamentalism for pastors and churches and ministries to just gloss over and sweep under the rug things of absolute epic proportion,” he said in the video. “The reason why I’m so fervent, so passionate about it this morning is because I relived all of those feelings of what it’s like to be abused — and the one that does the abuse is the one that always comes out the other side smelling like a rose and goes down the road to another church so he can do it again to somebody else.”
The reaction in the movement was predictable, not that Shiflett cares.
"Your Pastor in the Baptist faith, is pretty much right under God. You trust him. With everything."
The father of the man who pastors the Jacksonville church that took Giovanelli in retaliated by publishing a piece on his personal website titled “An Expose on Stacey Shiflett” that called him “self-aggrandizing” and a “little man” and accused him of automatically taking Sarah Jackson’s side.
As for Jackson, he wrote, he studied her “sordid FB page” and found her to be “godless, narcissistic and self-promoting.”
At Calvary Baptist Church, Shiflett said, he’s been open with the congregation. They haven’t lost a single member since Jackson went public with her allegations, he said. She even went to a church service once with her husband and baby boy. Everyone lined up to give her a hug.
“It bothers me that men of God will stand up in the pulpit all over this country who say, ‘We’re going to stand up for the truth and stand for what’s right,’ they duck and they run and they hide when stuff like this comes out,” Shiflett said in the video, holding up his Bible.
“And that’s why people have given independent Baptists a bad name. It happens all the time. But it’s not going to happen this time.”
On July 4, Cameron Giovanelli put up a YouTube video (now deleted) denying Sarah Jackson’s accusations that he began a sexual relationship with her when she was 16 in her Maryland church. He stood in a red Georgia Bulldogs polo in front of palm leaves with his wife. Birds chirped in the background.
“With these false allegations, God has now brought us to Jacksonville, Florida,” he said. “Who’d have ever thought? Jacksonville, Florida.”
He resigned from Golden State for the good of the college, he said, and was excited to start down the new path God set out for him.
Giovanelli’s wife stood behind him in a striped T-shirt, eyes on her husband through the three-minute video, nodding. She said nothing.
A FORCED APOLOGY
Consequences are rare for pastors who cover up abusive behavior. In some cases, the abused are even forced to apologize in front of the congregation.
Lisa Meister’s pastor listened when she told him that her youth pastor, Mark Chappell, had abused her in Wallingford, Connecticut, in the 1980s.
Then he let Chappell move to another church.
Mark Chappell’s alleged misconduct has long been a topic of speculation in the independent fundamental Baptist community. Ex-fundamentalist message boards had stories about him, but were posted anonymously.
Meister, 48 now and speaking publicly for the first time, met Chappell when she was 15. He was stocky and handsome, with yellow-red hair and a mustache. He complimented her lip gloss, her dresses, her perfume — and at the time, she liked the attention.
When she was 16, she said, he took her to his apartment and kissed her. Eventually, they did everything but penetrative sex, she said, and she cried after. He told her that if she told anyone, she would ruin his life.
At 17, feeling like she had no other way to get out of the situation, Lisa Meister tried to kill herself.
Sitting in the hospital room, she told her pastor, Stephen Baker, why she did it. Ultimately, Meister’s parents and Chappell were asked to appear before the church to repent for their sins.
“It wasn’t said, ‘This man preyed on this girl,’ ‘This man violated this girl,’” Meister said. “It was put out before the church as two people who sinned together. Like I was just as guilty as he was in the eyes of the church.”
When Chappell moved to a new church, Baker said he made the leadership in the new church aware of the allegations.
“I worked very closely with our leadership, and we felt we had tried to do what was in the very best interest of really, two situations,” Baker said. “The church and both parties.”
Nothing in his schooling had prepared Baker for the situation with Meister and Chappell. He’d never heard the term “mandatory reporter,” referring to laws that require people in certain professions to report suspected abuse to authorities. In retrospect, he said, he should have taken more time to decide what to do and let Lisa Meister’s parents know that there were options besides church discipline.
Chappell now pastors Freeway Baptist Church in Phoenix, Arizona. He is part of one of the most prominent families in the movement: His brother, Paul Chappell, is a pastor and is the president of West Coast Baptist College in Lancaster, California. Mark Chappell did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Meister is married to a Southern Baptist pastor. She’s in treatment for depression and has had thoughts of suicide since her first attempt. She wishes she had talked more to her parents about what happened before they died. For a while she hated religion, but after hearing sermons, she realized it wasn’t God who hurt her, it was a man.
“It made me very distrustful of men,” she said. “It made me very distrustful of the pastor.”
Joy Evans Ryder was a teenager at First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, where she says the youth director raped her. She’s pictured here with her Sunday school class.
COURTESY: JOY EVANS RYDER
‘CONTINUE TO PRAY’
Dave Hyles left victims across the country. They are still in recovery.
In the 1970s and ’80s, with his dad’s church among the biggest in the country, Hyles cut a celebrity-like figure in the movement — and took advantage of it.
Rhonda Cox Lee felt special when Hyles noticed her out of the hundreds of kids who attended his dad’s church.
The first time anything sexual happened, she said, they were in his office. He sat at his desk, she sat across from him on a chair. He walked around the desk and placed her hand on his groin.
“Do you feel that?” he asked.
At first she thought it was some sort of spiritual test. He was a man of God, after all, and even though it felt wrong, he wouldn’t ask her to do anything wrong. Several meetings later, their clothing came off. She was 14. It felt wrong, she said, but she knew it had to be what God wanted.
“He compared himself to David in the Bible and how he was anointed, and said this is what I was supposed to do,” Lee said. “I was supposed to take care of him because he was the man of God.”
Hyles, she said, alternately promised her that they would be together once she turned 18 and warned her not to tell anyone in the church because if she did, the church would split, America would go to hell, and the blood of the unsaved would be on her hands.
Brandy Eckright went to Hyles for counseling at his church in Garland, Texas, when she was 18, after being molested as a child. She said he soon took advantage of her, and they had sex for the first time in 1982.
“Dave, I thought he was a God,” said Eckright, who like Lee had never gone public with her allegations against Hyles. “I thought if I got pregnant by Dave Hyles, it would be like having God’s baby.”
At 54, Eckright can barely talk about what happened. She’s survived three suicide attempts. She works as a cashier and said she can barely hold down the job.
In 1984, Hyles left Miller Road Baptist Church in Garland after a janitor found a briefcase stashed with pornography featuring Hyles and married female members of the congregation, ex-members said. He and his new wife went back to live near First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, and then moved again.
Dave Hyles has managed to stay out of handcuffs.
Today, he runs a ministry for pastors who have fallen into sin, supported by Family Baptist Church in Columbia, Tennessee, pastored by David Baker.
In 2017, Joy Evans Ryder’s brother emailed Baker, outlining Hyles’ alleged crimes against his sister. Baker took five words to reply: “Thank you for your concern.”
Baker, a Hyles-Anderson College graduate and a military veteran, said he thinks Dave Hyles has been unfairly blamed. Hyles, Baker said, is a good man, with a strong marriage who has helped many people through his ministry.
“He’s someone who made mistakes years ago, and through that brokenness and God restoring him, wants to use what he’s been through to help others,” Baker said. “I’m not going to debate anybody about those issues.”
Dave Hyles, with gray hair and a beard, is pictured on his Facebook page in a red polo shirt and square-rimmed glasses similar to the ones his father so iconically wore. He sends posts in his private Facebook group, Fallen in Grace Ministries, contemplating the nature of sin and restoration.
In a September missive forwarded to the Star-Telegram, Hyles wrote that he had enemies, people who harassed him and slandered him. “In fact, I have come to realize that there is nothing we could do to satisfy them. The more we tried the less we would satisfy them,” he wrote. “So, what exactly do they want?”
Joy Evans Ryder just wants acknowledgment.
Joy Evans Ryder still lives in Indiana. She says she was molested as a teenager by Dave Hyles, her youth group director at First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana. Hyles was never charged. She now has a nonprofit to help victims of sexual abuse.
In March 2014, Ryder approached the new pastor of First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, and asked for an independent investigation into alleged abuses at the church. John Wilkerson had become the pastor the year before, after Jack Hyles’ successor and son-in-law went to federal prison for sexual abuse of a 16-year-old congregant.
Wilkerson is a tall man with a long face and gray hair parted neatly to the side. His sermons are more even in tone than either of his predecessors, who preferred to pace and shout.
Ryder and Wilkerson spoke on Friday, March 7, 2014. Ryder told him everything that had happened with Dave Hyles, and said she knew stories of other women.
Wilkerson suggested Ryder line them up to tell their stories. The next day, he texted Ryder to thank her.
“Your spirit was Christlike but your pain obviously deep,” he wrote. “I am also saddened by the way Jesus’ name has been shamed. Please continue to pray that The Lord gives direction.”
Ryder hasn’t heard from the church in four years. Wilkerson, the church’s pastor, did not respond to requests for comment.
Ryder started Out of the Shadows with other church abuse victims in 2013. It’s a nonprofit dedicated to helping sexual abuse survivors, particularly from the independent fundamental Baptist movement.
Out of the Shadows has no physical headquarters, but one day Ryder hopes it will. She spends hours talking to people on Facebook and email, mostly women, who are still in the church or have just left.
Ryder is undaunted. She swears and drinks, and every photo of her on social media shows her smiling, wavy hair in place to frame high cheekbones.
Thirty-nine years after that day at the Holiday Inn, Ryder and her father have a good relationship. She’s tried to make it that way and to enjoy her father for who he is. He learned in October he has beginning-stage Alzheimer’s. They don’t talk much about what happened.
She lives in Indiana still, after years of missionary work in Papua New Guinea and raising three children. Ryder has found the anger she couldn’t access when she was a teenager about what happened to her, and about how Hyles was allowed to move across the country.
“Like, how could I ever let myself feel special about that? That’s another bit of blame you heap on yourself,” she said. “And then it’s a whole other amount of shame. Because if they can shuffle them on and not help you, again, that reinforces that you are not worth it.”
