Shining a Bright Light on a Dark Subject

A dozen years ago, during that period of paranoia following the arrests at the McMartin preschool, a friend of mine answered a knock on her door one day and listened as a children’s services investigator asked troubling questions about her 3-year-old daughter.

Soon this mom--dumbfounded, fearful, angry--realized that it was she who was under suspicion. A preschool teacher had noticed a faint, red mark encircling the child’s wrist and the girl had no explanation. Had this tot been tied up? Perhaps afraid that she or co-workers would be blamed, the teacher called authorities.

In the end, her daughter wasn’t taken away and there was no arrest. Later my friend noticed that her daughter’s frilly dress had an unusually tight elastic wristband. A theory, at least.

Perhaps it’s human nature, or modern American nature, but when children are the (alleged) victims, the impulse is to fear the worst. Is this why, in the first Menendez trial, several jurors believed Erik and Lyle were not murderers but victims acting out of fear? Does this help explain why, in a 20-year-old case of a murdered child, a Northern California jury convicted a man based on his daughter’s “recovered memory”?

Do we overcompensate because we know that, sometimes, the most awful allegations are true?

Mike Echols is a crusader who worries that the McMartin acquittals made us breathe a sigh of relief and let our guard down. He argues that society is still too skeptical when it comes to the sexual abuse of children. In this deeply disturbing realm, Echols, a former social worker, has shaped an unorthodox career as a journalist and author, making it his mission to document and expose the dangers facing children, especially boys, from sexual predators.

The first time I interviewed Echols was in early ‘92, after he helped a San Francisco TV station do an expose on meetings at a local library of a semi-secret society called the North American Man-Boy Love Assn. NAMBLA, which promotes the idea of lowering the age of consensual sex as defined by law, had hoped that San Francisco’s large gay community would rise to its defense. On the contrary, gay leaders condemned NAMBLA.

Using a pseudonym, Echols had infiltrated the group and recorded meetings with a miniature camera. When a TV reporter and camera crew burst into one meeting, Echols scurried off with the others to maintain his cover. Later he would help another TV crew sting NAMBLA.

Echols says his years as a social worker had made him acutely aware of the threat of pederasts and shaped his journalistic specialty. This had led him, years earlier, to write the book “I Know My First Name Is Steven.”

The title was based on the words spoken by a teenage boy who had walked into a police station with a younger boy in tow and an extraordinary story to tell. Steven Stayner was just 7 years old when he was kidnapped by a pederast named Kenneth Eugene Parnell, who told him his parents were dead. Years later, shortly after Parnell abducted another child, Steven decided to rescue him and himself.

Echols’ book on the case served as the basis for a TV movie by the same name. His latest book, “Brother Tony’s Boys,” is about a Pentecostal preacher named Tony Leyva, who portrayed himself as “SuperChristian” and bought sex and silence from many sons of unsuspecting followers. The dust jacket describes it as “the true story” of “the largest case of child prostitution in U.S. history.” To the dismay of victims, Leyva is now serving a plea-bargained sentence of 20 years in Florida. Had he been convicted on all charges, Echols said, Leyva could have received a sentence of 400 years.

It’s the kind of book that recently landed Echols on Maury Povich’s talk show. But is it the kind of tale that people really want to read?

When I told Echols that I wouldn’t be reading the book he sent me--that I didn’t care to know the Leyva story in detail, that news accounts told me all I cared to know--he said he understood. He suggested, however, that I at least read the foreword.

It was written by Frank Fitzpatrick, a member of Survivor Connections Inc., a support group for victims of sexual assault. Some readers, he noted, may find the more graphic passages offensive. “I, too, did at first, until I realized that such details are unavoidably necessary in order to bring home to a society that is generally in denial about the nature and severity of the crimes committed by such predators.”

Fitzpatrick was himself sexually assaulted as a child by a member of the clergy. Why has Echols made this his mission? Was he abused as a child? No, he says, he had a happy childhood. It was his years as a social worker that convinced him that more light should be shed on this crime--and that it’s therapeutic for victims to share their stories.

Echols suspects that this world is growing darker as groups like NAMBLA make use of the Internet. He says he’ll discuss this phenomenon, as well as how parents can better protect their children, when he appears Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Valencia and at 7 p.m. that same day at SuperCrown in Burbank.

Of course, Echols hopes to sell some copies of “Brother Tony’s Boys.” And while he’s in town, he’ll be pitching the screen rights.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to Harris at the Times Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311. Please include a phone number.