Prosecuted But Not Silenced

Courtroom Reform for Sexually Abused Children

Maralee McLean

• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781683507802
• eBook ISBN: 9781683507819
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Family Law
• Index: Law

Prosecuted But Not Silenced is a powerful documentary about a mother and daughter's tragic involvement with the judicial system when there were allegations of child sexual abuse—a human rights and civil rights issue for women and children. It is an important educational tool for judges, lawyers, social workers, therapists, politicians, and the general public so that people realize what still occurs today. A National Health Crisis, Maralee's story reveals the last taboo and a crime that needs the public's attention, and emphasizes the need for training in the dynamics of maltreatment so that no more mothers have to suffer what happened to Maralee and her daughter.

CHAPTER 1

The Hidden Truth Behind the Fairy Tale

I grew up in a small Wyoming town as the middle child in a family of six. My childhood was uncomplicated and full of spontaneity, love, and care. My parents instilled in each of us high morals, values, and integrity. I was a cheerleader in high school, semifinalist for homecoming queen in college, and runner-up for Miss Wyoming—a wholesome, small-town girl through and through.

After graduating from college, I began working as a flight attendant for Continental Airlines, which was based in LA. California was quite the culture shock, but I loved it and found my life to be quite exciting. I was fulfilling my childhood dream, which was to get a college education and become a flight attendant, so I could travel and meet all kinds of interesting people and to see the world. During my first few months in LA, I lived with several other flight attendants, and I did meet some interesting people. One of them happened to be the man that I would marry. Derek and I met while working out at an athletic club at the facility where we lived. He had a muscular build, curly brown hair, and nice blue eyes—a rather rugged but nice-looking man. We began talking, and he asked me out.

He was different from the other men I had met in LA. He had real values and seemed to appreciate my morals. And he seemed to covet my attention. In fact, in the beginning he was extremely persistent and never seemed to let go of me. While I found him attractive, I didn’t feel quite as drawn to him.

For this reason, I tried to break things off several times, but each time he cried and pleaded until I gave him another chance. I could not bear to hurt him. In time, after a lot of persistence on his part, I began to care for him. He had a horrible childhood, and I marveled at how well he had turned out. He was kind, emotional, and caring of others, and he continually professed his deep love for me. Because I had been so loved my whole life, I wanted a man who was going to do the same, and he did. He wined and dined me at LA’s most exclusive restaurants, bought me flowers, and treated me like gold. Now how could I not love someone like that? Even though he was, at times, socially inadequate—he had a hard time being comfortable with others—I felt I could help him in this area, and I was inspired by his formidable intellect. We seemed to complement each other. Yet something was holding me back. It took a long time before I could tell him that I loved him. Even after he proposed to me, it took two years before I could say yes.

Our problems began when he became very jealous, and that made me extremely uncomfortable. It got so that I had to harness my outgoing personality when we were out in public, for fear that he would verbally abuse me when he took me home. I reasoned that once he was sure of my love for him, he wouldn’t be so easily threatened. But as time went on, things only escalated. He would tell me to button my blouse up to my neck, and one day he cut up one of my bikinis because he thought it was too revealing. Now, I could adjust my behavior to a point, but I wasn’t going to let anyone tell me what to wear and how to wear it. So I bought another bikini and continued to dress attractively. I recognized that he was testing me, putting me through trials and tribulations to see if I could handle them. I did, of course, much to my later dismay, because I wanted to prove to him that I would not abandon him as his mother and family had.

However, I finally agreed to marry him—but not to set a wedding date

I enjoyed living in California, things went generally good between us until the day he came to my apartment and told me he was getting transferred to Midland, Texas. I thought he was kidding. I had never heard of Midland until I had become a flight attendant and heard the other attendants complain about having a Midland layover. His father was starting a new company and wanted him to run it. He was to leave in two weeks.

After he moved there, I couldn’t get a transfer to Texas and really did not want one. I loved LA, so we would fly to see each other on weekends. On one of those visits he asked me to marry him again, and this time I finally agreed after five years to a date. Since he did not want a big wedding and I did, we eloped in Lake Tahoe without telling anyone but had an official wedding a month later in Wyoming.

It was a beautiful wedding. Friends flew in from all over the country, and I left all the planning to my mom. I was the first girl in the family to get married, and I knew it would be important to both my parents. As for his side of the family, his father refused to come to the wedding because he was Jewish and had decided never to set foot in a Catholic church, however his two step sisters came whom I liked very much.

Before the ceremony, we met with Bishop Wolfrom, who had been my minister since I was a girl. To my surprise, the bishop told me he was against our marriage and did not feel good about my fiancé. He felt that we would have a difficult time together but didn’t tell me why.

On our honeymoon, Derek started yelling at me out of the blue about a former boyfriend my friends had talked about at the wedding. I was shocked and wondered where he was coming from. I didn’t really know what to say. Suddenly, he reached over and slapped me hard in the head.

I was stunned at first; I couldn’t believe he had hit me. Then I began to sob uncontrollably, not because it hurt me so much physically but because no one had ever done such a degrading thing to me. I began to cry out for my dad. Who had I just married?

“Stop this car immediately!” I said as I got out, crossed the road, and stuck out my thumb to hitchhike down off the mountain. We had gone to Winter Park, Colorado, to ski.

I didn’t know how I would get home; all I knew was that I wanted to get away from this lunatic. But he jumped out of the car and came after me, apologizing profusely. He said he didn’t know what had gotten into him.

Looking back, I should have left him that day. But how could I admit that I had made such a big mistake? How would my family look at me? I reasoned that the wedding— the ultimate social event for someone who hated such gatherings—had been so difficult for him that it had caused him to snap.

Back home, I managed to get transferred to El Paso, a half-hour flight from Midland. I had reservations about leaving LA, but I was married now, and my place was with my husband. We built a beautiful home in Midland, and I commuted to and from El Paso on a little commuter plane. He was working very hard for the first time in his life. But soon we began to fight because I had to commute and live in a place I could not stand and because he was frustrated with the way his father’s company was being run—money was constantly being transferred from Midland to the parent company in New York. Plus, I found out that while I had been living in LA—back when he had quizzed me about my every move and made sure I was home by nine every night—he had been seeing another woman. When I flew in to visit him, he used to meet me at the gate. One day the pilot I was flying with recognized him as someone he had seen with another woman at the gate. Yes, Mr. Conservative, the guy who would jump all over me if a man paid any attention to me, had been having an affair during our engagement. I was devastated. I told him I did not care if it was before we were married; we had every bit as much of a commitment. Once again, he cried, seemingly drawing his tears from nowhere, and told me that I was as pure as snow and that he didn’t deserve me.

With all this in mind and believing I really did love this man despite what had happened, I told him we had to leave Midland.

I didn’t care if we ever had another dime; I wanted to get out of that place and not be controlled by his dad’s money. I did some research on townhouses available in Denver, left Derek with the Midland house, and flew to Denver to buy a townhouse there. In Denver I decided we could start fresh.

Derek eventually joined me in Denver, but he couldn’t find a job—he had always just worked for his father—so I supported him for quite some time. In the meantime, I flew back to Midland to try to sell our house and to make sure it was in “show” condition. What I found there was shocking. After I had left, Derek hadn’t paid any of the bills. (At the time, I didn’t know he had a $20,000 IRS debt he had incurred before we were married, nor did I know that all his charge cards had been over extended.) There was water all over the floor; the electricity had been turned off; somebody had come to repossess the television; and the phone line was disconnected.

I left town the next day, and we quickly sold the house at a financial loss.

I was ready for a new start.

With my husband out of work, I had to carry the load of his IRS debt and his credit card debt. But I was young and foolish and believed in his intelligence and capabilities, so I used the money I had in my savings account to buy a new car and a townhouse.

For the next eight years, we were—on the surface—a happy couple. And for the most part, we were. We were in love. We did everything together. When I had to fly, I couldn’t wait to get home to him, and he would always be waiting at the door for me. We couldn’t stand to be apart from each other; we would even talk several times a day while at work. We spent all the pleasurable time together that most young people in love do, except at a faster pace—we traveled all through Europe, rode bikes, worked out, skied, went for walks, and played backgammon for foot massages. We joined an athletic club and made friends with other couples. The owner of the athletic club said that of all the couples who walked through his doors, we seemed to be the happiest. And that’s how I saw us, too. Most of the couples we socialized with were successful the wives didn’t work, and the husbands were doctors, lawyers, or businessmen. Even though we were not in the same financial situation, we pretended we were and lived on borrowed money and off my savings.

I used to distinguish my life from that of my friends in the airline world. I thought those people were pretty wild, whereas I had a safe, secure life at home, with people who were family oriented, health conscious, and down to earth. I ignored some pretty obvious signs that underneath this surface life of fun and togetherness was a dark, violent element that would eventually ruin everything for me.

CHAPTER 2

Domestic Violence and Coercive Control

About every three months or so, something would set Derek off. One time I had to have jaw surgery and my mouth was wired shut for six weeks. I could only take in liquids through a straw and out of nowhere he slugged me in the gut. I felt his fist penetrate my stomach and it felt like it entered and pierced through to the other side. We were not fighting, and I was so stunned and heartbroken. Being so frail it was like hitting a child. The abuse was way more prevalent emotionally which I feel is even harder to understand. A couple of years later he was in a state handball tournament. I watched him play, and lose, the championship game. When he came out to the car, I told him he had played well. Out of the blue, he slugged me in the head. I was physically stunned. My head was pounding, and I felt dizzy. I got out of the car, walked across the street to find a field, and fell to the ground. When I woke up, I had no idea how much time had elapsed. I saw my friend Cheri’s blue Porsche come around the corner and stop. I asked her to take me home. The tournament was out of town, and as we drove back, I kept falling asleep. She drove me to a clinic where the doctor told me I had a concussion. I refused to tell the doctor that Derek had hit me.

For the next three days, Derek didn’t show up at home. When he did, he denied ever hitting me. I could not stand him and wanted him to stay away from me.

Another time we were play fighting in bed when all of a sudden it became real. He sadistically began smothering me with a pillow until I panicked, desperately trying to scream and flailing at him to get off me. Feeling that I was going to pass out or stop breathing.

I had always felt that I was an independent woman. I had always prided myself in being a strong woman. But during these first eight years of my marriage, I lived in fear of Derek’s mood swings and emotional abuse. Walking on egg shells waiting for his next outrageous anger attack.

As I approached thirty, Derek finally had secured a good job, and everything seemed to be right in our lives. He had become financially stable, and I told myself that his mood swings had improved, that the occasional physical and emotional abuse were nothing compared to how much we loved each other and how well we got along. So we discussed having a child.

I wasn’t sure I was ready, and I wanted to make absolutely sure he was. The last thing I wanted was for him to resent me and not share in the responsibility of a child. By that time, we had a dog—a pit bull named Rustle—but having a baby was a bigger decision, and it had to be mutual. I did not want the sole responsibility for our baby’s care. He assured me that he was certain he wanted a child.

We decided to try to conceive. I applied for a supervisor position for flight attendants and began working in an office.

We figured it would take some time for me to get pregnant, but soon after we began trying, I found out I was carrying our child.

Little did I know what was going on behind my back.

Cheri was one of my best friends. We had met at our athletic club. She had a lovely home with her husband and little boy. She did not work, and she seemed to be very disconnected with her life. She always looked at my life—and my husband—as exciting. However, I never felt threatened by her.

Friends kept telling me how Cheri seemed to covet my life so much that she actually began dressing and acting like me. She wanted to work for Continental, too, so I helped her prepare for her interview. While she didn’t qualify as a flight attendant, she was hired in reservations.

As it turns out, she coveted everything about my life, including Derek. This was obvious to me; I knew she had a horrible crush on him. Once when I was playing in a racquetball tournament, they both came to watch one of my games. During time outs, Derek ran down to give me some advice and encouragement. Sometimes, if a particular serve wasn’t working or I was worried about how I was playing, I looked up toward him in the stands to see what I should do. When I did, I saw her standing near him, staring as if she could not take her eyes off him. At the time, I felt so sorry for her that sh...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Foreword
• Author’s Note
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Hidden Truth Behind the Fairy Tale
• Chapter 2: Domestic Violence and Coercive Control
• Chapter 3: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly
• Chapter 4: Manipulation, Threats, and Fear: The Charming Psychopath
• Chapter 5: A Mother’s Nightmare
• Chapter 6: Disclosure of Abuse
• Chapter 7: The Awakening
• Chapter 8: Without Conscience: Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS)
• Chapter 9: Foster Care and More Trauma
• Chapter 10: Gut Instincts in Court
• Chapter 11: Learning to Survive While Everyone Else Lives
• Chapter 12: Blinded Professionals
• Chapter 13: Evil, Injustice, and System Failure
• Chapter 14: A Mother’s Dream
• Chapter 15: Stop at Nothing
• Chapter 16: Defying Logic
• Chapter 17: In Whose Best Interest?
• Chapter 18: Fathers’ Rights
• Chapter 19: When Power and Control are Given to the Abuser
• Chapter 20: Mounting Evidence
• Chapter 21: Analyzing the Enemy
• Chapter 22: New Attorneys, More Hearings, and Continued Use of PAS
• Chapter 23: Incredible Strength
• Chapter 24: An Abuser’s Tactic: Illegal Ex parte Hearing
• Chapter 25: Flipping the Tables
• Chapter 26: A Mother and Child’s Love Survives
• Chapter 27: Congress and Media: Giving My Child a Voice
• Chapter 28: Seeking Criminal Prosecution
• Chapter 29: Coping Mechanisms
• Chapter 30: Your Child’s Best Advocate
• Chapter 31: Working Nationally to Free My Child
• Chapter 32: Free Our Children
• Chapter 33: Coping with No Christmas
• Chapter 34: A Dream Given, Then Taketh Way
• Chapter 35: Beaten and Abused by the System
• Chapter 36: Becoming My Own Attorney
• Chapter 37: CNN International News Becomes a Powerful Voice
• Chapter 38: Contempt and Jail Time
• Chapter 39: Dissociative Behavior
• Chapter 40: New Lies and New Targets
• Chapter 41: When the Dreamers, Protectors, and Warriors Survive
• Conclusion
• Appendix A: From the Hardest Case: Custody and Incest by Joan Pennington
• Appendix B: Myths and Facts
• Appendix C: Educational Tools
• Appendix D: Reports
• Appendix E: References, Informational Articles and Books
• Appendix F: Helpful Books for Parents, Attorneys, Judges, and Professionals
• Endnotes