From The Recovered Memory Project
41 Corroborated Cases of Recovered Memory from Legal Proceedings
All of the cases in this file involve claims in legal proceedings. Some cases are criminal, some are civil, and a few are administrative or involve an estate. The criminal cases all resulted in either a guilty verdict or a guilty plea. The civil cases all resulted in either a civil judgment or a civil settlement. The cases included pre-trial discovery on the facts, and often full-blown adjudication. In short, the corroboration in these cases has been scrutinized and in many cases verified through a legal proceeding.
1. K.B.'s recovered memories of child sexual abuse by a neighbor and close family friend. K.B. v. Mathes (U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Washington). Filed in 1982 (Docket No. C-82-56), decided January 5, 1984 by Judge Justin L. Quackenbush. Judgment for the plaintiff; no appeal by defendant.
"K.B.'s testimony is confirmed to some extent by her sister Lisa's testimony. Then we have what I call the age fourteen alcohol incident...the incident when K. arrived home in an intoxicated state. (oral decision, filed January 11, 1984, p. 2). "Then we have Mr. Mathe's own testimony that the only statement he made to Mrs. B was that ‘I wish it hadn't happened.'" (Id. at p.4) [Additional evidence of financial payments by Mr. Mathes as indicating "some scienter or guilty knowledge on the part of Mr. Mathes" on p. 5] Finally, "based on the evidence presented in this case...I find that K.B. completely repressed her recollections of the defendant's wrongful conduct from the time of her high school years when she was obviously a minor until she began seeking counseling for her depression and anxiety in late 1979. (Id. at p.9) "I further find that it was not until at least April of 1981 that Ms. B. was able to fully recall the acts of misconduct by the defendant." (Id. at p.10)
2. Delaney Nickerson's memories of child sexual abuse by her father. The memories first surfaced while Ms. Nickerson was hospitalized in 1984. Ms. Nickerson filed a criminal complaint several years later and Mr. Smith was charged. He later pled guilt, being placed on lifetime parole and ordered by the court to have no further contact with his daughter. Commonwealth v. Landon Carter Smith (felony criminal case: Peterburg Virginia, 1990).
3. Meiers-Post v. Schafer (Michigan Court of Appeals, 1988) A civil suit by Jan Meiers-Post against her former high-school teacher for sexual abuse from 1970 to 1974. "We hold that the period of limitation is tolled where the child victim of an illicit sexual relationship psychologically represses the memory of the events and where, after the memory is revived there is corroboration that the events actually occurred.." "In his deposition, defendant admitted to having sexual intercourse with plaintiff, at various times, from 1972 to 1974." 427 N.W. 2d 606, 607.
4. State v. Wilson (Polk County, Iowa; August, 1990). Criminal conviction of Thomas Dean Wilson for incest and third-degree sexual abuse of his daughter. "The trauma was so great that she was unable to remember for eight years—and then only after months of therapy." (Marie McCartan, "'Daddy Hurts Me'... The Horror of Incest," Des Moines Register, February 17, 1991: 1E). The corroborating evidence uncovered through discovery included 'inappropriate advances' made by the defendant toward another minor in his role has a church chaperon, and a former teen-age babysitter for the family who had repeated sexual relations with the defendant. There was additional corroboration from M's childhood medical records. Twelve jurors found Tom Wilson guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Id.
5. Nicolette v. Carey (Federal District Court, Western District of Michigan, 1990 judicial decision). Civil action by Suzanne Nicolette against her father, Joseph Carey for child sexual abuse first remembered in adulthood. In denying the defendant's motion to dismiss the case, Judge Benjamin F. Gibson noted that "plaintiff has submitted a letter addressed to plaintiff, signed by defendant and dated April 19, 1987, in which defendant discussed three or four incidents of sexual contact he had with the plaintiff when she was a child." See, Plaintiff's Exhibit No. 5. Opinion dated November 19, 1990; District Court File No. 1:90-CV-159.
6. Pfiefle v. Hustwaite (King County Superior Court, Washington; civil settlement, 1991). Plaintiff, a 31-year-old woman, alleged that when she was a grade school student at Sky Valley Seventh Day Adventist School between 1969 and 1976 she was repeatedly raped and molested by a teacher. She recovered the memory as an adult. "Discovery revealed several other victims, whose testimony was helpful in establishing that the Seventh Day Adventist should have known of the teacher's propensities." Shepard's/McGraw-Hill, Verdicts, Settlements & Tactics (1991)
7. D's recovered memory (in 1991) of sexual abuse by her father, Stanley Huntingford, 20-34 years earlier. As summarized by Justice Thackray: "Mr. Huntingford was convicted by a jury on six counts of what is now generally called sexual assault. The charges were brought by three of his five children. Of the three, two had continuous memories of the abuse while the third, D., recovered her memory 34 years after the first assault." Her Majesty the Queen v. Stanley Charles Huntingford (Supreme Court of British Columbia)(Vancouver Registry No. CC940539).
"The first woman [with continuous memory] said that her father regularly raped her, but stopped when she was 14 because she screamed when he came into her bedroom. She said she told her mother about the incidents in 1981...The accused's wife, who testified for the defense, told the jury she never confronted her husband when the first daughter told her in 1981 about the abuse." Larry Still, "Father, 73, convicted of incest," Vancouver Sun (February 4, 1995: A6).
As Justice Thackray explained at sentencing, on March 28, 1995: "The Crown retained the services of Dr. John Yuille. Dr. Yuille is a psychologist and a leading expert in retention and recovery of memory. He also has impressive credentials in the area of sexual abuse. Dr. Yuille interviewed D. and prepared a report.... Dr. Yuille therefore gave oral evidence in which he, in my opinion, fairly set forth the opinions of the two opposing camps. Dr. Yuille did not in any way demean the opinion of Dr. Loftus or the opinions of others with whom he parts company on the subject. Rather, he showed an objectivity that allowed both the Crown and the defence to rely upon his evidence and recommend it to the jury." Id.
8. Commonwealth v. Slutzer (1992 Superior Court of Pennsylvania; criminal jury verdict). "On November 24, 1990, John Mudd Jr. was involved in a fight with a friend when, he said, he suddenly dropped a chair he was holding and started crying. "That's when I remembered everything that happened that night," he said during a court hearing [concerning the murder of his father 16 years earlier]." Jon Schmitz, "Court Upholds Murder Conviction on Son's Old Memory," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (October 8, 1993): B-1. "The sudden recollections of John Mudd Jr. rekindled the investigation of his father's murder 16 years ago and thrust the case into the national limelight. But Steven Slutzker's own words and the testimony of less sensational witnesses led to his first-degree murder conviction, jury forewoman Deb Magness said yesterday after the trial." Jim Cuddy Jr., "Witnesses Convicted Slutzker of Murder, Juror Says," Pittsburgh Press, (January 29, 1992): B4 In his opinion filed with the appeals court, Judge Jeffrey Manning said that Mudd's testimony "was markedly consistent with the testimony of others about the events that night and with the physical evidence." ["Mudd Jr. testified he had been watching television with his parents when there was a power failure, which prompted Mudd Sr. to go to the basement to check the fuse box. Police later discovered that a fuse that directed power to the living room had been loosened." Cuddy, 1992] The judgment of sentence was affirmed by a three-judge panel (809 Pittsburgh 1992 [J-A36043/93]).
9. Hewczuk v. Sambor ( Civil Action No. 91-6562, Federal District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania). "Hewczuk attorney Nancy Wasser said her client experienced vivid memories of the alleged torture after she miscarried two years ago...records from Catholic Charities and hospitals helped corroborate her client's recollections." (Lisa Brennan, "Abuse Victim Gets $600,000 32 Years Later; Remembered Event Two years Ago," Legal Intelligencer, November 6, 1992. See also, Lisa Brennan, "Judge Upholds $600,000 Award in Abuse Case; Memory Suppressed for 32 years," Legal Intelligencer, February 26, 1993: 1)
In response to post-trial motions, the judge affirmed the verdict, summarizing the evidence and findings as follows: "Viewed in the light most favorable to plaintiff, the verdict-winner, the trial evidence established that, while in defendants' foster case for a brief period in early 1960, plaintiff was horribly mistreated (forced to eat her own vomit and drink her own urine; smeared with fecal matter and forced to eat it; bathed in extremely hot water; nearly drowned when her face was held under water in a toilet bowl; and, on at least one occasion, sexually assaulted); and that her memory of these atrocities was totally suppressed for many years. It is also clear that she regained her memory of these events, more or less fully, by June of 1991, and that she had begun to have 'flashbacks' and partial awareness of the earlier trauma in the summer of 1990." Memorandum and Order, pp. 1-2; Hewczuk v. Sambor, C.A. 91-6562 (February 18, 1993).
10. Leonard v. Estate of Cowles. (Hillsborough Circuit Court, 1993). Frank Leonard's recollection, in therapy, of childhood abuse by his uncle, Tampa publishing executive Frank Cowles, Jr. "Records were produced showing that Cowles had been convicted in 1959 of sexually abusing young boys in Clearwater...According to the lawsuit, Leonard's uncle admitted the abuse and then killed himself. Leonard won a settlement from the estate." St. Petersburg Times, March 6, 1994. See also, "Abuse lawsuit target's uncle's estate," St. Petersburg Times, April 14, 1993: 1B