Accused: My Fight for Truth, Justice & the Strength to Forgive

by Tonya Craft

  “What is going on?” I shouted, but Kelly just kept yelling at her daughter.

  “I told you not to do that!” she yelled while she whacked her. Chloe was squalling something awful.

  That bedroom couldn’t have been twenty steps from where Kelly and I were watching TV and talking in the living room of their little farmhouse. Kelly and her husband, Jerry, who worked as an EMT, tended the farm in exchange for free rent and some additional pay. The big piece of land it sat on was owned by a local doctor. It was a nice setup but a ton of work for Jerry, who was also training to work on a medevac helicopter. I always wondered how he managed to do it all.

  Anyway, Ashley was crying, and I couldn’t get an answer from anyone about what happened. Kelly just plain lost it.4 I couldn’t imagine what Chloe could have done to elicit that kind of a response. I didn’t want my daughter caught up in the middle of it, so I decided to get her out of there.

  Ashley cried almost the whole ride home. I don’t think she’d ever seen someone’s mother get that mad before, and Ashley certainly had never been treated in that manner. I tried to ask her to tell me what happened once we got home, but she did what a lot of kids do when they see grownups getting angry: She shut down, shrugged, and avoided my questions. So I just did my best to calm her down. Once she was quiet, I went into the other room and called Kelly.

  “Chloe and Ashley were touching each other,” Kelly shouted through the phone. “Down there!”

  I was surprised of course, and concerned—what mother wouldn’t be? But all I could think was, You hit your child with a belt because of that? And screamed at her?

  “Chloe said that Ashley was pointing at her, but Ashley’s the one who started it, Tonya. Ashley started it,” Kelly said, real insistent.

  “Well, hold on now. Kids are kids, and kids blame each other for things. Did you see what happened?”

  “No, but I’m telling you, she had to learn this from somewhere. Kids don’t just do this sort of touching unless they learned it somewhere. Clearly Ashley’s been molested, Tonya. I should know, because my husband was molested when he was a child.”

  I was appalled by what she said. Why would she reveal something that personal and sensitive about her husband? What does that have to do with this? Ashley was four years old. Chloe was right about the same age. Kelly herself said she didn’t see what happened, and even if she did, all I kept thinking was that it’s not that unusual. Kids sometimes touch each other at that age. Any teacher has to learn about this stuff in their education classes because it’s a part of childhood development. Kids get curious about their own bodies, they touch themselves, and sometimes they touch each other as a way to explore and learn about the human body, too. It’s a normal course of development even if it makes people uncomfortable to think about, and it’s up to us parents and caretakers to respond accordingly and to teach children what’s appropriate and what’s not. So if these girls really were touching each other “down there,” then we certainly shouldn’t be going into hysterics and making it a bigger deal than it was.

  I tried to talk to Kelly about all of that, but she wouldn’t listen. “Ashley’s been molested,” she insisted. “Mark my words.”

  I was speechless. It was Kelly who yelled at Chloe, “I told you not to do that!” Why is she so adamant that my daughter started this if her daughter had obviously done something like this before? I certainly wasn’t going to try to turn this around on Chloe, and Kelly was still in such a semihysterical state that I could tell there was no reasoning with her. Plus, I didn’t think blaming either child would have done any of us any good.

  I didn’t dismiss Kelly’s accusation about Ashley. It made me sick to my stomach. What if something happened to her and I don’t know? So as soon as I got off the phone I called our pediatrician, and the next day I took Ashley in for an exam just to be sure. I didn’t want to turn a blind eye or overlook anything that might be wrong with my baby girl. Thankfully the doctor said she saw no signs of anything abnormal. She asked Ashley questions and gave her a thorough physical while I waited outside the room. When I came back in, she said she saw nothing out of the ordinary. Then she told me what I already knew: that sometimes children do these things, and it’s up to adults to explain appropriate behavior and to draw the line at privacy and keeping our hands to ourselves.

  I called Kelly and told her all of this, and she still wouldn’t let it go.

  “No kid would do something like that unless they had been molested,” she kept insisting, and yet she didn’t take her own daughter to see anyone for an exam. As far as I know, she didn’t talk to any counselors about it or do anything to help Chloe in those next few days. Instead, she just stayed angry and kept laying the blame on my daughter.

  That’s when I backed off my friendship with Kelly McDonald. I didn’t say, “I’m never going to talk to you again.” I didn’t make a big scene or talk about it with other people. I just backed off. Seeing the way she handled that whole thing, from the belt to the blaming, led me to determine that she was not a person I wanted to be around, and she was clearly not a person I wanted my children to be around, either.

  I tried to let that incident go as best I could. I was focused on my studies, and I channeled my energy into running. I loved going for runs down the tree-canopied street outside our development, along those beautiful roads toward downtown Chickamauga, through majestic fields with the hay bales all caught up in the glow of the summer sunshine. When the kids were around, I’d stay home and run on the treadmill in the garage, using that physical push of my body as a time to clear my mind, to focus, and very often to pray. Aside from the Kelly and Chloe situation, I felt happier than I had been in as long as I could remember.

  I had grown so close to the Potters that they asked me if I’d be interested in watching their children that summer. Mike and Dee both worked full-time, and they knew I didn’t have another summer job. “You can watch them at our house, and bring your kids, and play in the pool all day,” Dee said. “And we’ll pay you, of course. We’d have to pay someone, so why not you?”

  I was honored that they’d trust me with their kids like that, but I absolutely refused to get paid for it. Hanging out at a pool with other kids around to entertain my kids all day, I felt like I should be paying them!

  The Potter kids would come to my house sometimes, too, and once in a great while, we’d go to the community pool, where all of the kids could play with lots of other friends from school who’d inevitably show up on the hot days. And whether it was the sound of the cicadas or the smell of the barbecue, that summer was one of my best summers ever.

  The Potters and I hung out together when the kids weren’t around, too. We even took an impromptu trip to Las Vegas one weekend when my kids were with their father. We shared a room due to my lack of finances, and the whole thing was a blast.

  It all worked out so well that Mike and Dee asked if I’d be willing to let their kids hang out at my house after school in the fall, too, just until one or the other of them got out of work and could swing by and pick them up. There wasn’t a moment’s hesitation on my part. My door was always open, and I told them to just pop on in if I didn’t hear the doorbell or something. As the school year went on, my home started to feel a little bit like Grand Central Station, there were so many kids and parents coming and going every afternoon.

  I first met Tammy in the fall of 2006. Her son, Hunter, arrived in my classroom about three weeks after the school year had started. The principal called me in and said, “There’s a little boy that’s going to be here and it’s a not-good situation. The parents are separating, and I thought you would understand what he is going through and have the personality to handle this.”

  I talked with Tammy frequently about how Hunter was adjusting and shared with her that my children had been through similar circumstances, so we had a common bond. Our friendship grew quickly.

  When Tammy couldn’t afford after-school daycare for Hunter, I offered to have him
come over to my house after school every day. It truly became like a second home to him and to Tammy, too. The kids got along so well that we decided Hunter should stay with us during the workdays that following summer, too. One more kid in the house just meant more fun for Tyler and Ashley, as they mingled with the Potters and Kim Walker’s kids. The fun never stopped!

  Brianna Lamb was still coming to my classroom to hang out with Ashley almost every day after school before Sandra came to pick her up. Even though she’d moved on to first grade, I’d wind up seeing and talking to her and Sandra for at least a few minutes here and there on an almost daily basis during the whole 2006–07 school year.

  Outside of school, Sandra and I still didn’t really see each other. We would talk on the phone, and we’d invite each other’s children over for the kids’ birthday parties and things like that. But that was all.

  I never would have imagined in a million years that before the ’06–’07 school year was over, Sandra Lamb would introduce me to the love of my life.

  Chapter 7

  I jerked my head up to the sound of that doorbell, and the first eyes I met were my mother’s. I could see her reaction to the terror in my face, and for the briefest moment, I pressed my eyelids shut as tight as possible, praying this was all just a nightmare. When I opened them again, I saw Tammy’s silhouette in the bedroom doorway. Finally, together, the three of us walked to the front door.

  Sure enough, it was them: Detective Tim Deal, Detective Stephen Keith, and someone I had never met before—an imposing presence of a man who towered over them and towered over me. There was no “hello” this time. No “sorry to bother you again, ma’am.” No niceties whatsoever.

  “Are the children home?” Detective Deal asked me the moment I got the door open.5

  With all of the composure I could muster, I simply replied, “No.”

  That’s all it took to uncork his rage. “So you’re hiding them? Let me warn you that refusing to advise me of their current whereabouts is only going to get you into more trouble!”

  As calmly as I could, I said, “Detective Deal, you did not ask me their location. You only asked me about their presence in my home. I’m more than willing to tell you where the children are. I was merely answering the question presented to me.”

  My calmness ticked him off even more. All of a sudden Deal’s glare was full of fury and his face turned bright red as he pointed a finger at me and started warning me about how my “uncooperative nature” was going to result in my “arrest.”

  When his tirade concluded, I told him where my two children were. I told him that my ex-husband, Joal Henke, the children’s father, would be meeting my own father to pick them up for his “normal weekend visit” after their trip to a local ice cream shop—at which point Detective Keith spoke up and said, very specifically, “Joal knows nothing about this situation, and we’re not going to tell him about it.”

  Wait a second. How does this detective know my ex-husband’s name if he hasn’t spoken to him? And he’s on a first-name basis with him?

  That’s when they introduced the third visitor on my porch, a man by the name of Brandon Boggess. As I raised my eyes to look at this man who, no exaggeration, stood six foot five—maybe more—they told me he worked for DFACS, the Department of Family and Children Services. Much to my relief, this towering man had the first set of compassionate eyes I had encountered among these strangers that day.

  “Is it okay if I come in?” Mr. Boggess asked. For some reason, without hesitation, I stepped aside and nodded. When the two detectives shifted their weight forward like they were going to follow him into my house, though, my instincts kicked in. I got this image in my head of Detective Munch on that TV show Law & Order: SVU—that quirky character who would get inside someone’s house and just ramble aimlessly and sift through the inhabitants’ personal belongings in search of clues. I quickly moved right into the pathway of those two men.

  “You are not welcome into my house without a warrant,” I said.

  To this day I cannot explain how I got up the courage to do that. Somehow, deep down, I knew the damage that could be done by allowing them entry into my home. I just didn’t trust them. But, boy oh boy, did that make them mad. They kept trying to convince me I had to let them in. Detective Deal even demanded access “to ensure the safety of Mr. Boggess”! Was he serious? He wanted to protect this giant of a man from me and the two other women in my home, whom he completely dwarfed in size? Mr. Boggess himself seemed taken aback by the idea of my being a “possible threat.” He assured the detectives he was not in harm’s way.

  With that, they both backed off a bit, but they still insisted that I leave my front door open so they could “ensure Mr. Boggess’s safety.”

  “Otherwise, you’ll be under arrest,” they said.

  I had never had a run-in with the law in my entire life. Other than a few speeding tickets, my record was clean. I had no idea what my rights were or how far their tentacles actually reached. So I complied and left my front door open. The day was sweltering and I vividly remember the sweat rolling down the detectives’ faces as they made threats from my porch. Their annoyance increased with each moment they spent in that heat.

  Mr. Boggess had a completely different demeanor than those two. He talked to me calmly. He tried to explain the situation. We sat there for what felt like hours while he talked me through it. The fact was there was an accusation. More than one accusation. It was his job to make sure my children were safe, and he asked if I, as their mother, could understand the importance of that.

  “Yes, of course,” I replied.

  Then he started talking to me about authorizing a “safety plan,” just until everything got figured out. Because it was a Friday, and the offices that handle these situations wouldn’t be open over the weekend, he basically wanted me to sign a piece of paper saying I would have no contact with my children until they were both interviewed on Monday, June 2, 2008. They needed to interview the kids to make sure that there was nothing going on in my home and that my children were not in any kind of danger. As a teacher, I’d been trained in this kind of stuff. It made sense that they’d want to protect the children when an allegation had been made against somebody—against anybody. I just wanted to know what I’d been accused of, how it happened, who said what—anything that I could wrap my head around. I repeatedly told them I hadn’t done anything and certainly hadn’t done anything to my own children. My home was as safe as could be, and I loved my children more than life itself. None of that seemed to matter.

  “But the children aren’t with me this weekend, anyway,” I said. “They’re with their father. You’re welcome to call him. I’m sure he can keep them an extra night if it’s necessary, until they can be interviewed. If you’d just talk to my attorney, he said we can get this all worked out on Monday morning. I’m sure of it.”

  Of course, my attorney was nowhere to be found. I kept calling and calling during this whole exchange, and he either wasn’t available or simply chose not to pick up my call. I was forced to deal with this seemingly impossible situation on my own.

  Mr. Boggess kept trying to explain, over and over, that the safety plan was necessary. It just didn’t make sense to me. Wouldn’t it make more sense to say I can’t have any contact with the three girls who supposedly accused me of molesting them? What does any of this have to do with my children?

  The more I talked and the more I tried to understand why I needed to sign this so-called “safety plan,” the more irritated those two officers on the porch seemed to get.

  “If you don’t sign it, your children will be picked up in a squad car and taken to a foster home!” one of them yelled.

  Mr. Boggess would always wait patiently when my tears would begin to flow, and then as soon as I could collect myself, he would resume where he had left off.

  Following hours of unbridled confusion, I resolved myself to the only option I thought I had. Naïvely, I held fast to the fact that I had don
e nothing wrong. Knowing I had to do something, I maintained a mistaken confidence that the system would not fail me: a mother, a respected schoolteacher, an innocent woman.

  My hands trembled so violently I could barely maintain a grip on the pen he gave me. I signed the paper stipulating that I could have no contact whatsoever with my two precious children before Monday. No phone calls. No visits. No hugs. No kisses good night.

  Mr. Boggess thanked me. He said he would be in touch after the interviews on Monday. Then he got up and left. The detectives left with him, without saying another word.

  My home—which had just been filled by more turmoil and confusion than I’d ever known in my life, which just a few hours earlier had been filled with laughter, love, and the sounds of my children and their friend playing together—was suddenly eerily quiet.

  All I could do was picture my kids having to sit down and answer unnecessary and horrendous questions about things they shouldn’t even be aware of. About their own mother. All I wanted to do was to call them, to hear their sweet voices. I stood at the door with my back to the room, afraid to turn around to face my mother and Tammy. The quiet was awful.

  I swear the only sound I could hear was the sound of my heart, breaking.

  Chapter 8

  After my divorce from Joal, I’d resolved that I was never going to get married again. I had done some dating. I had met a couple of men who got close enough to come hang out with me and my friends over a barbecue or over at the Potters’ pool on a Saturday afternoon. But nothing was serious. I wasn’t anywhere close to wanting to settle down with anyone. Frankly, I didn’t have time or interest, and I certainly didn’t have a “need” for a man in my life full-time.