From The Recovered Memory Project

41 Corroborated Cases of Recovered Memory from Legal Proceedings

Cases 11-20

11. Herald v. Hood (Summit County, Ohio, jury verdict, 1992; affirmed 1995). Julie Herald sued her uncle, Dennis Hood, alleging sexual abuse from age 3 (in 1962) through 15. The memory returned while Herald was watching her 4-year old daughter play with a friend. Herald presented a taped telephone conversation in which her uncle indicated that she "had been the only one." Two therapists also testified that at a meeting with Herald in their offices, he admitted sexually abusing her. She was awarded $150,000 in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. The Ohio Supreme Court recently upheld the decision. (Reginald Fields, "Witness Says She Felt Confusion and Guilt; Memory of Sex Abuse Comes Back by Observing Daughter, Court is Told," Akron Beacon Journal, July 25, 1992: C1.)
• Dennis Hood's testimony verifying (a) that knew the subject matter of Julie Herald's phone call, and (b) that his voice and Julie Herald's are the ones on the tape.
• Complete transcript of the telephone call in which Dennis Hood acknowledges abusing Julie Herald .
• Dr. Devies's testimony on the confrontation between Julie Herald and Dennis Hood in his office.
• Ms. Kepler-Didato's testimony about the same meeting, including the events immediately thereafter.

12. R's recovered memories of being raped as many as 20 times by her neighbor in childhood, Lorne Francois. "The woman testified that she was about 13 years old when she went to the accused's home one evening to use his living-room telephone because her family had no phone...She said Francois pulled down her pants and underwear and had sexual intercourse with her. When it was over, she said, "he told me now to tell anybody, or else." "Prescott Child Sex-Abuse Probe," Ottawa Citizen (April 1, 1992: p. B2). Mr. Francois did not take the stand, and the jury reached a unanimous decision of guilty. The verdict was upheld by the Ontario Court of Appeal (1993), 14 O.R. 3d 191, with one judge dissenting due to concerns that the jury drew improper inferences from the defendant's failure to take the stand. As stated by the majority: "The trial judge's instructions were unimpeachable." The verdict was also upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada (R. v. Francois, [1994] 2 S.C.R. 827).

The most powerful corroboration of R's claim came from Project Jericho, a massive investigation into child sexual abuse in the Prescott area. That investigation uncovered a host of other victims. Francois was found guilty in 1995 "of two sexual assault charges involving a 13-year-old boy more than 20 years ago." "Prescott man guilty of sexual abuse," Ottawa Citizen (May 3, 1995: p.D1). "He is already serving six years for sex crimes, including raping a teenage girl and sexually assaulting two teenage boys." Id. Charges that Francois sexually assaulted two patients at the Royal Ottawa Hospital when he was there for a court-ordered psychiatric assessment in 1991 were dropped when the Crown failed to move with sufficient speed. Jacquie Miller, "Child molester's new charges quashed," Ottawa Citizen (March 3, 1993: P. A1).

Given Francois's 30-year history of violent sexual attacks on children, the Crown moved in 1997 to have him declared a dangerous-offender. An Ottawa court decided, however, that he was unfit to take part in the hearing. He was been committed to a mental hospital, instead. Jeremy Mercer, "Pedophile unfit to take part in legal action: 69-year-old man faces hospitalization for dementia instead," Ottawa Citizen (December 5, 1997: p. C3).

13. Frank Fitzpatrick's memory of prolonged child sexual abuse by Father James Porter. His personal investigation resulted in tape-recorded incriminatory statements by Porter, and eventual identification of dozens of others victims. Porter was prosecuted criminally in Fall River, Massachusetts, and he pled guilty. A civil suit against the Catholic church was settled on terms favorable to the plaintiffs. Robert Correia & Linda Borg, "'I'm Sorry,' Porter weeps; Victims, judge unmoved; he gets 18-20 years," Providence Journal-Bulletin, December 9, 1993: 1)

14. John Robatille's memory of sexual abuse by Father Porter, triggered by reports about Frank Fitzpatrick. "His specific memories were confirmed by two classmates... Harvard psychiatrist Stuart Grassian surveyed 43 [of the Porter victims] in 1993 and found another 8 - or 19 percent - who reported no thoughts or memories of the childhood abuse until the case broke in the media." (Katy Butler, "The Latest on Recovered Memory," Family Therapy Networker, Nov/Dec 1996: 36).

15. Keene v. Edie (King County Superior Court, 1993) The jury "found that Ronald Edie, 57, of Auburn, had molested his former neighbor between 1973 and 1977...Her claims were bolstered by testimony of two of Edies daughters and a woman who testified he molested them when they were children." (Richard Seven, "Psychiatry of Repressed Memories on Trial," Seattle Times, July 9, 1993: A1.)

16. Cynthia Lewis's memories of child sexual abuse by Rev. Alfred R. Desrosiers. Her memories were revived in 1993 when her mother, dying of cancer, expressed the wish to see Father Desrosiers, a long-time family friend. After a hearing to assess the reliability of the recovered-memory evidence, Judge Needham allowed the case to proceed. One reason "was corroborative evidence" in the form of "conversations Father Desrosiers had with Louis E. Gelineau, then Bishop of Providence, and the Rev. Normand Godin after Lewis reported her recalled memories to the diocese." Tom Mooney, "Why a court accept ‘recovered-memory: While its legal validity is debate in one sexual-abuse case, a judge rules that it is reliable and admissible in a trial involving a Catholic priest," Providence Journal-Bulletin (April 13, 1998: A1).

17. Hoult v. Hoult (Federal District Court in Massachusetts; jury verdict, 1993). Successful civil suit against David Hoult for sustained child sexual abuse. Ms. Hoult's claims were supported by something her mother witnessed (her father on top of another sibling in bed) and by a 13-year old babysitter who testified that David Hoult had sexually molested her. "Other family members rememberd Jennifer's father grabbing he breasts." (Minouche Kandel & Eric Kandel, "Flights of Memory," Discover, May 1994: 32.) Ms. Hoult's family sided with her, and the jury verdict was unanimous. David Hoult has since sued Ms. Hoult for libel, over her subsequent statements that he had "raped" her. A federal district judge recently dismissed that suit after reviewing the trial record and concluding that "the issue of rape was decided [in Ms. Hoult's favor] by the jury." Hoult v. Hoult (Civil Action No. 96-10970-RCL)(Slip opinion, p.6).

18. People v. Hoffman. (David Hoffman, sentenced in Poughkeepsie, New York, June 15, 1994 for sexually abusing the young daughter of his girlfriend 14-16 years earlier. "The woman's first memory of the abuse came when she was typing a report regard a sexual abuse case," working in a probation office in Grand Rapids, Michigan. (ErinMarie Medick, "Woman's Repressed Memories of Abuse Leads to Conviction, Columbus Dispatch, June 14, 1994: 1A). The woman eventually filed a police report, a detective interviewed Hoffman, who had been convicted in 1986 of sexually abusing children at a children's home in Duchess, County, New York. Hoffman admitted he committed the earlier crimes, while a graduate student at Ohio State University and pled guilty as charged.

19. Gonzalez v. Boullon (Florida jury verdict, 1994). Dr. Nina Gonzalez successfully brought a civil suit against her stepfather, Luis Boullon, in Florida. "While a premed at Holy Cross College in Worcester, Mass, she began to remember what she recalled as nighttime visits from her stepfather...Testimony of her little cousin and her stepmother who she told of the 'massages' years before also weighed with the jurors." Gonzalez's older brother, Ricardo, testified he had witnessed two instances of abuse. (John Lantingua, "$1 Million Award Over Repressed Memory of Abuse," Miami Herald, February 14, 1994: 1A.)

20. Crook vs. Murphy (Benton County Superior Court, Washington; Case No. 91-2-01102-5) Verdict for plaintiff by Judge Dennis Yule, February, 1994. Lynn Crook, the oldest of six childern, successfully sued her father for recovered memories of child sexual abuse. One of her sisters testified to an abusive event she always remembered. This decision is noteworthy for what it says about Richard Ofshe, a sociologist who testified against Ms. Crook: "Just as (Ofshe) accuses (therapists) of resolving at the outset (to find) repressed memories of abuse and then constructing them, he has resolved at the outset to find a macabre scheme of memories progressing toward satanic cult ritual and then creates them." There is a detailed excerpt from the Los Angeles Times about how Ofshe & Watters misrepresented the facts of this case in their book, Making Monsters. Ms. Crook has written a response to Ofshe & Watters, which was published in the Journal of Child Sexual Abuse.

Cases 21-30