EXPOSING CHILD ABUSE | A gentle path to harsh truth

A PLACE TO TELL

Sunflower House provides a comfort zone where children can open up about life’s most frightening, painful moments.

By LEE HILL KAVANAUGH | THE KANSAS CITY STAR

Minutes before their father’s sentencing, his three daughters waited in the corridor of a Wyandotte County courtroom, Division 5.

Their eyes swollen, makeup cried off, the women wrapped their arms around each other. They grieved, but not for their father and his fate. One held crumpled papers in her hand.

“I’m not sure I’ll be strong enough to read this in court,” she said. After days of finding words to describe her pain, she had typed a victim impact statement confronting her father for his sexual abuse against her years ago. But his sickness reached much deeper in their family.

The second paper was handwritten in the broad cursive loops of a 10-year-old – where words screamed in bold letters when emotion turned profane.

It was composed by the second generation of victimhood, the convicted man’s granddaughter.

The child who told. The one who stopped the man’s decades-long spree of satisfying his urges with children, but not until after she attempted suicide twice and drew pictures of monsters visiting her bed.

Her details of the abuse – revealed at Sunflower House – led to her grandfather confessing everything, including how he’d “loved” her at least 20 times last year.

Every day, a child endures the unwelcome touch of a predator. Nationally, statistics indicate it happens to one in four girls, one in six boys. But abuse experts know Continue reading →