Guest Post

This came to me via email and it is more than worthy of its own post.
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I'm the grandma of a little guy who was supposed to start the school year last week at Creative Frontiers. I live in Colorado so I was emailing him back and forth about his new adventure. I just sent him out money for a new backpack and he was so excited. My husband (my daughter's stepdad) and I were planning on helping pay the tuition as we thought it would be the best place for our youngest grandson. My son told me such nice things about this school and the teachers seemed to be on board. I liked everything I saw on the website. My grandson was excited about the playground and the swimming. I was worried about my little guy as he's always been really shy and has trouble making friends. My son and DIL assured me that this school seemed to be a great fit. We were all shocked when the police investigation started and accusations were made against Mr. Bob. We all had to make a decision about schooling as we didn't want our fellow to start behind. He's now in public school and doing OK (even made a friend) but I've been very interested in learning if and when Creative Frontiers (I guess you call it CFS) might open and if the terrible things said about Mr. Bob were true. I was very sad to learn that he was arrested and had heart problems. My prayers go out to his family.

This really upset me as I have a daughter who was molested by a long time teacher at her school in the fourth grade. She didn't tell me and my husband for years but we knew something wasn't right. She was a good student but refused to have another teacher who was a man. Because of our experience with her we try to be extra careful with our three grandbabies. I started reading the CFS Facebook page to get information about when the school might open. There seems to be alot of support for Mr. Bob and his family and that's wonderful but I'm bothered that nobody seems to think about the possibility that something might have happened. Even if Mr. Bob is the nicest man there could be a side of him that you don't know. The teacher who hurt our daughter was friendly and the kids loved him. He even worked at one of the churches as a Sunday School teacher. I don't think its right for a man to be putting his hands on children that way. That sounds like far more than just sitting in laps. Men used to get away with this years ago but no more. I started reading all the Sacramento Bee articles and the comments. I've never seen so many comments. Some are helpful and some are plain stupid. It's clear that you've got a real mess on your hands. For that, I'm sincerely sorry.

I also started reading about the Adams friend, Christian who is writing about the school case. Some of the things he said made me feel terrible being that I'm the mom of a little girl who did get hurt by her teacher. He made me really angry and yet everyone seemed to think he was an angel for helping. I looked at his blog and read about the book he wrote about his nephew. It seems that boy was caught molesting three little kids back east. I read Christian's take on it on his webpage. I tried to paste that link but it won't let me. Just go to this page

http://www.christianpeet.com/

then click on the Bio button down on the lower right hand side. Then click on the name Jeremy Barney in the first line. It's blue. That takes you to Christian's book. He makes you think that everything said was all a lie. Ask yourself why children would lie about this. What do they have to gain. They're ashamed and embarrassed for life.

Then I looked it up on Google to see if I could find any old articles about it. I found these two:

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=30761

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/27/nyregion/baby-sitter-17-raped-and-tortured-three-children-for-a-year-police-say.html

The things that boy was convicted of are sick! And if you read them you'll see that he was terribly disturbed and his OWN MOTHER turned him in. How can Christian know what went on in that house? Was he there or is he just listening to what a sick young teenager told him? Wouldn't Jeremy's own mother know? It takes a whole lot to turn in your own son for a crime like this. Or is he trying to cover up some nasty family secret? It sounds like a lot of evidence was brought to the judge that put the boy away for 20 years. I looked on the Conneticut prison site and there he is:

http://www.ctinmateinfo.state.ct.us/detailsupv.asp?id_inmt_num=318764

It takes my breath away to think about what this book must be doing to those children and their family. It must be killing them. He just flat out calls them all liars. Christian's been giving lots of interviews to sell this book. You can find them on Google. What is he hoping to accomplish? Will this book help his nephew? More important to me, what will it do to this family who has lived through h*ll?

Then I thought of all the little kids at CFS. The police say they have evidence of Mr. Bob touching several little girls and also that a couple of teachers saw things over the years. Just like our daughter, some of those little girls didn't know what Mr. Bob did was wrong (if he's guilty) at the time or when it first started. It wasn't until our daughter grew up and had her own daughter that she realized how bad it was. We went back and talked to the school and the teacher had been accused by several other girls and left that school. He'd been moved around from school to school. He's since died so we don't have to worry about him hurting anyone else but he hurt our daughter very much. She said that he told her she was his favorite and he used to hug her and have him help her in his room at lunch. That's when he touched her. He even touched her once on the playground when all the other children and teachers were around. She says that he acted like it was a game. She was almost certain that one teacher saw once but that woman did nothing. But every time he touched her in sexual ways, it made her feel dirty and bad. She blamed herself for years and kept it from us. She was ashamed and that breaks my heart that I didn't know. Who knows how many little girls that man molested.

Christian also writes about a good number of other cases. He writes about the release of the young men accused of killing the little boys and several others which he seems committed to. I saw that he wrote about another young man, Ryan D. Smith. I looked him up and he was convicted too in Oregon. You can find it right on Google. He had a bunch of appeals and he still was sent to prison for hurting a group of little disabled kids. I just can't believe that Christian knows more about what happens between little kids and these guys who hurt them. Was he there? There's no way to find out more about the "Gichell" family-the name Christian uses for the kids back east but he uses X's for the kids in Oregon. I won't use there names but there on these pages. I found that familys name by looking up Ryan D. Smith and there's information about them these places:

http://www.publications.ojd.state.or.us/A106007.htm

http://www.crimevictimsunited.org/news/2007/linsday.htm

http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070605/NEWS/706050316/-1/rss01

http://www.dailytidings.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060729/NEWS/307299996

There's lots more as it looks like they didn't have any privacy like the Gichell family which Christian writes about. I spent an hour reading through that appeal paper and it made me cry. What those children went through. Ryan Smith even threatened the kids just like Jeremy did. I'm so glad one of the kids came and told but now the kids are being accused by Christian of lying or doing this to each other. It says right in the appeal paper that the kids wanted to play with this older boy. What reason would they have to lie, just like our daughter? And then to have groups and people like Christian blame them and write horrible stuff about them. He can't know what the judge saw set before him. He can't see all the evidence or listen to the kids tell their story. Why would kids make up these stories that bring them so much shame. And the boy in Oregon was accused of doing the same stuff to a little child who lived in that same house before that family even moved in. I worry about both those young men, Jeremy and Ryan. I think they're sick and wouldn't want them near my grandchildren.

Doesn't Christian know how hard it is for a little child to tell? I'm just floored that he thinks he can magically know the truth. How can he say that a teenager or a man is falsely accused if a judge or a jury and the appeals courts say the children are telling the truth? Why is he so cruel to attack the woman who came forward to tell she saw something. What are we supposed to do? How will Christian feel is Mr. Bob confesses or is found guilty and how can he every look any of these little girls in the eye?

From what I can tell, Christian's a teacher and writes poetry. Why on earth would he get in touch with the CFS people and get everybody riled up? My advice to all the families at CFS is to read these papers and make up your own minds. Do you really want a man who seems so angry and mean spirited to children and witnesses to be part of trying to reopen your nice little school? Our family was really hoping and waiting for our boy to attend but he'll be going elsewhere as none of us feel that we can trust that we're being told the truth and we don't like the cruel words that are said by this Christian Peet about cases that have already been tried. We don't want our grandson forced to march around with a sign professing Mr. Bob's goodness when the child next to him holding the same kind of sign could very well be a victim that nobody will listen to because of how Christian is twisting everybody's mind. I honestly don't think he's doing any of you any favors. Not even Mr. Bob. I'm sorry if I've hurt anybody's feelings. I just couldn't sit by any longer and think that you all might not have read these things. I'm feel better now that I've spoken my piece. And I thank you very much for putting all these documents in one place. It saved me alot of work.