Children fed 'silly pills,' forced to perform sex shows

[Schuyler Colfax]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/06/22/sex ... index.html

MINEOLA, Texas (AP) -- In the windowless front rooms of a former day care center in a tiny Texas community, children as young as 5 were fed powerful painkillers they knew as "silly pills" and forced to perform sex shows for a crowd of adults.

Two people have already been convicted in the case. Now a third person with ties to the club, previously known in town only as a swingers group, is set to go on trial Monday not far from Mineola, population 5,100.

"This really shook this town," said Shirley Chadwick, a longtime resident of Mineola. "This was horrible."

Patrick Kelly, 41, is charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child, tampering with physical evidence and engaging in organized criminal activity.

In all, six adults have been charged in connection with the case, including a parent of the three siblings involved.

Jurors this year deliberated less than five minutes before returning guilty verdicts against the first two defendants, who were accused of grooming the kids for sex shows in "kindergarten" classes and passing off Vicodin as "silly pills" to help the children perform.

Jamie Pittman and Shauntel Mayo were sentenced to life in prison. Kelly also faces a life sentence if convicted, and Smith County prosecutors hope for another swift verdict.

Thad Davidson, Kelly's attorney, said his client passed a lie-detector test proving his innocence and worries about getting a fair trial in Tyler, 25 miles southeast of Mineola, which is in Wood County.

"I think it's impossible to get a fair trial within 80 miles of Smith County," Davidson said.

Mineola, about 80 miles east of Dallas, is a close-knit, conservative bean-processing town of with more than 30 churches. Residents there want to put the scandal behind them as quickly as possible.

The one-story building where prosecutors say four children -- the three siblings, now ages 12, 10 and 7, and their 10-year-old aunt -- were trained to perform in front of an audience of 50 to 100 once a week has been vacant since the landlord ousted the alleged organizers in 2004.

Down a slight hill is a retirement home, and even closer is the office of the local newspaper. Doris Newman, editor of The Mineola Monitor, said rumors of swinger parties spread around town but that no one mentioned children being involved.

Newman, who can see the building from her office window, said she remembers the parking lot filling up with more than a dozen cars at night.

In August 2004, an editorial under the headline "Sex In the City" opined that if the swingers left quietly, "we'll try and forget they've infiltrated our town with their set of moral standards."

"It's not that we're trying to look the other way," Newman said. "But there's a lot more to Mineola than that."

According to a Mineola police report, the department first investigated a complaint in June 2005 in which the siblings' foster mother said one of the girls described dancing toward men and another child saying that "everybody does nasty stuff in there."

In the second trial, Child Protective Services caseworker Kristi Hachtel testified, "I've seen a lot and I never in my wildest dreams imagined this. They were preyed upon in probably one of the most heinous ways possible."

The children are now doing better, the welfare agency said.

"Through counseling and therapy sessions, these children are now finally feeling secure and safe," agency spokeswoman Shari Pulliam wrote in an e-mail.

Permanent custody of the three siblings was given to John and Margie Cantrell. This week, prosecutors in California charged John Cantrell with sexually assaulting a child in the state 18 years ago. Margie Cantrell said her husband is innocent.

Kelly's attorney moved Friday asking to postpone the trial in light of the allegations against Cantrell, a state witness. Texas Child Protective Services said it would be "common" for the agency to investigate.

The Rev. Tim Letsch is opening a church in the yellow-plastered building where the children were abused. He acknowledges that building a congregation might be difficult because of the stigma attached to the property.

"You got to decide whether you're willing to forgive those kind of things," Letsch said. "It's a hard deal. Especially for a spiritual person to walk in and say, 'This happened here."'

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Patrick Kelly, 41, is charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child, tampering with physical evidence and engaging in organized criminal activity.

Is this too good to be true? Inquiring minds must know.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

A person named Pat Kelly grooming kids for sex shows in Texas? We may have indeed found our pedophile.

[Darth Wong]

The "patkelly" who posted on this board claimed to be from Los Angeles, but it's not as if this person couldn't have relocated. It's impossible to verify the actual location of the individual in question because, like any pedophile, the degenerate used anonymous E-mail addresses and web proxies to conceal its identity and location.

[Frank Hipper]

A crowd of 50 to 100 adults watching a child-sex show, in a "tiny" Texas town?

Fifty to one hundred?

This smells WAY TOO much like McMartin and the Satanic Cult Hysteria of the late '80s to early '90s for me to simply accept this as a factual occurrance on the basis of kids' highly suggestive memories.

This is utter bullshit; tiny fundie Texas town and the jurors took 5 MINUTES to deliberate on 2 life sentences?

The shockingly coincidental Patrick Kelly passed a lie-detector test?

Anyone put the kids up to a lie-detector test?

Not buying it, people.

[Glocksman]

As you probably know, lie-detectors aren't foolproof by any means.
That said, as described it is eerily reminiscent of the McMartin preschool case.

I hate to say this, but if I were on that jury I would have insisted on seeing physical evidence (toxicology tests for drugs, 'rape kit' test results, etc.) because the McMartin case proved that children can be manipulated by their 'therapists' into giving false testimony.

Thanks to the misconduct then, I'd have reasonable doubts about a case based solely on the testimony of children today.

[Sriad]

...Jurors this year deliberated less than five minutes before returning guilty verdicts against the first two defendants, who were accused of grooming the kids for sex shows in "kindergarten" classes and passing off Vicodin as "silly pills" to help the children perform.

Jamie Pittman and Shauntel Mayo were sentenced to life in prison. Kelly also faces a life sentence if convicted, and Smith County prosecutors hope for another swift verdict.

Thad Davidson, Kelly's attorney, said his client passed a lie-detector test proving his innocence and worries about getting a fair trial in Tyler, 25 miles southeast of Mineola, which is in Wood County.

"I think it's impossible to get a fair trial within 80 miles of Smith County," Davidson said.

Mineola, about 80 miles east of Dallas, is a close-knit, conservative bean-processing town of with more than 30 churches. Residents there want to put the scandal behind them as quickly as possible.

[...]

In August 2004, an editorial under the headline "Sex In the City" opined that if the swingers left quietly, "we'll try and forget they've infiltrated our town with their set of moral standards."

I'm not saying they're innocent, but I AM going to say innocent until proven guilty, and this doesn't sound exactly like justice to me.

In the interest of sound jurisprudence, I hope the trial is moved.

[CJvR]

Cases like this are extremely dangerous, experience shows that children can be made to testify to just about anything and their therapists will swear everything they say is true.
50-100 spectators? 6+ involved suspects, multiple children... That is too big not to leave some trails! There absolutely has to be some hard evidence or Im thinking Witchtrial.

[General Zod]

Down a slight hill is a retirement home, and even closer is the office of the local newspaper. Doris Newman, editor of The Mineola Monitor, said rumors of swinger parties spread around town but that no one mentioned children being involved.

Newman, who can see the building from her office window, said she remembers the parking lot filling up with more than a dozen cars at night.

In August 2004, an editorial under the headline "Sex In the City" opined that if the swingers left quietly, "we'll try and forget they've infiltrated our town with their set of moral standards."

This part comes off as rather suspicious and makes me wonder how much if any of it is fabricated. "we'll forget about it if they left quietly?" Yeah, real hard to buy that there isn't some type of serious grudge going on.