THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 30, 1995 TAG: 9510300023
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH SIMPSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 145 lines
For more than a year now, Billie Jean Beal has held the hands of families whose children have been sexually abused.
She's talked them through the crisis of discovery. Told them what to expect from the court system. Helped them deal with feelings that they should have protected their children.
Last week those people repaid her in full when the sexual abuse case involving Beal's son made it to a Virginia Beach courthouse, long after she'd given up hope of seeing the accused come to trial.
``I can't believe I'm here,'' Beal said Monday, as she sat waiting for a preliminary hearing to come up on the docket. ``I never thought it would come to court.''
In fact, the reason Beal helped form the support group Families of Abused Children Traumatized Sexually is that she thought her son's case was dead in the water.
She'd put her son in therapy, been through counseling herself, pressed charges against the man her son accused, urged prosecutors to bring the man to justice, done all the things she thought she should.
Missing the sense of resolution a trial would bring, she looked for healing elsewhere. She and Billie Clifton, another mother of abused children, organized the first meeting of a support group for families in May 1994.
``The only way I felt I could make a difference was to help others,'' Beal said. ``The group gave me a strength I never had before. It's where I accepted the fact that I might never have a court date. But that if I helped one parent make it through the system, and helped put one perpetrator in jail, that was the same as having a court date myself.''
Almost as soon as Beal came to that conclusion, she got a phone call saying her son's alleged abuser would soon answer to the charges of aggravated sexual battery against her son.
It was three years ago that Beal's son, whose name is being withheld here, first said he'd been abused. He told his father - Beal's husband, Robert - that a former neighbor had abused him and a neighbor girl two years earlier, in 1990, when the boy was 6.
Benjamin Perry Gordon III had been living with a neighbor, and was someone the Beal family had known and trusted. He was always around to help out with a car problem or household emergency, always had a friendly word at neighborhood cookouts. He was a friend.
Billie Beal worked delivering newspapers at the time, and she didn't think it was good for her son to ride around in the car so early in the morning for so many hours. ``He was growing up in a car,'' she said. Gordon volunteered to care for Beal's son, since he was already caring for the 5-year-old daughter of the woman with whom he was living.
Beal agreed. But after a few months her son began to cry when she dropped him off with Gordon. So she went back to letting her son ride with her on her newspaper-delivery route.
A year or so later, when her son began to have learning and behavior problems in school, she couldn't figure out what was wrong. Not long after that, he told his father that Gordon had made him and a neighbor girl perform sexual acts with each other.
By this time Gordon had moved on to Ohio. The Beals reported the abuse to police, who asked that the family delay pressing charges until the boy could enter therapy, so his testimony would be as strong as possible.
Several months later, Beal found out that Gordon had been arrested in Greene County, Ohio, accused of sexually molesting the three children of the woman he had married.
And she learned that, in 1988, he'd been convicted of sexually abusing two 6-year-old girls in Virginia Beach. He'd been sentenced to six years in prison for that. All but nine months of the term had been suspended. ``He left here on probation,'' Beal said, ``and three more kids paid the price.''
In December 1992, Gordon was convicted in Ohio of four counts of rape, one count of felonious sexual penetration and two counts of gross sexual imposition involving two girls, 12 and 9, and a boy, 10. He is now serving four consecutive life sentences for those convictions.
On the advice of his lawyer, Gordon refused comment for this story.
Beal had always been told that her son's case was still pending, that Gordon would be brought back eventually. But after months and years went by, she assumed the case had a low priority because Gordon was already in prison.
Then in June she got word from the Virginia Beach commonwealth's attorney's office that Gordon was being returned for trial.
Monday, Beal went to Gordon's preliminary hearing and got a taste of the courtroom process that she'd seen other FACTS members go through: Waiting six hours for the case to come up. Trying to calm children who were restless because of the long wait and anxious about testifying. Listening to her 11-year-old's small but firm voice testifying about things like ``humping'' and ``sucking private parts.'' Seeing the defendant, a man she had once trusted, sit expressionless in an orange prison-issue jumpsuit.
And, finally, the feeling of relief when the judge said there was probable cause and scheduled a trial for December. ``I feel like a ton of bricks has been lifted off me,'' she said after her son's testimony.
Attending the hearing with the Beals were four members of FACTS. They offered one another support, passed out tissues, brought teddy bears for the children to hold onto. Some of the members had taken off time from work to be with the two families whose children were involved.
One FACTS member who offered support Monday was Vera Dammert, whose granddaughter is a victim of sexual abuse. ``Billie's helped me have a place to vent my anger. She's helped me to understand, because she's been through it herself,'' Dammert said. ``Helping others makes you realize the court system has not broken you down. And it can do that, it can break you down.''
For Beal, the group lends support that a therapist or an investigator or a lawyer can't.
Even if therapists say family members shouldn't feel guilty, they do. ``It's like when your child falls and scrapes his knee on the sidewalk. It isn't your fault that it happened, but you still feel guilty for opening the door and letting him go out,'' Beal said.
``The defendant is innocent until proven guilty, but as a parent you are guilty from the beginning.''
Since the group started in May 1994, members have worked with nearly 200 people in Hampton Roads. Several social-services and child-abuse prevention agencies refer family members to the group, which meets twice a month. ``It's more comfortable for someone to talk with people who have been in the same situation,'' said Candace Feathers, of Virginia Beach Social Services. ``The peer piece is critical.''
Sometimes only a handful of people show up for meetings; other times there's a roomful. FACTS also works with other victim-support groups to lobby for changes in the judicial system.
Monday's support from FACTS confirmed the group's importance to Beal. ``It made me realize that even if I fall apart, they'll be here to pick up the pieces. If I ever thought FACTS didn't belong, I know now it does. I would never have made it without them.''
Even though the defendant in Beal's son's case is serving four life sentences, Beal still believes he should answer to charges here, in case he should ever come up for parole.
``He should never be out again. He has four life sentences. If he gets another conviction here, I can't imagine any parole board letting this man out.''
The court experience will also help Beal work with other families who must deal with the judicial process.
``Families hide abuse; that's the reason why abusers are out there,'' she said. ``It's so easy to think, `Why did we ever get into the system? Why didn't we just get into counseling and try to forget it?' A lot of charges are dropped because parents aren't tough enough to stand up to the system.'' ILLUSTRATION: ABOUT FACTS
For more information about Families of Abused Children
Traumatized Sexually, call 425-6408 or 491-1780.
RICHARD L. DUNSTON
The Virginian-Pilot
[Color Photo]
Billie Jean Beal
KEYWORDS: CHILD ABUSE SEXUAL ABUSE SEX CRIME by CNB