INTO THE DARK: 'Every bit as troubling as the opioid crisis:' Sex crimes against children

Editor’s note: In this article and in other articles in the Broken Trust series, The Herald Bulletin is not using the real names of child sex abuse survivors who’ve asked not to be identified.

Monica, her mother Lynn and her siblings hadn’t moved to Lapel yet. They were still closing on the sale of their home in Hamilton County.

So the 13-year-old ran to a family friend’s house in Lapel to use the phone to call her mother. She hoped to get the permission slip in time for tryouts.

The stepfather of the family opened the door, and Monica sensed he was the only one home.

After Monica stepped inside, he locked the door behind her.

Madison County, which ranks 13th in population among Indiana counties, had the fourth-most convictions for sexual assault against children in the state over the past nine years, data from the Indiana Department of Correction show.

Only three high-population counties had more convictions: Marion County, which includes Indianapolis; Allen County, which includes Fort Wayne; and St. Joseph County, which includes South Bend.

Madison County also had the 16th-highest per-capita rate of convictions for child sex assault among Indiana’s 92 counties. Those with higher per-capita rates are relatively small, ranging in population from just over 6,000 to about 70,000.

The high-population counties that surpassed Madison County in sheer numbers of conviction for sexual assault of children had significantly lower per-capita conviction rankings: Marion County was 25th, Allen County 38th and St. Joseph County 56th.

In each Indiana county, convicted offenders accounted for less than half a percent of the population. But experts say that doesn’t begin to explain the depth of the local problem.

Readers of The Herald Bulletin see anecdotal evidence of the problem almost daily in the print newspaper and at heraldbulletin.com. Some days, the problem seems like an epidemic.

Wednesday, Nov. 29, was one particularly bad day. Visitors to The Herald Bulletin’s website found three articles posted that morning about local people charged with sex crimes against children. The stories involved the following cases:

Xavier Jones, 26, Anderson, faced a potential prison sentence of 42 to 92 years after being convicted of child molest. The 11-year-old victim said Jones forced her to undress and have sexual intercourse with him almost nightly when he watched her and her brothers while their mother worked late. Jones’ defense attorney is seeking a new trial to, in his words, “prevent a travesty of justice.”

Garry Lee Jolliff, 32, Alexandria, was arrested  on charges of child molesting and incest. A girl younger than 14 reportedly told authorities Jolliff had sexual intercourse with her more than once between March 19 and March 26. Jolliff denied the allegation.

Christina Greer, 37, Anderson, was sentenced to 30 years in prison after admitting to performing oral sex on a 13-year-old boy. Her husband, Matthew Greer, 37, is charged with aiding, causing or inducing child molest; vicarious sexual conduct; aiding, inducing or causing incest; and performing sexual conduct in the presence of a minor. His trial is set for Jan. 9.

How bad is the problem of sex crimes against children in Madison County?

Very, very bad, according to Susie Maier, director of marketing and communication for Aspire Indiana, which provides behavioral health care and other services in the Madison County area.

Maier, who is licensed in clinical social work and clinical addiction counseling, also helped establish the Kids Talk initiative in Madison County to assist children who have been victimized or are vulnerable to sexual assault.

Sex crimes against children are “every bit as troubling as the opioid crisis” in Madison County, Maier said.

Lynn was shopping at Walmart at the time her daughter, Monica, stopped at the family friend’s home to use the phone. Lynn was without her cellphone; her 2-year-old son had lost it a couple of days before.

But somehow Lynn sensed something terrible was happening. She left her cart in the store and rushed her two toddlers to her van in the parking lot.

Through the OnStar System, she saw she had several missed calls from a number she didn’t recognize. Lynn assumed her daughter was trying to get in touch with her, and she quickly called back the number.

Kyle Jones, the stepfather of the family, answered the phone and handed it to Monica. Lynn said Monica sounded like something was wrong, but the girl wouldn’t elaborate. Monica repeatedly asked her mother to pick her up immediately.

Soon after Lynn picked her up, Monica threw up in the van. But she didn’t tell her mother what had happened.

Later that night, Lynn learned from a friend of Monica’s that Monica had been sexually assaulted. Monica showed her mother the bruises on her arms and inner thighs from being held down.

“I wanted to kill myself,” Lynn said. “You have one job as a parent, and that is to protect your children.”

According to the National Center for Victims of Crimes, “the prevalence of child sexual abuse is difficult to determine because it is often not reported.”

The NCVC also notes that “experts agree that the incidence is far greater than what is reported to authorities.”

Research by the Crimes Against Children Research Center estimates that 20 percent of girls and 5 percent of boys in the United States are victims of child sexual abuse. Other CACRC research suggests the following:

• During a one-year period, 16 percent of youth ages 14 to 17 are sexually victimized.
• Over their lifetime, 28 percent of youth ages 14 to 17 are sexually victimized.

Mary Hutchison, deputy prosecutor in Madison County, said the reluctance of victims to report the crime is completely understandable.

Hutchison has worked on numerous child sexual abuse cases in Madison County and previously worked on the special victims team in the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office, specializing in human trafficking and domestic violence.

“It’s humiliating to admit that kind of thing has happened,” she said. “To know that if you report it, the police have to be called so you have to say it again. You’re going to have to get into a room full of strangers, and I think it is mortifying to think about that.” “

That’s incorrect.

After Kyle Jones, who had claimed the sexual encounter with Monica was consensual, was sentenced to 12 years in prison, Lynn hoped she and Monica would be able to put the incident behind them and resume their normal lives.

But Monica, according to Lynn, became the target of bullying at school. It started with namecalling and escalated. Lynn recalls that someone scrawled “(Monica) is a whore” on a bathroom stall at Lapel Middle School, and a 17-year-old girl, four years older than Monica, attacked her in a school hallway, giving her a black eye.

The bullying relented in high school, but Monica was already on a bad path, Lynn said. The classroom performance of the former honors student declined to D and F grades, and she sometimes got into fights.

Not long after Monica’s high school career started, Lynn moved her children back to schools in Noblesville. The problems surrounding Monica had persisted in Lapel, and it seemed like the best option.

The chaos sparked by that terrible day more than four years earlier finally was fading. But a shopping trip to the Noblesville Walmart, the same place Lynn was when the assault happened, upset the family’s tenuous peace.

Lynn saw Kyle Jones walking around the store with his family.

“How does (a sentence of) 12 years turn into four?” Lynn asked. “My daughter hadn’t even graduated from high school yet.”

Jones had been incarcerated with IDOC for just over four years for the Class B felony child molestation conviction.

Knowing that the sight of Jones or the mention of his name could plunge her daughter back into darkness, Lynn didn’t alert Monica to his presence and didn’t discuss it with her in the ensuing weeks.

Based on information from the DOC, Anderson had more convictions in cases of sex crimes against children than any other area of Madison County during the nine-year period from January 2008 to April 2017.

Of 210 convictions in the county during the period, 122 of those lived in Anderson at the time.

According to 2016 U.S. Census population estimates, Anderson has a population of 55,130 and the county’s total population is 129,296. So, while Anderson has 43 percent of the county’s population, it was the home of 58 percent of those convicted of sex crimes against children during the nine-year period.

Those statistics might lead some to conclude that sex crimes against children are mostly a problem in Madison County’s largest city. Others might know of specific cases in smaller towns and assume the problem is mostly rural.

Hutchison said neither assumption is accurate.

“As a community, I think it’s important for people to know it’s there,” she said. “People want to say, ‘I wouldn’t know a child molester. There isn’t one in my neighborhood. …’ That’s incorrect.”

Elwood, the county’s secondlargest city, had 16 convictions; Alexandria, the next largest, had eight.

The sex offender registry, icrimewatch.net/indiana, maintained by the Madison County Sheriff’s Department, shows where convicted sex offenders live.

But it doesn’t chart the home addresses of those who are still in prison. And, of course, it doesn’t offer any indication of unreported crimes.

Economic hardship and low education in Madison County could contribute to the high number of convictions, Hutchison said.

Monica, now 25, lives in another state and has two daughters of her own.

She’s determined not to let them fall prey to sexual molestation. She says she won’t allow them, as they get older, to go to slumber parties, according to Lynn.

Monica and Lynn don’t often talk about what happened a dozen years ago.

Lynn said it has changed her entire view of how society treats children. She’s heard the statistic that 1 in 5 Americans are molested as children.

“When I’m with a group of people, I will think, ‘OK. There are 25 people here, so that’s five people,’” she said.