CHILDREN NEVER LIE

The couple was awoken around 3:30 am by people pounding on their door. Living out in the country in a very nice house built by the husband on several wooded acres would be the culmination of the American dream for anyone. Now the seclusion of living out in the middle of nowhere and the peace and quiet of country living being violated so rudely in the middle of the night would have any of us reaching for the 12 ga. loaded with 00 buckshot. Turns out they were not in any danger of a criminal home invasion. The nightmare turned out to be much worse; the intruders were several of the local law enforcement and the county prosecutor.
They were there to serve a warrant for sex abuse of 2 children; the warrant was for the wife.
Mrs. H worked at a nearby Christian school as a teacher.Our church had ran that for several years. A church so far out from the big towns, the congregation was large enough to support a fair sized church but still small enough that we all knew each other very well and none of us felt like we were just a number.
The school struggled to pay for itself relying on moderate tuitions and lots of people working there making a fraction of money that their labor deserved. Most, if not all worked there out of their love of God and service to their brethren. A commodity that is becoming all too rare on this Earth.
The school children ranged from daycare up to the beginning of high school. Mrs. H taught 2nd or 3rd graders, the 20 plus years have dimmed my memory of the specific details, but I remember the more traumatic aspects very well.
Mr. and Mrs. H were friends of ours and I served on the church board with Mr. H ;we broke bread with them on a number of occasions. The thing I remember about eating at their house was how great his deer steaks were. He was an avid hunter and knew how to make deer taste better than any beef you ever ate.
My x-wife worked for the church and the school so we found out early the next morning about the raid that had taken place just about a mile down the road we lived on.
I listened to the details and thought, “no way in hell (I mean heck) this is true.
These were not just people who go to church and just make an appearance; these were good people who worked hard to make their church and community a better place, true Christians inside and out.

I knew it wasn’t true before I even heard the specific details, but once they were revealed I was amazed that anybody in their right mind would jump the gun and execute an arrest warrant in the middle of the night without doing any real investigating.
The two young girls who were making the allegations knew each other; their families didn’t go to our church but wanted the girls to go to the school. They hadn’t been going to the school very long when they came home one day and revealed that Mrs. H during class that day had taken the two girls out in the hallway of the classrooms. The girls said their teacher made them undress and she did also, started playing some Michael Jackson music on a boom box that appeared out of thin air and all three of them were dancing up and down the busy hallway naked in the middle of the school day. Now it gets weird, this was a well-lit hallway, I know it was well lit because I did most of the electrical and HVAC work for the church and I made sure all the lights were burning. There were several classes on either side of her class and across the hall and windows in all the doors of the classes. Yet no one else saw any moonwalking or Thriller dance choreography, none of that. The other kids in her class could not recall any time that day their teacher or the 2 girls leaving the room by themselves.



Even after these inconsistencies came to light, the prosecutor who was in full re-election mode was determined to burn this woman at the stake and take our church and school down too. After all as this prosecutor pointed out, children never lie about sex abuse. They have no reason to lie, right?
The H’s hired a lawyer and under further questioning the two girls fabrication fell apart.
Seems they made the whole thing up, but why? After all children never lie about a thing like this. Well it turns out sometimes children do make things up. The motivation? They didn’t want to go to a Christian school; they wanted to go the big public school in town.
There young minds were devious enough to come up with a way to force their parents to take them out of our school, but they weren’t devious enough to come up with a story that could hold water for any body with half a brain or a local prosecutor that wanted to get her name in the news.
The charges were dropped, apologies made, the girls got their wish granted and never walked down the Michael Jackson Memorial Hallway again.
Life went back to normal in our sleepy little rural community, not for everybody though. The people of our church and school were deeply hurt, none more then Mr. and Mrs. H who were horrified in the middle of the night, Mrs. H taking down to the county jail. Fingerprinted, mug shot, booked and locked up. The only innocent prisoner behind bars that night. I can’t imagine how horrified she was.
Getting that background report last Thursday that was full of errors and finding out my brother was suspended for a false report by some hack investigation company, triggered this memory from the cobwebs of my mind. I can’t think of too many things that are worse than being falsely accused of something as bad as my brother or Mrs. H were accused of.
Forgiveness can be an extremely difficult thing depending on the severity of the transgression committed against you.
The H’s and our church were bound by their faith to do just that. As far as the prosecutor, she may have been forgiven, but I don’t think she got many votes from our congregation.

One thing we all learned from this, children sometimes do tell lies, as do media seeking prosecutors.