Chapter 30: Trouble Brewing

Everything was going along smoothly at Camelot while trouble was brewing in another part of the county. There were some unusual things happening at the local Department of Social Services (DSS) office that did not bode well for the innocent victims of the trouble.

There was an unscrupulous case worker that was taking advantage of his official position to satisfy his carnal desires. He was the embodiment of the popular definition of a pedophile meaning that he liked to have sexual relations with underage girls. His victims ranged in age from ten to fifteen.

He would place them in foster homes where they would be groomed to allow adult men to abuse them by having nonconsensual sexual contact with them. In some cases it was as mild as having them pose for pornographic pictures, while in other cases the children were forced to have sexual intercourse against their will.

That particular case worker would select cases where lone girls with no family ties were to be placed into foster care. He would make sure that they got placed in one of two of his favorite homes where he could have unlimited access to them whenever he pleased. The adults in those two homes shared his interest in sexual abuse of underage girls.

In order to keep the girls out of public view they were kept at home continuously and even home-schooled. The only times the girls were allowed out of the house was if they had to go to a doctor for some treatment. The girls had been brain-washed so that they would not disclose anything about their home life to any outsiders for fear of severe punishment.

The whole situation had existed for over two years without anyone learning what was going on. Even their neighbors had no idea what happened behind closed doors. There were some suspicions among them, when a variety of visitors would come and go at the house, but not enough to instigate action.

A secret that big was doomed to be discovered. Rumors were spread about town and eventually found their way to Detective Springer of the Abused Person Unit. He investigated and diligently assembled as much information as he could about the two families. When the evidence mounted high enough, he decided to take action.

Fortunately DSS kept very complete records of every placement, so a paper trail could be examined to determine the extent of the nefarious scheme. Detective Springer found it hard to believe that the whole operation was spelled out in black and white and had not been discovered by anyone in the DSS office. It took him a mere fifteen minutes to see the pattern showing that the select children were systematically diverted to the two homes.

Next he interviewed the witnesses who had some contact with the two houses, however little it might be. He compared the various statements and reached a very ominous conclusion. Examination of the bank accounts of the two families showed amounts of money which could not be reconciled with their employment income.

Detective Springer was convinced that all the evidence pointed to only one logical conclusion: Young girls were being sent to the two houses where they were used for the purpose of, basically, high-priced prostitution. The problem he was facing, however, was that he did not have enough concrete evidence to justify a search warrant. He had to have more.

He considered using a girl who looked like a preteen to go under-cover to get into the house. He considered Samantha Preston who was the twelve-year-old who he and Art Sherwood had rescued. That idea lasted less than a minute. She had been rescued out of a similar situation and he could not involve her in the present case. It could be disastrous to her mental health.

When everything looked like he was up against a brick wall he got a call from a friend of his at the hospital. It turned out that a fourteen-year-old girl had been brought in with appendicitis. While they were prepping her for surgery, one of the nurses noticed that the patient showed signs of sexual assault. She had bruising and scars showing that she had been abused over time.

The doctor in attendance said that she would need immediate surgery to have her appendix removed. After she recovers she could be interviewed to determine if she is an assault victim. Detective Springer asked if they had an address for the girl.

Surprise, surprise! The address was one of the houses he had been investigating. The girl would be recovering from her surgery for the night so Detective Springer would have one of the female APU officers come by to interview her the next morning.

The next morning Mary Springer, Detective Springer's wife who was also a detective, went to the hospital to interview the girl. The girl's foster mother, who had brought her in, stayed with her for the night and was there when Detective Springer arrived.

He asked her to join him in the cafeteria for a chat. Instead of taking her to the cafeteria, he took her to a private room where he arrested her. Overnight, Detective Springer had a judge issue an arrest warrant and an order taking the girl into protective custody which meant the girl could be interviewed without a parent or guardian present. The chief of DSS, also a woman, requested to be present at the interview.

The girl was refusing to say anything for fear that she would be punished when she got home. She had been told not to reveal anything about what went on at home. It took some time for Mary Springer to convince the girl that she indeed was not going home but was going to a safe place. The girl gave the following statement: