A Ron Williams Sychophant defends Hephzibah House

[Brainsample]

I'd quote from the post, but it boils down to this:

Ron Williams can do no wrong and Hephzibah House is a wonderful place!!! All of these internet assassins (I borrowed that one from Doug Phillips) have hidden behind anonymity to spread lies about the place. He talked to the one brainwashed foster care system throw away that actually thought HH was a good home, so the 100 others who say they endured horrible abuse there must be bitter liars because they didn't like Biblical discipline. With discipline like that, who needs the Bible, eh?

I guess that's why so many girls at www.HephzibahGirls.com have posted their names for the world to see along with their personal accounts of the place. And I'm so blissfully anonymous, too. Just call me deepthroat on Blog Radio, because I don't want anyone to know who I am.

But I digress. I'm working on a series of posts which deal with the one girl (Lucinda who appears in the comments below the post) who goes around talking about how great HH was, a girl with no compassion for her sister survivors. Apparently Ron knew she was the only one who was ever a resident there that was not a whore and didn't really deserve to be there, but everyone else was sent there because they were all sinful sluts. They needed to be treated like human garbage, apparently. And when people confront this woman, she plays victim and carries on about being pregnant (frequently), so anyone who stands strong against her is seen as abusive themselves. She seems to be a very poor historian when it comes to her very contradictory personal accounts which are long and tedious. She claimed once that she was spanked as a 21 year old woman before her church. She claims that after leaving HH, her step father "chorloformed" her with some auto solvent to knock her out and then raped her again, then threatened to kill her stepmom. There are so many bizarre tales she's told since before her awful foster care system experience (where I'm sure she was abused terribly) that are just very hard to believe.

Anyone who wants to have at it on here or on their own blogs or both, please have at it. Feel free to contact me for more info offline if this is something you'd like to understand in greater detail. I'm going to refrain from character assasination, so I don't want to post a whole lot of info online, but I'm happy to share it with any concerned parties who want to write more about it.

renewamerica.com/columns/dunkin/120104

I have more links that I can post, but in the meanwhile, feel free to have at this article. I have no idea who this guy is, and I keep referring to him as a clown in my private correspondence. He's probably a guy who just loves his church and can't imagine that Ron could be a sociopath, but good sociopaths tend to have followers like this guy.

More to follow.

[Guest Anonymous]

I lost interest in reading it half way through. It was wordy and smacking of "arrogant shit" throughout the parts I did read.

Who is the guy anyway - forgive my ignorance of fundie culture, but is he somone 'important' that anyone in those circles would listen to?

[Brainsample]

I lost interest in reading it half way through. It was wordy and smacking of "arrogant shit" throughout the parts I did read.

Who is the guy anyway - forgive my ignorance of fundie culture, but is he somone 'important' that anyone in those circles would listen to?

No one that I interact with has ever heard of the guy. EXCEPT for one HH survivor that did hear from him (had no clue who he was then), she told him it was a horrible place and offered to answer more of his questions, but she never heard any more from him. Apart from her recognizing that he'd written to her, she'd never heard of him.

I did find his blog when I was looking for a photo of Ron Williams in April, and it seemed like a similar kind of thing. He didn't come out accusing the former residents of being anonymous however. (I don't know how he can look himself in the mirror and feel good about being honest on that point. So many brave women have used their names and many parents have come forward as well. And some of the staff people, too.) Gabriella did a good job of countering him (she hosts the HH page on Facebook), and she's never been anonymous either.

I barely made it through the thing and I was so upset from the early miserable stuff he said, I didn't process it all.

Thanks for making the effort to take a look at it, Annie, and I love your assessment. The survivors get so discouraged by garbage like this, and it's encouraging to them to know that people have not forgotten about them and that people care about what they've been through.

[Brainsample]

OOooh, Great rebuttal. chucklestravels.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/defending-the-indefensible-with-lies-and-nonsense/

(Chuckles had never heard of this guy, either.) The post includes a letter that Williams sent out to supporters after they nailed him on CNN in September as part of that "Ungodly Discipline" series.

Chuckles mentions Michelle Dickey who is cut throat defender of Lucinda who is the foster system throw away who lived so bad of a life that she thought Ron was wonderful. Michelle has harassed friends of mine and is kind of like that crazy lady on TWOP and TLC who will chew her own arm off to defend the Duggars. And she posted the transcript from Anderson Cooper wherein he interviews Lucinda who claims she was not abused. But this is a girl who thought that molesting your new foster child (her) was an expression of fatherly love.

Here's Lucinda:

(Look at the related videos at the right -- there are two other videos there -- one with Zichterman and one concerning HH and the law.)

[Guest Anonymous]

I watched the Cooper Anderson clip with Lucinda. She seems very damaged and I feel sad for her.

What struck me most was the way she tried to minimise the goings on at HH, as if the abuses would be any less horrific even if they "only" did happen as infrequently as she said.

I too was 15 in 1988 and at that time corporal punishment had been unlawful in schools for many years. Even when it was lawful in the early 80s, it was rarely used and never more severe than striking a child on the hand, in a private office, with a witness present. And still then the practice was thought by many to be barbaric and was eventually outlawed.

That a 15 year old girl should be held on the floor, with a chair placed over her body to stop her getting away, and beaten for any reason whatsoever, just smacks of mindless thuggery. That she says it "only happened" twice to her in three years, makes it no less barbaric. That "only one" girl was made to wear a diaper as a punishment for needing the toilet outside a scheduled break is utterly incomprehensible.

Ron's critics are talking about him having used Lucinda to defend his case but, really she would make an excellent witness for the prosecution if he were brought to trial in a criminal court. She doesn't think it was "that bad" but she describes flat out abuse.

I struggle to see why there is even any debate on the matter to be honest. I don't understand why that Ron creature hasn't been behind bars for a long time already. Why haven't there been any prosecutions?

If he were tried under British law, he'd have been detained at Her Majesty's pleasure long ago and he'd be begging to spend the rest of his own days in diapers... Her Majesty's prison toilets are not the safest of places for men who have abused children....

[apple1]

Why haven't there been any prosecutions?

Partly because he is in the state of Indiana. Indiana's laws are weak in these areas. Additionally, I would be willing to bet money that politicians and law enforcement in the area have received "contributions" that have encouraged them to turn a blind eye.

On one occasion when law enforcement did come in, RW had temporarily removed/hidden the girls in some cooperating church, so that they were not actually in the HH facility at the time.

Keep in mind that Indiana is (was??) the home of the Gothard facilities where kids were incarcerated, also. And Indiana has a large, vocal fundamentalist/homeschooling/politically extreme conservative contingent, and the politicians pander to their vote.

[Brainsample]

In Kathryn Joyce's article in Mother Jones on the topic of these "Boarding Homes," she infers (if not states directly) that certain states seem to facilitate these types of places, IIRC. http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/08 ... use?page=1

It seems pretty easy to hide out in Missouri, and several homes that have been closed down in one state have be re-opened in another. These men "on a mission from God" who set up these awful programs just migrate from state to state.

From the testimony of women who were at HH, it seems to me that Ron Williams must have had friends in the police department who tipped him off to impending investigations. From girls who were there in the eighties, I've heard from them independently that when Amy ran away (the girl who was beaten so bad that she had cavetous wounds on her buttocks (bedsores essentially), she ran off and went to the police station. Her issues were current, and there was evidence, so they did have the right to go in. But they didn't rush right over.

Most of the girls who saw how frequently she was beaten and would see her buttocks wounds seeping through her clothing or would see the puss covered bandages in the trash thought she died when she ran away. They feared that they'd finally managed to beat her to death, but no one would say anything. Several girls were sent back to their families to drop the census at the home, and then several other remaining girls were taken and hidden for three days in a church and were not permitted to turn on the lights. So they were able to squeak through that investigation I guess.

And the girls were not permitted to tell their parents anything, and they couldnt' write home until they wrote letters that sounded glowing. So parents had no clue. Every girl I talked to had urinary tract problems immediately upon leaving, and one girl (Amy who has posted here before) was taken directly to the hospital for treatment for UTI. Susan Grotte who has posted here on FJ, too, was hospitalized about six months ago with a kidney infection, and she didn't really have the same kinds of trouble that many of the girls did. All that urine retention causes hydronephrosis, dilation of the ureters to accomodate the urine, and then the person has lifelong problems with reflux of urine retrograde into the kidney.

So in addition to the unique way that the laws are written in Indiana and the one senator that they boast of as a HH supporter, I think that Williams has informants in the community and people that try to help protect him from local investigations and such.

If you're in the US, write to congress to tell them to support HR 911: https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/111/hr911

[Guest Anonymous]

I completely understand why the girls couldn't speak out at the time; I am just surprised that there isn't recourse to the law now.

We have had some pretty horrendous abuse cases in children's homes in the UK, but usually once the victims start speaking out as adults, the press are all over it and sometimes the hardest thing is not getting the case to trial, but keeping the press under sufficient control and warding off potential lynch mobs so that there can be a fair trial, without any of the defendants getting off on a technicality. I don't understand why the community at large isn't up in arms about what is essentially child abuse.

[Brainsample]

I completely understand why the girls couldn't speak out at the time; I am just surprised that there isn't recourse to the law now.

. . .I don't understand why the community at large isn't up in arms about what is essentially child abuse.

Susan Grotte wrote me a note last night that contained this same sentiment, said almost the same way. She's tempted to go stand on the street corner in front of HH with a picket sign until they either shut the place down or they haul her off. I told her to please wait for the next organized protest so that I could go with her and we could have my husband come bail us out of jail together. :)

They're very frustrated, and it seems to them sometimes that they can get a little attention in the media, but it doesn't ever amount to anything viable which makes any kind of difference.

They don't beat the girls as badly as they used to, so that's a blessing, and they don't keep as many girls. I think that they figured that it was easier to keep fewer girls and bring in about the same amount of money or not that much less, and it wasn't as much work. And some of the girls for awhile were overfed because of the criticism that the girls walked out of there looking like they'd left Auschwitz. But they're still called whores and treated like garbage. They're still force fed and brainwashed. They're still demeaned. It's still sick and there's still no justice for those who survived the "full lock down prison" and "suburban gulag."

[Guest Anonymous]

They don't beat the girls as badly as they used to, so that's a blessing, and they don't keep as many girls.

:shock: That sounds like Lucinda speaking.... I know that's not how you meant it, but I am staggered that what went on at HH and still goes on, could ever be thought to be anything less than the worst kind of child abuse.

Why would you need to be bailed out for protesting? If idiots can stand outside abortion clinics all day long, why can't the HH survivors and supporters set up an Occupy-style camp outside HH?

[Brainsample]

:shock: That sounds like Lucinda speaking.... I know that's not how you meant it, but I am staggered that what went on at HH and still goes on, could ever be thought to be anything less than the worst kind of child abuse.

Why would you need to be bailed out for protesting? If idiots can stand outside abortion clinics all day long, why can't the HH survivors and supporters set up an Occupy-style camp outside HH?

It was an attempt at humor, as Susan was inclined to go there and remain there until the shut the place down, and they probably wouldn't tolerate her that long!

In the eighties, they were much more aggressive, but they also had to run a tighter ship because there were more girls there. Girls who were there in the latter '90s report less aggressive beatings, depending on the person you talk to and when they were there. Don (the grown son of Williams' who borders on pathetic from what I understand) is a bit more "broken," mellow compared to Ron in his prime. Don has been groomed to take over the home for daddy Ron. Perhaps that has something to do with it?

[Guest Anonymous]

It was an attempt at humor, as Susan was inclined to go there and remain there until the shut the place down, and they probably wouldn't tolerate her that long!

In the eighties, they were much more aggressive, but they also had to run a tighter ship because there were more girls there. Girls who were there in the latter '90s report less aggressive beatings, depending on the person you talk to and when they were there. Don (the grown son of Williams' who borders on pathetic from what I understand) is a bit more "broken," mellow compared to Ron in his prime. Don has been groomed to take over the home for daddy Ron. Perhaps that has something to do with it?

I can well imagine why Susan might want to do that; I have a harder time imagining why the place isn't picketed night and day.

[MailMan]

No one that I interact with has ever heard of the guy. EXCEPT for one HH survivor that did hear from him (had no clue who he was then), she told him it was a horrible place and offered to answer more of his questions, but she never heard any more from him. Apart from her recognizing that he'd written to her, she'd never heard of him.

I did find his blog when I was looking for a photo of Ron Williams in April, and it seemed like a similar kind of thing. He didn't come out accusing the former residents of being anonymous however. (I don't know how he can look himself in the mirror and feel good about being honest on that point. So many brave women have used their names and many parents have come forward as well. And some of the staff people, too.) Gabriella did a good job of countering him (she hosts the HH page on Facebook), and she's never been anonymous either.

I barely made it through the thing and I was so upset from the early miserable stuff he said, I didn't process it all.

Thanks for making the effort to take a look at it, Annie, and I love your assessment. The survivors get so discouraged by garbage like this, and it's encouraging to them to know that people have not forgotten about them and that people care about what they've been through.

I have tried to read this ignorant article, but the stupidity hurts. After his first article defending Hephzibah House I exchanged a number of E-Mails with him and it was useless. I was so deeply disgusted. The little bug couldn't defend his writings and stopped responding when I pinned him down.

[CanadianHippie]

Wonder if we could find a way to get someone on the inside who can really document the abuse. Something really needs to be done, and right now it seems that the only way to do it is get something other than the many, many former students talking.

[apple1]

I completely understand why the girls couldn't speak out at the time; I am just surprised that there isn't recourse to the law now.

There is a statute of limitations on child abuse prosecution.

I think the following quote (quoted source is actually talking about a totally different child abuse situation) may explain what happens in these situations:

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hamilton/20030717.html

Children often live with the ugliness of child abuse for years, held within themselves, precisely because they are not certain exactly what happened, or how to judge it. They need maturity to comprehend the situation.

It is understandably hard for a child to fully understand that the fault belonged to a trusted, revered authority figure, charged with interpreting the word of God - and not to the child himself or herself. A child's mind may find it hard to reckon with the idea that the same figures who meted out advice, and in some cases, sanctions, now deserve sanction themselves.

He or she may also wrongly feel somehow culpable in the abuse, especially if he or she did not fight against it, or tell anyone else about it. When abusers offer "love" and gifts in a bid to guarantee the child's silence, the guilt may only intensify.

Indiana statute of limitations on child abuse prosecution:

http://www.ai.org/legislative/ic/code/t ... C35-41-4-2

IC 35-41-4-2

Periods of limitation

Sec. 2. (a) Except as otherwise provided in this section, a prosecution for an offense is barred unless it is commenced:

(1) within five (5) years after the commission of the offense, in the case of a Class B, Class C, or Class D felony; or

(2) within two (2) years after the commission of the offense, in the case of a misdemeanor.

Comment: Indiana law on this subject is ridiculous, and needs to change. (BTW, I do not live in Indiana).

[Brainsample]

Wonder if we could find a way to get someone on the inside who can really document the abuse. Something really needs to be done, and right now it seems that the only way to do it is get something other than the many, many former students talking.

It's impossible. You would have to have the recommendation of someone like Jack Schapp or Chuck Phelps to get accepted there (as staff or as a resident), and there would be no way to get any kind of devices in or evidence out.

Have you listened to the podcasts that both Jeri Massi did and that I did (with Jocelyn Anderson), interviewing the girls? Apart from the great risk that the confederate would suffer, none of the girls or the staff people who have come forward to protest HH can figure out how it could be done.

The Lambs of Hephzibah House

http://www.jeriwho.net/tlohh.html

Blog Talk Radio

Helplessness, Bounded Choice and Life at Hephzibah House

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/jocelynand ... ibah-house

Hidden Abuses in the Baptist Church Part II: An interview with Susan Grotte (a 29 month resident in the early 1980s)

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/jocelynand ... ibah-house

[meda]

Brains ample, are you still doing your Blog talk radio podcast? I can't get any episodes past June ( sorry, OT)

[Brainsample]

Brains ample, are you still doing your Blog talk radio podcast? I can't get any episodes past June ( sorry, OT)

They turned out to be a great deal of work, and then Jocelyn's schedule and other demands changed, so we are no longer doing it. But I am really proud of the stuff we were able to do while it worked out for us last year.

[MailMan]

They turned out to be a great deal of work, and then Jocelyn's schedule and other demands changed, so we are no longer doing it. But I am really proud of the stuff we were able to do while it worked out for us last year.

I was wondering what happened to the podcast. You really did a fine job.

[MailMan]

Susan Grotte wrote me a note last night that contained this same sentiment, said almost the same way. She's tempted to go stand on the street corner in front of HH with a picket sign until they either shut the place down or they haul her off. I told her to please wait for the next organized protest so that I could go with her and we could have my husband come bail us out of jail together. :)

They're very frustrated, and it seems to them sometimes that they can get a little attention in the media, but it doesn't ever amount to anything viable which makes any kind of difference.

They don't beat the girls as badly as they used to, so that's a blessing, and they don't keep as many girls. I think that they figured that it was easier to keep fewer girls and bring in about the same amount of money or not that much less, and it wasn't as much work. And some of the girls for awhile were overfed because of the criticism that the girls walked out of there looking like they'd left Auschwitz. But they're still called whores and treated like garbage. They're still force fed and brainwashed. They're still demeaned. It's still sick and there's still no justice for those who survived the "full lock down prison" and "suburban gulag."

It has been my desire to storm the Bastille from the first time I heard of HH. Susan has often told me that my angry outrage would be counter productive. She has always been the calm rational one with the restraint. To see her stirred up to this level has been shocking. That idiot ron williams has no idea what he started when he called her up and drug her back into this. God willing, we will keep fighting this until the end.

I pray I have the strength to keep up with her...

p.s. Thanks to all who have supported my wife and the other HH victims. Even the kind words have been a salve on the open wounds they still possess.

[Brainsample]

Love that Mail Man! (Susan Grotte's husband.)

[MailMan]

Love that Mail Man! (Susan Grotte's husband.)

Thank you.

Did you notice that the Idiot Tim Dunkin said the victims could not be believed because they had no evidence, but he repeated the charge that a lesbian former member tried to hit a HH staff member with her car. There is no evidence this ever happened. (It did not.)

The HH goons were running around with their little video cameras all the time (But too afraid to talk to me when approached). There would be video if it wasn't a lie. And what is up with the gay angle? Does he think gay people can't give testimony?

[Brainsample]

Thank you.

Did you notice that the Idiot Tim Dunkin said the victims could not be believed because they had no evidence, but he repeated the charge that a lesbian former member tried to hit a HH staff member with her car. There is no evidence this ever happened. (It did not.)

The HH goons were running around with their little video cameras all the time (But too afraid to talk to me when approached). There would be video if it wasn't a lie. And what is up with the gay angle? Does he think gay people can't give testimony?

The gay thing is a pejorative to terrify people. Yeah, no homosexual could ever tell the truth, and it's a amazing that they can hold jobs and go about activities of daily living! :roll:

It's the same reason Doug Phillips calls everyone a Marxist. It's just a red herring to get people so emotionally inflamed so that they can no longer think about the true matter at hand. (I'm sure that this was a rhetorical question, but I had to answer it! It was a hanging curve ball.) About this time last year, I encouraged an author to send his manuscript to a minister to review it, hoping that the ministry could endorse the book. The first chapter set the guy off, and I know that the guy didn't read anything beyond that point. He couldn't have, and I could pinpoint the paragraph that drove him over the edge. (He trashed the book because of one paragraph that threatened him.)

Just say "gay" and all good Christians who love God and everything that's right should either run away, cover their ears and eyes, or perhaps pick up the Gary North patented and approved rocks for stoning the infidels. Gasp! Run for cover!

When you can't win the argument, start throwing out red herrings to get the blood hounds to loose the scent.

But I have a question:

What's this stuff about goons with cameras?

[MailMan]

The gay thing is a pejorative to terrify people. Yeah, no homosexual could ever tell the truth, and it's a amazing that they can hold jobs and go about activities of daily living! :roll:

It's the same reason Doug Phillips calls everyone a Marxist. It's just a red herring to get people so emotionally inflamed so that they can no longer think about the true matter at hand. (I'm sure that this was a rhetorical question, but I had to answer it! It was a hanging curve ball.) About this time last year, I encouraged an author to send his manuscript to a minister to review it, hoping that the ministry could endorse the book. The first chapter set the guy off, and I know that the guy didn't read anything beyond that point. He couldn't have, and I could pinpoint the paragraph that drove him over the edge. (He trashed the book because of one paragraph that threatened him.)

Just say "gay" and all good Christians who love God and everything that's right should either run away, cover their ears and eyes, or perhaps pick up the Gary North patented and approved rocks for stoning the infidels. Gasp! Run for cover!

When you can't win the argument, start throwing out red herrings to get the blood hounds to loose the scent.

But I have a question:

What's this stuff about goons with cameras?

Goons with cameras, well that would be members of their little compound. On the three trips to Hephzibah House, whenever we got near one of the properties, there would be someone with a video camera recording us. They were even spotted around the Hotel. I saw one of the Williams boys recording us in front of the original School Street house while some of the girls/ladies were breaking down and weeping just being close to the home. I of course went over to him, and with a camera in my face, I tried to engage him in a conversation. He wouldn't talk about anything. I decided to have fun and be jolly instead of getting angry. I didn't want to give them any propaganda footage.

It appeared to us that they were looking to get some footage that could be used to discredit the victims. If you can catch the abuse victims in some sort of public sin, then there is no reason for churches to believe them.

With this in mind I find it very hard to believe that they wouldn't have something on tape if someone tried to hit one of them with a car on their property.

[Guest Anonymous]

There seems to be a lot of people willing to talk about the Hepzibah case, but not a lot of direct action. I get that the legal and political situation is different, but everything I read about them seems so defeatist.

I'd like to see someone like Louis Theroux get on the case. They need someone mainstream to give the survivors some coverage and maybe drum up some interest in getting them some high quality legal advice.