Murder Case Highlights Why Many Child Victims Are Afraid To Speak Up

What They Claimed About Their Parents

During their trial, both brothers indicated that the reason they murdered both their mother and father was that they had both been sexually abused.

Lyle, the older brother, alleged that starting at age 7 his father would come into his bedroom at night and touch his genitals, insert foreign objects into his rectum, force him to perform oral sex, and rape him. In addition to this, he also stated that his mother also abused him, bathing him by hand and touching him inappropriately until he was 13 years old, calling him into her bed and requesting that he touch her “everywhere”, and that she would walk around naked in front of him, asking him to critique her body.

See related reading: 24 Men Arrested In Ohio For Attempting Unlawful Conduct With A Minor

He noted that this behavior was so normal to him that he himself began to emulate his father and that he abused his younger brother.

Erik also alleges that their father sexually assaulted him starting at age six. In addition to this, he reported that his father also punched and belt whipped them on a regular basis.

Their story was confirmed by at least one family member who testified on their behalf and neighbors of the family also reported some very disturbing behavior that likely should have raised red flags, which, if someone had reported, likely would have saved the men from continued abuse.

What The Interviews Revealed

Diane Vander Molen, the cousin of the brothers, testified on their behalf during the trial. She told the jury that when she was 17 years old, Lyle, who was 8 at the time, came into her room and asked if he could sleep in the other twin bed in the room. When she asked him why, he told her that his father was touching his private parts at night and he was too scared to sleep in his own bed.

She was so disturbed by what he said that she told their mother, who pulled him out of the extra bed. She said after that, she never heard another word about the matter and hoped that their mother had handled the situation. But in an interview with ABC, she stated that “In hindsight, I wish that I would have been stronger about what Lyle was telling me so that I could have done something to help them.”

A neighbor of the family, who was interviewed shortly after the murders, indicated that their mother was a drug addict who often behaved bizarrely and that during dinner with friends, child pornography had been passed around. Yet not one of the dinner guests reported them.

Assuming that these allegations are true, what this shows is an environment and community that should have stepped up to protect innocent children but failed to.

A Culture Of Silence

There are many reasons that the victims of child sexual abuse don’t speak up. Typically, this includes:

• Fear: Most children believe that adults know what is best and are in charge. When an adult that they know hurts them, this is confusing. In addition, the adult often threatens to do things like hurt their families if they tell anyone.
• Love: In most cases, the child knows their abuser intimately and loves them. This makes reporting the abuse all the harder.
• Lack Of Belief: Imagine how difficult it was for an 8-year old boy to tell his cousin about the painful and confusing abuse that was happening to him, only to be yanked out of what he thought might be a safe place by his own mother and punished. Couple this with the fact that the one person he told never sought to find him help in any way and he likely believed, even when he was an adult, that no one would believe him if he told someone else.

It’s hardly surprising that after years of serious abuse and the belief that their father would kill them if they ever reported the crime, that these men took matters into their own hands. It’s well known the long-lasting psychological impact that abuse can have on a child and many who didn’t receive the help that they need suffer from:

• depression
• anxiety
• PTSD
• drug and alcohol abuse

This is why it is important to continually raise awareness about child abuse, victim-blaming, and the support systems that exist to help survivors. No child should have to continue suffering because someone failed to report that they learned of a situation that needs to be investigated further.

Sadly, many cases go unreported simply because people believe that the adults involved couldn’t possibly do “something like that.” But the fact is, that abuse happens in the homes of both the rich and the poor, of every culture, every religion, and every education level.