"Desperate Housewives" star Teri Hatcher revealed on Tuesday that she was sexually abused by an uncle as a child but kept it secret until he was arrested years later for molesting a girl who ultimately committed suicide.
In an interview appearing in Vanity Fair magazine, Hatcher said she told prosecutors about her abuse in 2002 because she was haunted by thoughts of the 14-year-old girl who shot herself and feared that her uncle might escape conviction.
"I was just blown over by this girl's pain," the 41-year-old television star told Vanity Fair, recalling she learned about the case from newspaper clippings. "I thought, 'Boy, that's really close to being me.' Any day of the week, I could feel that sort of pain. I haven't tried to kill myself, but I've certainly thought about it, and then I feel guilty about thinking about it, because what's so terrible about my life?"
Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Chuck Gillingham credits Hatcher for putting her uncle, Richard Hayes Stone, who was then 64, behind bars. "Without Teri, this case would have been dismissed," he told the magazine, explaining that Hatcher's account provided key corroborating evidence to establish a pattern of behavior.
Stone, who was married to Hatcher's mother's sister when she was a girl, pleaded guilty to four counts of child molestation in December 2002 and was sentenced to 14 years in prison after Hatcher agreed to testify against him. "He pleaded guilty, and even though it wasn't to my crime, it was because of my crime, and that made me feel validated," the television star told the magazine.
Hatcher initially kept her involvement in the case, which never went to trial, a closely guarded secret, declining to include the experience in her upcoming book "Burned Toast," in part because she worried it might harm her career. "But I'm 41 years old, and it's time for me to stop hiding," she said.
In the interview, Hatcher recalled in chilling detail how she was sexually molested by Stone starting at age 5, when she and her parents lived in Sunnyvale, California, and the conflicted emotions of feeling both special and ashamed. "The most horrible thing, that has stuck with me all my life, is that he was touching me and doing things to me, and he said, 'Doesn't that feel good?' (And) I said, 'No, it doesn't.' He said, 'Well, someday you'll know what I'm talking about."'
Source: People
Posted by Lawren at March 8, 2006 08:11 AM
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Good for her. The more people who come out about child molesting, the more aware our society, and more importantly, the victims realize that they have nothing to be ashamed of, that they have done nothing wrong, and the more inclined they are to report these crimes so that predators can be taken off the streets. I read once that less than 1 in 3 victims of molestation and other similar crimes report them to the authorities, and that means to me that far too many of these animals remain on the loose.
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The Rev at March 8, 2006 04:11 PM