You may recall the ordeal of Daisy Coleman, a teenager who was sexually assaulted and left for dead in the cold in Maryville, Missouri. She and her mother were so horribly vilified that they had to move out of town--and apparently somebody burned their former house down. Well, it's possible we may be seeing a repeat of this in another Missouri town.
In 2012, a teenager in Dearborn, halfway between Kansas City and St. Joseph, came forward with a horrific tale--her father, Darren Paden, had assaulted her between 200 and 300 times over the last decade. Paden was arrested in 2013, and confessed only two hours into his interrogation.
Now here's where this story REALLY gets hideous. Even as he wrote letters of apology to his daughter and family, Paden was telling everyone who would listen that his daughter was lying. It only ended this past August, when Paden finally pleaded guilty to two counts of statutory sodomy involving a victim younger than 12 years old. At the same time, he admitted that his daughter had been telling the truth all along.
However, Paden's double game had the desired effect. When WDAF-TV in Kansas City interviewed several Dearborn residents on the day Paden finally ended this farce, several of them thought the charges were just rumors. Over the next two months, Judge James Van Amburg received 16 letters begging him for leniency. One writer, a trustee at Paden's church, said that Paden "admitted to things he did not do" under pressure from deputies. Fortunately, Van Amburg had none of it. He sentenced Paden to 50 years in prison.
Incredibly, some members of the victim's own family don't believe her. Her own great-great aunt, Dixie Wilson, told The Kansas City Star that she doesn't think Paden did anything wrong--but would "feel sorry for the girl" if he did.
Not surprisingly, this poor girl has had to endure another nightmare. She told the court that she feels "unwanted" and "unwelcomed" in Dearborn. She's even afraid that someone may poison her food if she sets foot in a recently-opened restaurant. In a recent interview with the Star, she recalled that someone actually refused to rent a house to her after she revealed who she was.
Platte County prosecuting attorney Eric Zahnd is equally dumbfounded. He couldn't believe that Paden spent two years telling people that his daughter was lying even as he was writing apologies. He's also stunned that so many leading citizens of Dearborn would publicly support this monster.
In the three days since I found this story and wrote about it at Liberal America, one thing outrages me more than anything. What Paden did is the very definition of defamation and slander. And yet, even though this would be a slam-dunk lawsuit, the risk to the victim's safety might be too great for her to hold her sperm donor to account.
No thanks to him, it sounds like it's only a question of when, not if, she'll have to move elsewhere for her own safety. And all because her sperm donor not only refused to take his medicine, but talked an entire town into demonizing his victim. It's so damn obscene I don't even have words for it.