Nelsons daughter and son-in-law accused of sex abuse

[_Meadowchik]

I'm also a little confused by the insistence that the Church was derelict in not disciplining Carstensen and the Miles. Setting aside any claims of discernment, doesn't Church discipline usually follow law enforcement investigation? I mean, you have the Miles adamantly denying it, law enforcement investigating it and not finding anything, and yet the Church is supposed to excommunicate them anyway? Really?

With the second wife, after her marriage to Carstenson, she was confused that the church cancelled the sealing with the first wife, because that is usually not done that way unless there was an excommunication, yet he had not been excommunicated. This irregularity troubled her, and made her worry that perhaps the first wife's accusations of sexual abuse were legitimate. She pressed the issue and was advised by church leaders to back off or suffer consequences in her church standing. It was later that she learned that her children were being sexually abused by her husband who had never been excommunicated although his sealing to his first wife had been cancelled in an irregular manner.

[_Meadowchik]

Obviously, once people think it's a conspiracy the denials just become evidence of the conspiracy. But it is what it is.

I appreciate the general context you have tried to provide regarding the social climate surrounding sexual abuse at the time of the original accusations. Obviously medical professionals did not have well-established protocol for handling sexual abuse disclosures.

What I find compelling is the concrete evidence of sexual abuse and the documented confession of the father. And adult children (not all of the Doe children, but at least two) have independent recall of the events of abuse by their father and the Miles.

In my opinion, that is where you start, with the recollections of abuse that is corroborated by concrete evidence and a confession.

[_Meadowchik]

People insist Bill "confessed" that the Miles were involved, but if you read the actual purported "confession", he barely knows what's going on, and Smith herself is introducing all the information and even admits Carstensen didn't add anything to the story. As with other such "confessions", Carstensen was probably at a point where he thought things had happened that he couldn't remember, so Smith must have been telling him the truth about things he had done, and he was doing his best to remember it and figure out what happened. He twice uses the word "conceive" when discussing the Miles, as in he's trying to imagine what happened. He's not remembering it.

The May 21, 1986 Johns Hopkins notes say the father admits to remembering innapropriate sexual acts with the children, and goes into detail of him insisting that he never climaxed with them but that he used sexual dominance with the children as a way to assert his control over them.

It is the June 30, 1986 (incomplete) discharge papers that describe him as not remembering but not denying, but also being discharged because he had "improved."

I think the rest of the discharge record and medical notes are important here and would hope that they still exist. I would think that with his discussions of his mother, his wife, and children, we could expect some mention of any other participants in abuse, and would expect the names on the Miles to come up in what should be more than five weeks of inpatient therapy notes.

[_Mary]

Meadowchik, I would have to check, but I believe John Hopkins was only aware of the incest allegations and not the sex ring. It is in Marion's transcript of the recording of the interview to which she was a party that Carstensen admitted to the Miles and Dan's involvement. I think the therapist in that meeting was surprised. Marion and her husband learned nothing new because the children had already disclosed their [the Miles] alleged involvement to Mother 1.

[_Mary]

Cinepro found this and is worth a watch.

https://youtu.be/p7W89MYOFoc

[_Mary]

What the documentary highlights, even though it concentrates on the Hadfield/Lehi case, is the wider issue behind the stories of ritual abuse by noting that until the 70s there were no prosecutions of child abuse.

It was not thought possible and Freud's theories of childhood abuse were changed to an Oedipus complex.

I found it helpful and confirms my belief that until the 70s it was not thought possible that adults could sexually abuse children, particularly in families.

So SRA abuse arose out of increased awareness of child abuse in general.

[_Lemmie]

From the beginning of this thread, people have tried to dismiss all claims of abuse due to the association of Snow with the case

That's not true. It wasn't true the first half dozen times rosebud stated it, it wasn't true when Mary stated it over and over, and it's not true now. I am by no means the first poster to point this out, but the false statement still perpetuates, in spite of many poster's careful attempts to be absolutely clear.

Is there a way that this false statement could be eliminated from further use?

[_Meadowchik]

From the beginning of this thread, people have tried to dismiss all claims of abuse due to the association of Snow with the case

That's not true. It wasn't true the first half dozen times rosebud stated it, it wasn't true when Mary stated it over and over, and it's not true now. I am by no means the first poster to point this out, but the false statement still perpetuates, in spite of many poster's careful attempts to be absolutely clear.

Is there a way that this false statement could be eliminated from further use?

I have no interest in quibbling, the salient point for me being that Snow's involvement should not disqualify the plaintiff's case from serious consideration.

[_Meadowchik]

Meadowchik, I would have to check, but I believe John Hopkins was only aware of the incest allegations and not the sex ring. It is in Marion's transcript of the recording of the interview to which she was a party that Carstensen admitted to the Miles and Dan's involvement. I think the therapist in that meeting was surprised. Marion and her husband learned nothing new because the children had already disclosed their [the Miles] alleged involvement to Mother 1.

Apologies if this has already been discussed in the thread, but have the JH medical records been accessed in their entirety by the plaintiffs' counsel?

[_Meadowchik]

What the documentary highlights, even though it concentrates on the Hadfield/Lehi case, is the wider issue behind the stories of ritual abuse by noting that until the 70s there were no prosecutions of child abuse.

It was not thought possible and Freud's theories of childhood abuse were changed to an Oedipus complex.

I found it helpful and confirms my belief that until the 70s it was not thought possible that adults could sexually abuse children, particularly in families.

So SRA abuse arose out of increased awareness of child abuse in general.

In hearing my elders talk about their childhoods well before the 70s, there were "funny uncles" to be tolerated if they couldn't be avoided. Children weren't taught about sexual predators in the regular fashion that the public is warned about them now.

So if this indeed is the case, I wonder how that would impact the offenders themselves? Would there have been as much self-awareness about the crimes they were committing? Would sexual abuse of children been easier to normalize within small groups if the general public did not believe it existed?