Contribution by Karen Ellis - A True Story

The following true story was submitted by a long-time (50 years!) friend, Karen Ellis. Inspired by the events at Penn State, Karen has boldly written of her encounter with a pedophile over 40 years ago. She has never spoken of it publicly before. She has decided to share her story with us now with the hope of raising awareness to the issue of sexual abuse and harassment. It took GREAT courage to do this and we are VERY grateful for Karen's honesty and commitment. Here is here story.

Photo by Karen Ellis of one of the world's oldest living things. It is a survivor.

The Sandusky/PSU pedophilia scandal has dredged up a lot of unpleasant memories for me.

I thought it might be cathartic to write about it.

My first encounter with a predator was when I was fourteen.

I worked in the bakery department of a local deli every Saturday along with Marvin, age 40. While I was standing at the counter he would stand behind me and would rub up against me. Back then I was naive and didn't realize what he was REALLY doing and that it was VERY inappropriate.

He would block my way so I had to squeeze past him and he would try to touch my breasts. Standing beside me, he would lean over and try to nibble on my ear. This was a common occurrence not only with me but with another young female who worked there weekdays after school. Marvin was a real pervert.

Over the months, his behavior kept escalating. One day he followed me into the walk-in refrigerator. I had the foresight to take a large bread knife with me and when he got close, I turned around and raised the knife, telling him if he ever touched me again, I would "cut it off."

After that incident, I complained to the owner, who raised his voice to me and said, "How dare you accuse Marvin of doing things like that! He is a married man with three daughters."

Yeah, blame the victim. Stick up for the pedophile.

That was my last day working there.

Fast forward 20 years. I was involved in a volunteer organization, my partner was a peewee football coach—even through he didn't have any young children. He seemed like a very nice, caring guy from what I could tell. I was on duty with him every week for three years.

The coach was quite persistent about asking me if my 8-year-old wanted to play football. He kept saying how great it would be for my son since I was a single parent. He would "take my son under his wing." "I'll pick him up at your house, so you didn't have to worry about him getting to and from practice and the games." "He's a big kid for his age and he would be a great player."

I thought it might be a good opportunity and I asked my son if he wanted to join. He told me, "No, I hate football!"

Little did I know the coach was recruiting for MORE than the peewee football team.

A couple of years later, this man was caught abusing a boy my son's age who was on his team. He had given the kid a dirt bike and other expensive gifts. When the boy's mother questioned where the dirt bike came from, the ugly truth finally came out.

After the allegations surfaced, the pedophile disappeared and was never prosecuted.

When I learned about this pervert assaulting that boy, I got really upset, thinking I had come so, so close to having a pedophile ruin my son's life.

I recently checked the national sex offender registry and these two predators are not registered, so they obviously have never been caught. I wonder how many kids' lives they have destroyed. So tragic.

My personal experience taught me very valuable lessons—you are your own best advocate and you don't have to take any shit from anyone.

My son not being put in that situation was just plain luck. We were lucky that he just hated football.