Bittners/By Grace Alone

[haveapicniclife]

Does anyone else remember Jacqueline Bittner? Her father is military (air force?) and she has two older brothers and several younger siblings, including "the twins". They were in with Bill Gothard and the mom had some type of cancer.

Jacqueline updates pretty rarely but put out a post this week about their Christmas. I started scrolling through the pictures when I noticed a common theme. Priscilla is missing in every single one of them. She's the second oldest sister and used to be featured pretty prominantly. Now "the twins" are in every picture with Jacqueline, and can you believe they have names now? So I started frantically scrolling through more and more of the blog and realized that Priscilla has been missing in every picture for quite awhile now. I kept thinking I'd see her, but nope it was one of the twins. She could be the one taking pictures, but their Christmas pictures had every mix of people possible-- all the girls, dad with girls, whole family, some with brother, etc, and she wasn't in a single one.

Even more interesting, wasn't it just last year when Priscilla was in the hospital for some type of "pubic infection"? (Jacqueline's exact words in her comments). It just gets more and more curious.

[haveapicniclife]

Found this.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 798&type=3

I'm going to take a wild guess and say she's out of the movement. And from what I can tell, her family is not FB friends with her.

[haveapicniclife]

Wow, I just realized what a huge can of worms this was. All I had to do was google her name. (and I hope this isn't inappropriate, I had no idea what kind of trouble she was in). Remove the post if you feel it's necessary.

[Constance Vigilance]

Holy shit.

[JumpingtheSnark]

I don't know why we aren't discussing it. A fundy or former fundy (and a woman) accused of sexual abusing children is germane to every discussion we have of ways the patriarchy enables or causes abuse.

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/ ... _miss.html

ETA: This is a story about sexual abuse and could be a trigger for any survivors.

[Deleted03]

O_o I had been reading on By Grace Alone, and thought it weird there were so few updates... this is disturbing to say the least....

[fundiefan]

All the while, her sister's blog is still all about the pretty and 'look at us, we're such a great family'.

I stopped reading the blog a long time ago because it was so freaking boring and the amount of makeup and hairspray used on any given day made my eyes bleed. I never imagined any of them were...well, pedophiles.

That is sad and repulsive and I hope her family is investigated in this mess. Not that anyone but her deserves blame for what she did, but how the hell did she reach that point in the first place? Was she denied help for known problems? Was she too scared to even say she had issues? WTF happened that brought her to do what she is accused of doing/

[Deleted03]

I mean the family will be looked at since there's pedophilia charges... How about the stalkers of PB? How could she attend so many proms? Were the parents just hands off since she was straying away?

The most disturbing thing is that the blog does not mention anything or explain where P is? it's just as much disturbing...

[fundiefun]

I know her personally and this whole thing has been shocking to say the least. She went missing for a period of time and the family who found the images that she had been staying with (also fundie I believe) took her laptop for months before this whole thing came to light. I don't know the specifics on the family but things were bad enough for her to run away. I'm not saying she's innocent but more of this needs to be looked into since a lot of these fundie families are connected and often send their kids to one another when they get out of line.

[Deleted03]

I know her personally and this whole thing has been shocking to say the least. She went missing for a period of time and the family who found the images that she had been staying with (also fundie I believe) took her laptop for months before this whole thing came to light. I don't know the specifics on the family but things were bad enough for her to run away. I'm not saying she's innocent but more of this needs to be looked into since a lot of these fundie families are connected and often send their kids to one another when they get out of line.

did you just learn about it? do you have any more details?

[haveapicniclife]

I don't know why we aren't discussing it. A fundy or former fundy (and a woman) accused of sexual abusing children is germane to every discussion we have of ways the patriarchy enables or causes abuse.

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/ ... _miss.html

ETA: This is a story about sexual abuse and could be a trigger for any survivors.

You're right, and I have to apologize for the way the thread started. I had no clue and never would have guessed where this would end up. In the future I'll make sure to google first so I can at least be more informed. :oops: Mostly I'm so shocked, I can't believe it. Just goes to show that pretty pictures and seemingly perfect lives aren't always what they seem.

I just went back through Jacqueline's blog and it's so hard to piece together what happened. It seems that Priscilla was somewhere else, in school at the time? She ran away, and during the search for her the police uncovered the evidence on her computer. Not long after, someone asked about Priscilla's absence on Jacqueline's blog and she still basically gave a "everything's just fine!" answer. I've always thought something wasn't quite right with their family, enough to keep following her blog anyway. I'm just so shocked. And I'm pretty sure I can guess how quickly Priscilla was booted out of the family.

[fundiefun]

did you just learn about it? do you have any more details?

I knew she went missing and knew about her being charged back when she was arraigned, but I haven't posted about it until now since it hits close to home. I'm not trying to make it sound like she's innocent or anything but I honestly think there is more going on than that meets the eye since she was sent to live with the family and then goes missing and it wasn't until months later with her being gone and her computer in their possession that the charges were brought about. When she was sent away before being sent to the family who are pressing charges she was sent to an abusive IFB girls school called new beginnings her and her mother were on a 20/20 episode about it and here's the original article.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/independen ... xJFLG9rMeU

[Deleted03]

ok I have 0 experience with that, and I understand there are children involved, but how can you have so many pics of people "smiling", enjoying themselves when their sister is in prison for pedophilia? Does it only disturb me?

[haveapicniclife]

Fundiefun, do you happen to know why she went to New Beginnings? I always thought it was so odd that Jacqueline was talking about the "pubic infection" so openly on her blog. I can only guess that something happened last year to create a shit storm?

[fundiefun]

Fundiefun, do you happen to know why she went to New Beginnings? I always thought it was so odd that Jacqueline was talking about the "pubic infection" so openly on her blog. I can only guess that something happened last year to create a shit storm?

In the article it stated she was sent there for rebelling after being gang raped and apparently began drinking. So instead of getting her counseling they thought she needed bad girl reform school and sent her off on the guise of it being a "vacation" and didn't till her until she was being shipped out.

[haveapicniclife]

I see, the different name in the article threw me off. This is horrifying to me. They posted pictures of her in the hospital!

[NurseNell]

Read Jacqueline's 8/11/2011 post. Is she perhaps speaking of her sister Priscilla:

jacquelinemb.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2011-10-27T08:32:00-07:00&max-results=15

I really think this family is not the happy, Christian family they present to the world via Jacqueline's blog. She was likely sexually abused by someone either in the home or close to the family.

[freealljs]

Read Jacqueline's 8/11/2011 post. Is she perhaps speaking of her sister Priscilla:

jacquelinemb.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2011-10-27T08:32:00-07:00&max-results=15

I really think this family is not the happy, Christian family they present to the world via Jacqueline's blog. She was likely sexually abused by someone either in the home or close to the family.

I agree!

Then aren't her family doing more harm than good by blaming the victim? This smells of coverup big time.

[NurseNell]

From Jacqueline's blog in March 2011:

My mother never liked the connotations associated with the word teenager, and therefore never referred to us as such while we grew through these stages. Very often when she was talking to someone who found out that her 4 older children were in the 13-19 age category that person would gasp and say "you mean you have 4 teenagers! I'm so sorry!" When we were younger people would tell her, "your kids are incredibly behaved now, but just you wait until they're teenagers." Unfortunately for those nay-saying people, three of us have pulled through those teenage years without the party life, the immaturity, or the rebellion that is supposed to be inevitable.

Well, we can guess who the one was who didn't pull through.

[fundiefun]

From Jacqueline's blog in March 2011:

Well, we can guess who the one was who didn't pull through.

It's sad how all of this basically exploded and gave way to her being sent to a bad girl reform school, being sent to another family running away from that family, and then images found on her computer.

[Guest Anonymous]

Wow, what a horrific story.

I don't get the connection between Priscilla and the TV documentary about the 'reform school'. Priscilla isn't the main person being interviewed, is she?

[Drunkenbutterfly]

Heartbreaking! I have been following them for years now, but I eventually stopped reading J's blog, because it got so boring. I read the last post though and now again. You can totally see that J's eyes seem to be dead somehow. I think she was fairly close to P, since they would split the household chores, 'cause Mommy was too busy polishing her nails.

I always wondered what was going on behind the scenes, because J's blog was always so...pretty-pretty-perfect. And I was wondering if another one of them would eventually break free. Another one, because I think that Daniel made his way out by staying in WA to set up his filming company. He still seems to be a conservative christian, but other than that he comes across as fairly normal. Just thinking about his films, his language(no bible-quoting parrot), having a girlfriend etc. IIRC, when J was about 21 or so, she wanted to go and visit him on her own. She had to beg her parents for months, before they finally gave in. I always wondered if they were afraid that he might be a bad influence on her.

Back on the topic: Did P ever get adequate help to overcome everything? I mean after the withdrawal of that "school". Or did the fam just told her to be more submissive and pray harder? Not saying that the abuse or sexual abuse is ever right or an option, but still: poor Priscilla. Her life must have been hell for 18 years and especially in the last two years. And now two other children have to suffer from that as well.

OMG, what a way to start a Sunday morning...

[Deleted03]

the gang rape? on what article was it, I did not see that?

[Drunkenbutterfly]

the gang rape? on what article was it, I did not see that?

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/independen ... xJFLG9rMeU

[Deleted03]

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/independen ... xJFLG9rMeU, first page link

the link is not working!

And about the 3 out of 4 teens who made it ok.... how about you don't live in such a strict environment and all 4 teens make it out ok? O_o it's baffling she would even say something like that. I don't know many teens that had as much problems as P had...