Devastated: A Daughter's Journey Through Tribulation

If you were to meet my father and if I were a betting woman, I’d say you’d probably like him upon first impression. He is funny and charismatic. He is outgoing and personable. And he’d probably give you the shirt off his back.

But he would likely expect something in return.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Child pornography and its devastating effects are a plague on our society, and the only way to make any headway in the war against it is to talk about and bring awareness to this normally taboo subject.

This is a book about a family—my family to be precise. And while I have sat and written these words, I have to admit this has been a very difficult process for me. Who wants to say bad things about those they love the most, much less put those things down on paper for others to read? While I did live through all these events, there were many things I would have preferred never to have learned while in the process of gathering information for this book.

I have wrestled with the decision to write this. The conclusion I came to is that if there is one person out there who reads this and is able to make a change for the better, whether it is for themselves, their family, or an innocent victim—no matter how much pain or sorrow it entails in the beginning, then I believe it will have been worth it. And it is here that I can offer you hope. Because I believe trials make us stronger, and we are truly blessed in the end for doing what we know is right. We may not immediately see the light at the end of the tunnel, or realize the blessing it will bring to our lives, but to do what is truly right is always better than living with the regret of doing nothing at all.

This is a very sensitive subject, one which I have tried to be as honest about as possible. It concerns things of which I have never fully spoken, much less shared with anyone. I don’t talk about these events in detail, and when I have shared some of it, I have always left out the worst parts. I haven’t done that here. It is not as hard to sit here at my computer and type these words, as I can pretend no one will ever really read them and find out what happened in my family, much less what I did to my family.

I will not be there to see your face as you read these words—to see the expressions that go through your eyes as you feel either pity, or anger, or some other emotion, at the things which I have put to paper. I don’t want your pity, and I can only hope you won’t be angry. I want you to feel moved to action; to be on the lookout for the actions of others which may seem innocent—but are not; and to be the guardian for the truly innocent ones—the children.

Prologue

Thursday

September 3, 1998

It’s funny how fast your life can completely change. Then change again.

I’m sitting at work on a rainy afternoon, watching the rivulets slowly drizzle down the office panes, while Enya is playing quietly on the CD player beside me. The sights and sounds should be relaxing—but they don’t do anything to wash away the anxiety that is rising like a tide within me—as I stare at the caller ID on my office phone.

I slowly reach my hand out and pick up the receiver, Cisco Systems, Cherie Morgan speaking…

I hear a woman’s pleasant voice on the other end, Ms. Morgan? This is Carter Mackley’s secretary, can you hold for a moment while I put him on the phone? Mr. Mackley is the Deputy Prosecutor in Blackfoot, Idaho, where my father’s trial starts tomorrow morning. The charges against him are ‘possession of sexually exploitative material’ and ‘lewd conduct with a minor’—both of which are felonies. And I’m the prosecutor’s star witness.

So here I sit—nervous as hell—waiting to find out what time I have to be in court tomorrow morning to testify against my own father. I’m going to have to take the day off work and drive two and a half hours to be there. And all I can think while I’m on hold and my heart is pounding wildly in my chest is: He wants to speak to me himself. This can’t be good….

Chapter One

Saturday

September 13, 1997

As a single mother with two young boys, ages nine and almost three, I’ve reached a point in my life when what appears to be the best option for me and my children is to temporarily live with my father in Blackfoot, Idaho, until I can get my feet back under me and start my life over again. Dad has told me I can move in with him for as long as necessary. His house has four bedrooms and he is the only one who lives there. I can get a job, eventually find my own place, and who knows, maybe even meet someone. It all sounds ideal, especially since I no longer have anywhere to go where I grew up in California.

Although years earlier I would have told you that Blackfoot doesn’t have anything to offer me, I’m thinking less selfishly and I hope, a bit wiser now, believing it will be a good place to raise my children. It’s actually a lot like where I grew up in California. It’s a small, safe, family-oriented town where people all know and trust each other. It has a population of less than 10,000 and is located in a secluded desert area of southeastern Idaho near the Fort Hall Indian Reservation, halfway between Pocatello and Idaho Falls on Interstate 15. It was first named Grove City due to the abundance of trees, and while there are still many trees, Blackfoot gets its current name from the nearby reservation of Blackfoot Indians. It is an agricultural town and is the seat of Bingham County.

I’m always amused when I drive into town on the highway and am greeted by the billboard for the Idaho Potato Expo, where they offer ‘free taters for out-of-staters’. Of course you have to actually have an out of state license to claim your free potato. My license is from California, but I have yet to claim my tater. Blackfoot claims to be the Potato Capital of the World and I can attest that many of the members of my dad’s side of the family worked at and retired from the potato factories. There is also a running joke about Blackfoot since the State Hospital South mental ward is located here. The joke is, if you live in Blackfoot, it’s probably because you’re crazy. Little did I know how true that could be?

But it is with rather high hopes I believe I can find a good job. I already have a college degree, speak another language, and have lived abroad. I feel I bring some good skills and diversity as an employee.

Chapter Two

Monday

October 6, 1997

What I thought was going to be an easy job search, has turned into weeks of a despairing hunt. I start to realize how out of place I am in this small town. I have a college degree, speak another language, and have lived abroad. Employers take one look at my résumé, ask me what I’m doing in such a small town, and then tell me they don’t believe I will stay here. I try to explain how I grew up in a small town, and I believe it will be a good place to raise my children. But they turn their backs on me.

I have just come from living in Belgium for the past year and a half, and somehow I actually thought this would be an advantage upon my return to the States. I sold my car before I left California—so now I have no job to buy another car, and no car to go get a job. I have no income except for $100 a month as child support for my oldest son. The child support paid by my youngest son’s father dwindled from $300 a month to nothing while I was out of the country.

I begin feeling trapped in my father’s house. I have no friends. The walls are closing in on me. I feel suffocated. I have nothing to do, and nowhere to do it.

I can’t believe how quickly I went from having a good job and traveling all over Europe with my children and friends, to being unemployed and stuck in my father’s house in rural southeast Idaho. I hardly know how much worse it will get.

But I can say it’s interesting what you learn about someone when you spend all day of every day within close proximity of each other….

* * * * * * * * * * *

Dad has always been a con artist of sorts; for example, scamming things from people under the pretense of it being a donation. He did this many times when he was involved in the Boy Scout program when we lived in California. After my oldest son Andrew was born, I moved back to my parent’s home and decided to build a bedroom in the garage, as I didn’t want to live in the house. I needed some lumber so Dad told me to go to this specific lumberyard, ask for this particular person, and give him a letter that Dad handed to me. He also told me not to read it. Well, of course, I read it. It thanked the lumberyard for their donation of lumber that the Scouts were going to use to help a poor, widowed woman build a much-needed shed. Hmm, funny how that shed looked more like a room addition in a garage for a young, single mother.

My father always seemed to have a sense of entitlement. Yet growing up, my family never had enough money, so we always had to make do with what we had. The air conditioner for the house broke soon after we moved in, but Dad wouldn’t pay to have it fixed. Instead, he planted shade trees in the backyard and told us to open our windows at night, and then close them first thing in the morning to keep in the cooler night air. When all the screen windows broke or were ripped, I awoke some mornings to our cow or horse with their head in my bedroom window after they had escaped the pasture.

But the worst result of the windows being open was all the flies. All our kitchen scraps went into a huge, black, canning-sized pot that was kept on the end of the kitchen counter. It was my brothers’ job to take this slop to the pigs. As it was never done often enough, the house filled with black flies and fruit flies, and at times there were even maggots in the pan. I remember many evenings when our white, popcorn ceiling looked like it was covered with raisins.

Dad always sat watching TV with a fly swatter in his hand. We made a point to sit nowhere near him, because if a fly landed on us, he swatted it, and then laughed if we freaked out or got mad about it. We had to be especially careful at the dinner table. If we didn’t shoo the flies quickly enough, we ended up with a dead one in our milk glass or in our food.

Naturally the dishwasher also broke at some point, but, as in Dad’s words, he had five little dishwashers, so there was no reason to get the appliance fixed. With seven people in the family, the dishes piled up quickly. They soon filled the sinks, the counters, and even piled up on the floor. Sometimes the smell almost knocked you over as you came in our house.

And if the smell of the pig slop or the kitchen dishes weren’t enough, then there were the household animals. We always had dogs in the house and none of them ever received any obedience training or even veterinary care, so we never had a housetrained, obedient, much less healthy pet. Dad got mad every time one messed in the house, but there was no way to lock them out, as the doors were hardly ever closed. We didn’t even have keys to our house. His solution was to get fed up and take the dog for a drive. He dumped the animals out of the car several miles from our house and then came home as if nothing had happened.

On one occasion, Dad ran over one of the dogs with the car in our gravel driveway. He stopped the car, dragged the frightened dog out of the way, then got back in the car and kept going. The poor dog walked with a permanent limp and a crooked tail after that. There were also all the fleas that came with the dogs. For some reason they never bit me, but I shared a room with my sister Renee, and she often woke up covered in fleabites.

It wasn’t until many years later that Carolyn, one of my best friends, told me that she and her mother had discussed my family’s living conditions and had come to the conclusion that if the Health Department or Child Protective Services ever came in to condemn the house and take away the children, they would request custody of me. I was shocked to discover that not only had the thought crossed their minds, but they had actually planned it out—just in case.

During my youth, my dad grew to become very involved in the Scouting program. It first began as volunteer work within our church, but he eventually began working directly with the Golden Empire Council office in Sacramento. He undertook projects such as rebuilding a scout camp which had been washed out by a flood, remodeling offices in the council building, and started collecting and trading Boy Scout badges, pins, and other memorabilia. What began as a hobby soon became a dark obsession.

If I had to pinpoint a time while growing up when problems really began in our home, I’d have to say it was when Dad lost his job and became unemployed for a long period of time. His unemployment was a constant strain on the household, and he fought with my mother regularly, usually over money. He began to watch television all day long and he never helped with any of the household chores. In fact, on one occasion the chickens had escaped their coop and Dad was supervising all the kids while we tried to chase them down. He got frustrated with us, told us we were doing it all wrong, and if it was him, he could have those chickens gathered up by himself in less than fifteen minutes. So we made a bet with him. If he could gather all the chickens in less than fifteen minutes then we would all shovel out the pig pen that afternoon. But if he didn’t catch them in time, then he’d have to wash all the dishes. It was with immense satisfaction that all five of us children supervised the washing of the dishes by our father that evening. It is one of only two occasions in my memory when he ever did a household chore.

For many years my mother was a stay-at-home mom. She cooked dinner every night, had us all sit together at the table, say a blessing on the food, and then she tried to convince us not to throw her well-prepared meal at each other. There were many times the dining room wall behind me was a lovely shade of mashed potatoes and gravy.

But there came a time when my mother worked three jobs in an attempt to keep the bills under control, while my father was spending money as fast as or faster than she could earn it. This was at the same time when scouting became such a fixation for him. He spent hours on the phone gathering information, finding out who had patches or pins he wanted to trade for, and organizing trade events. Then he drove for hours on end to accomplish the same thing. The result of this obsession came in the form of enormous telephone and gasoline bills that ran in the hundreds of dollars.

There were many times when Mom had to borrow money from her father in order to turn the telephone or the electricity back on. Dad’s main concern became taking care of himself and scouting—at the expense of the family. He had a chip on his shoulder that everyone else owed him something, and he didn’t have to work to be able to enjoy the things he wanted.

It was after I moved to Blackfoot, when my brother Jimmy confided in me that Dad had been arrested and charged with theft a couple of years earlier in Utah. Dad’s fascination with collecting and trading Boy Scout pins and badges had finally gotten him in trouble. He had always encouraged my brothers to amass their own collections as teenagers, only to turn around and steal from his own children. There was a man in Provo, Utah whom Dad had come to know very well, who was a fellow collector. When this man died, Dad contacted his widow and told her he would help her catalogue and organize her husband’s collection of pins and badges. Dad took the best of the collection, never having any intention of returning it, and sold it. The woman finally caught on to what he did and pressed charges against him. Since Jimmy was the only child living near Dad, he drove him down to Provo on several occasions for court appearances—until probation—instead of a sentence, was ordered. Dad believed his wheelchair condition contributed to this lighter punishment; he believed the judge felt sorry for him.

* * * * * * * * * * *

You see, while I was a college student in Davis, California, my mother announced she was divorcing my father after they had been married nearly 25 years. Mom actually convinced Dad to try counseling at one point, but he refused to believe there was anything he needed to change about himself. She finally gave up.

I tried to find some sorrow in her decision, but my only response to her was that it was about time. I think Dad was the only person to be surprised by this turn of events. It was at this same time that Dad started losing feeling in his toes, while he complained of tingling and numbness. This sensation slowly spread up his legs. Dad was still involved heavily in the Scout program and was awarded the Silver Beaver, which is the Boy Scout’s highest honor for a volunteer. We have a photo of him coming down the red carpet, proudly wearing his award on a ribbon around his neck, while he managed to limp along on his crutches.

After this, he soon lost the ability to walk altogether and had to use a wheelchair along with a catheter and bag. He went to several doctors and specialists, had tests run, X-rays and MRIs taken, but everything came back negative. No one knew what was happening. Most members of my family believed the whole thing was psychosomatic and instead was a ploy to get Mom to stay. He finally ended up at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center where they diagnosed an arteriovenous fistula (AVF) and halted the progress of the problem. This is a very rare condition—the doctors told him the odds were one in two million. An AVF is an abnormal vessel between an artery and a vein which interrupts the normal blood flow. In Dad’s case, this vessel developed across his upper spine and the resulting pressure on the nerves in his spine, along with the lack of proper blood flow and insufficient oxygen, created the problems in his legs. The doctors told him he wouldn’t get any worse and with physical therapy he could regain most, if not all, of his functions.

The divorce became final around this same time, and my father had a hard time accepting that his marriage was over. It took quite a while to sell the house, but when it finally sold, he decided to move back to Blackfoot where he had grown up and where the rest of his immediate family still lived. A friend of Dad’s came over to help him pack, turned to Mom, and asked her if she was still going to teach aerobics in Idaho. She was so taken aback that Dad hadn’t told this friend they were divorced, that she simply told him no, she would not be teaching aerobics in Idaho. This was entirely true since she wasn’t going to Idaho! I also went to my parent’s house to help them pack the moving van for Dad’s move, since he was still in the wheelchair and needed help. I felt I had to be there to make sure he didn’t take anything he shouldn’t, namely my son Andrew, since he had become so attached to his grandson.

Dad took his money from the sale of the property and bought that nice four-bedroom house on a corner lot in Blackfoot. After the down payment, he only owed around $18,000 on his new home, with an eight-year loan, and a payment of only about $275 a month. He found someone to do renovations on the home to make it wheelchair accessible and he settled in. I really hoped he would make a change for the better.

Chapter Three

Monday

October 13, 1997

All those years ago Dad had been told he could improve his physical condition with therapy, but he never followed through with it. I, along with the rest of my family, have come to believe he prefers the advantage he has of gaining sympathy from people because he is in the wheelchair.

Dad hasn’t worked in years. His disability earns him a benefit from Social Security, but he continues to work the system. He has already acquired a top of the line computer donated to him by the Vocational Rehabilitation Center, and yet he presses them to get more and better equipment. I can never figure out what this has to do with his disability, because he isn’t working from home doing anything productive.

I have to admit there isn’t much for me to do, either. I have no job to go to, Andrew is in fourth grade, and my youngest son Chad has just turned three. There are two neighbor girls who come over regularly—Crystal, who is in second grade at age seven, and her younger sister Camille, who is only four. Camille comes over more often. They both have blond hair and blue eyes. Their haircuts are ragged and their bangs always hang in their face. Their clothes never match or fit very well, and I wonder how often they eat a decent meal, take a shower, brush their teeth, or have their clothes washed. Their mother is a single woman who also lives with her father, directly across the street from my dad’s house. My brother told me he has called Child Protective Services on her before.

After observing them for a while, I can see why. On the weekends, their mother (and grandfather, I presume) go to work in the morning and leave the girls asleep in bed. After the girls wake up, they wander around the neighborhood, usually to my dad’s house. They have dressed themselves, not combed their hair or brushed their teeth, and are hungry. Dad lets them have cereal, play games, make cookies, watch cartoons, etc. Camille has gotten to the point where she doesn’t even knock on the door. She just walks in and announces what she wants. When their mother comes home from work, she pulls into the driveway, honks her horn, and asks if her daughters are here. If I tell her no, she repeats this at neighbor’s houses, until she finds her daughters. The girls are also often seen riding their bikes in the middle of the street. I am concerned that one day a car will hit one of them, and their mother will be nowhere nearby to take care of them.

Dad now spends eight hours a day on the computer. He wheels himself into his living room every morning, turns on the TV located behind him, and spends all day staring at the computer screen. When he is done, he closes up all his files, and then the computer is mine for the evening. I am using an online dating service called LDSSingles.com, and I search the profiles of single, Mormon men, as this is the religion in which I was raised. I also use this time to send and respond to e-mail, look for work, or even play games—anything to help pass the time while I figure out what to do next. It is during this time I realize how full the hard drive is on my dad’s computer. When his computer is so full it won’t download a text-only e-mail, and remembering when he had previously given me a computer where he had backed the hard drive up onto itself, I decide that tomorrow evening, I’ll begin searching his hard drive to find the source of the problem.

Chapter Four

Tuesday

October 14, 1997

As I begin to look through the files, I notice folder after folder full of .jpg images. I start clicking on the icons and I suddenly feel sick. I am sitting here, at my father’s computer, looking at pornography. Not just pornography, but child pornography. My heart sinks. How could my father do this? Why would he do this? This is contrary to everything he ever taught us as children and what we learned in church. We have always been taught that each body is a temple—and to defile it, especially like this, is a sin.

The only solution I can think of is to delete everything I can find. I’ll open up some space on the hard drive, make the computer work better, and he will know that I know because his files are now deleted.

I delete hundreds of photos and go to bed thinking that Dad will stop now because I know. He will turn on his computer tomorrow, see all his files deleted, and he will be shamed into stopping this awful behavior.

Chapter Five

Wednesday

October 15, 1997

I wake up this morning and go in the living room to watch TV. Dad is sitting at his computer, but his back is mostly blocking the monitor. I can’t see what he’s doing. Chad is sitting here on my lap, as he has become extremely attached to me ever since I returned from Belgium the first time. I sometimes sit here and wonder—how could I have left my children for six months like that? And for what? How did I really improve their lives? I’m sitting here in a recliner chair in my father’s house, already 30 years old, never married, as a single mother, watching TV, unemployed, gaining weight, and wondering if my father is going to download more child pornography onto his computer. How did my life change so quickly? And why?

Chapter Six

California

Fall 1993

I can’t tell you when exactly it was that I discovered the soothing effects that moving water has on me. When I was upset as a teenager, I used to run to the top of the lane, cross the road, slip down an embankment, and sit by the side of a creek—just watching and listening to the flowing water. It always seemed to calm me down. So when I was in college and saw that scuba diving was offered as a P.E. class, I jumped at the chance to sign up. I took the Open Water I, Open Water II and Rescue & Safety Diver courses. I stopped short of becoming a Dive Master, as I despise removing my mask and this is a recurring requirement of getting that certification.

Many people love being on the ocean—snorkeling, surfing, sailing. But I love being in the ocean—being a part of it. And there is a respect that needs to be paid to the open water. Diving is a very safe sport, but there are certain laws of physics that must be understood and obeyed.

Did you know that air is not