Justice for Amish girl impregnated by brothers; survivors talk sexual abuse in Amish community

a word of warning this podcast explores graphic and disturbing stories and includes some strong language it therefore may not be suitable for our young listeners or other folks who may find it disturbing hello and welcome to true crime daily the podcast covering high profile and under the radar cases from across the country every week we are recording this on october 28th 2020 i'm your host anna garcia and our co-host and guest today is lonnie coombs who is a friend of the show and also is a former prosecutor in the la district attorney's office also a legal commentator welcome back lonnie how are you i'm doing great how are you doing anna i'm well i'm so happy that you're with us for this special episode because your expertise is what i am so hungry for because this case doesn't make any sense to me just legally morally of course not but legally i can't figure this one out so i'm really looking forward to your comments on this so we want to let everybody know that this is a special edition of true crime daily the podcast today's show will be focused entirely on one case one case that you our audience felt so strongly about in fact you were so outraged about this case that you commented more on this than any other case we got thousands of comments about this and the best part is that this chorus of outrage not only yours but in the community where this happened has really made things change if you can believe it we're just a little bit closer to justice as i like to say although it's partial justice and again because of the chorus of outrage okay so we're talking about this horrendous case which we have an update on and it involves the rape of a 12 year old amish girl by her brothers in missouri this is just incredible lonnie it is it is just it is frightening it is horrendous it is so sad it is tragic and and so many victims so we covered this case lonnie four weeks ago on october 2nd and that that episode we reported that the two rapist brothers had gotten this sweetheart deal where literally they walked away without one day one day of prison time and i want to remind everyone that when they raped this girl she was 12 but she ended up getting pregnant and she had a baby when she was 13 and there were a total of four brothers that were involved in the sexual assault two minors who have not been charged and then the two older brothers i mean i i i don't know what to say about this lonnie well and horrific as it is that she actually ended up getting pregnant honestly we might never have known about it if she hadn't gotten pregnant if she hadn't gone to the doctor and the doctor realized that she was pregnant and asked her because she's 12 years old who have you been having sex with what's going on here that's how this came to light and the doctor is the one who ended up calling the police if she didn't have that baby in her tummy who knows what would have happened to her who knows if this would have been continuing on for the rest of her life we just don't know and the fact that she was in a home where four brothers were all abusing her uh it's like what is going on in this home where are the parents we don't even know who the father is because all four of them were having sex with her yeah it's mind-boggling and it's just it it makes you just want to pull this little girl into your arms and just say you know that's not what life is supposed to be and protect her and save her and yet clearly that hasn't happened but no because she was pregnant there was no denying it right i mean nobody could say oh no she's just making it up she's pregnant she has a baby now uh and so once it came to trying to figure out who it was and talking to the brothers you know they just said yeah we're the ones that were doing it we've all been having sex with her yes the brothers did not deny it when the police came knocking they admitted that they called it having sex i'm sorry i have to call this sexual assault or rape because a 12 year a 12 year old cannot consent it doesn't work that way a 12 year old has no consent i don't care whether you're amish or you're not it doesn't matter no matter what's going on in that home that may make it look like it's okay it's not that was clearly rape of this little girl over and over again they admitted the two brothers admitted that it happened at least six times at least each each of those brothers six times and who knows that's how many they confess to right we don't know how many other times and then what about the other two brothers who we don't even know how old they were but how many times were they raping her the numbers boggle your mind it really does it really does and have there not been that hotline like you said that girl would never gotten any help and and that's going to be part of our conversation today is has she received any help because she was placed back in the home she was not removed the baby was not removed so if if if this were lonnie if this were any other family and especially a family of color are you going to tell me that the results would have been the same that that the two assailants walk and that the girl goes home with her baby to the same parents that let this happen yeah and you know it's interesting there's so much focus on what's happening to the rapist what's happening to the victim right what happened to the victim here they just put her right back in the same situation who was who was looking out for her who was supposed to be looking out for her you can't you can't rely on the family in this situation obviously to look out for her someone step in absolutely and and so as as part of this special program we're going to look at what happened as a result of the first episode that we did a month ago which is a lot happened a lot happened because um we had a co-host who you know louis bolanos who is a former homicide detective and now he's a private investigator and he uses a lot of his firm's time to do a lot of pro bono work he was so outraged by this case and and the people in missouri in seymour missouri who were protesting because they were like this cannot be happening this is not justice how is this girl being protected why why aren't prosecutors coming down so much harsher on these two rapists brothers so they've been out there protesting and they felt like no one was hearing them and we mention them that they're out there that there are people who think this is not okay and so they emailed me they reached out through true crime daily lewis has gotten involved so much has happened that we're gonna update all of this we're gonna have lewis back on in a little bit we're gonna have who i call the um you know the agitator in chief there in seymour who's been rallying the troops uh on as well as we're going to have two women who left the amish community because they too were victims of this type of sexual abuse it's horrific so let's let's do a little bit deeper dive into the details of the case the criminal case and then we're going to bring everybody on and we're going to go through this and figure out what happened when so two amish brothers in seymour missouri were arrested in june for raping their 12 year old sister petey schwartz 18 aaron schwartz 22 each was charged with six counts of rape and one charge of incest now what ends up happening is you know they admit to it right okay they're going they're headed to trial they're headed to trial and this is the part that's amazing so september 8th they're supposed to go into trial but before then they reach a plea agreement okay plea agreements i know happen all the time but this one lonnie i want you to explain to me what could have possibly been in the minds of people to think this was okay the six charges of rape were dropped to two counts of molestation a suspended sentence of 15 years meaning they were never going to go to prison and they got five years probation in addition to that to the conditions of this plea deal they were forbidden from having any contact with their little sister who they raped the victim here absolutely no contact and they had a register of sex offenders and then they had to write a letter of apology to seymour's amish community about what they had done plus 100 hours of community service of course the brothers took this deal it was a sweetheart deal can you figure this out lonnie okay so when a deal is cut like this you have all of this time hanging over their heads right they put 15 years and it wasn't like it was going to go away it was suspended so essentially what they say is look this big huge hammer can come down on you if you step out of line one bit so we're putting 15 years of prison over your head and if you don't follow every single probation condition that we lay out for you you're going to prison for 15 years there's no ifs ands or buds at that point there's no negotiating there's no pleading there's no nothing you're going to go to prison for 15 years at least this is the way if i set up a deal like this i would do it i wouldn't do it in this case but there were cases where if you felt like the person deserved a second chance you would set it up like this so that they knew if they stepped out of line even a little bit boom they're gone right so apparently that's what this prosecutor was thinking because he said that he went out to the media and when people were upset he said look they know that if they violate any terms of these conditions that they're going to go to prison right away and that's what's going to happen to him for 15 years and it's going to be hard he said for them to follow these conditions he seemed more concerned about you know that they do their community service so that they do their sexual offender training that they had to go to um and the fact that the letter was to the amish people how about a letter to the victim yes because why are we so concerned about the community in this situation nobody talked about the victim in this case and and when they talked about the probationary conditions it wasn't even one of the ones that was listed at least to the media that they were supposed to stay away from the victim we found out about that a little bit later right when something comes up so that might be what was in the prosecutor's head and then he did talk about it he said look i have in the past come down hard on other people in the amish community there was a situation like this where it was the father abusing the daughter and i put them i put him in prison but he considered this to be different because these were the brothers and he sort of eludes because he says they were not mature he lose so they might have issues okay lonnie that's crazy i don't buy that crap right but here's the thing if he did truly believe that if maybe they have learning issues or they're not educated and they can't read and write what anyways i don't know what's going on in their situation then you do more work you do risk assessment you do a psychological examination you do more to find out about that person to make sure that you are protecting the victim right because if they do have those issues that might justify you know a special kind of sentence then you also have to do the extra work to make sure that those conditions are work looked after and provided for so that the victim isn't at risk to this to this situation which did not happen in this case so based on the prosecutor's own statements to the media it sounds like he felt that these boy boys these men uh one were not mature maybe perhaps they didn't understand what was they were really doing i don't know it sort of like kind of alluded to that and that they would be eaten up in prison well that's not an excuse right that's no not to put somebody in prison so um and that's their problem i'm sorry you commit the crime those are gonna be the real life consequences welcome to the real world what i also don't understand about the prosecutor and i appreciate you're giving us this insight because i'm not trying to beat him up but i really do want to challenge him and his decisions we have a right to do that and and and the question for me is he said several things like even though they confessed he said it would be very hard for me to get a harsher sentence do you think that's true harsher than probation no no i don't believe that at all i think that if this had gone to trial um clearly it would have been a very easy verdict i think you've got you've got that she's pregnant that she had a baby and you have that they've confessed right so that's why they didn't want to go to trial because there's really nothing to defend i think that a judge looking at that would say they need to go to prison maybe not for the full length of time but they need to be punished and then they also need to if they need the training or they need whatever else you know do that too but there also needs to be punishment so that they understand what they've done if they didn't understand before they're going to understand now that there are consequences to what they were doing to your point that maybe they didn't understand apparently three days after they signed this agreement and went home they violated the probation agreement because they saw their sister the victim who they had raped three days after this so they get hauled back into court last week they go before the judge and they admit that they saw their sister and get this lonnie they said oh we didn't realize we weren't supposed to see her yeah give me a freaking break what the hell is going on here so it's interesting so their probation officer you know had a meeting with them because that's what they're supposed to do on their own probation and they said where are you living and who's living there and they go oh well we're living in our house and our sister's there essentially right and the probation officer is like what are you thinking that violates your probation and the one brother aaron said he thought that there were no restrictions and the other brother petey said the court well ben that's the prosecutor's name by the way ben said he doesn't have any restrictions so that's what we got from the court i find that very interesting one that they didn't understand that they had any restrictions and two that one of the brothers is actually referring to the prosecutor as his first name he's not talking about his attorney telling them what they should or shouldn't have done they're talking about the prosecutor and they both came away with the belief or understanding that there were no restrictions on them so forget the i mean one the sentence is outrageous but two the fact that no one really sat down apparently with these two men and explained to them exactly what they were supposed to be doing is egregious it's really unconscionable and the judge agreed the same judge who approved the sweetheart plea deal said that's it you two you're going straight to prison and they were walked out the back of that courthouse and into patrol cars and they are behind bars right now so it's almost as if finally there is justice but i don't think these two were ever going to get it and putting them back in the community frankly that put everyone at risk yeah absolutely well and to your point you said at the beginning i think a lot of it had to do with the way the community responded to this when both the prosecutor and the judge saw oh my goodness look at the outrage look what everybody's saying and thinking about this when they saw that chance when they heard that there was a violation boy they both jump on it right away and they're in prison now it's almost as if from their perspective they've taken care of the problem but i'm gonna argue that they haven't because they're still that girl who is in this environment that we don't know that she's safe okay so yeah i'm sorry the two other brothers might still be there the other ones she was being abused by four not just right from prison yeah well of course the minor brothers are there they're minors okay yeah okay we're going to discuss more of this now with people who are there on the ground dealing with this and also with louis bolanos who has now gotten involved and is advocating and assisting the group in seymour so before any of us had heard about this case there were people demonstrating outside the courtroom because they were so upset so we're going to now bring in two guests who who really have had a pivotal role in changing the course of events in seymour so joining us now is louis bolanos who's a former homicide detective a friend of the show and he has his own private investigation agency and he does a lot of pro bono work and lewis is now officially working with all the people in seymour on this case which is fascinating and that all happened from the podcast so we're really excited that lewis is here also you're going to see two warriors over there and and these are the true rock stars because you are the people who inspire me about what it is that we do and about changing things and voices being heard you have tiffany hill and mel pleasant from the child advocacy against pedophilia also referred to as cap you two are like the the local activists in chief you you got together tiffany and mel and you made these homemade signs which we're going to show because you were kind enough to send us your videos and your photos and you were standing out on the on the street outside the courthouse before anybody else was talking about this case and i was so impressed by you that after our podcast aired a month ago you all reached out to me tiffany you lewis and i got on the phone the very next day to talk about what we can do and how we can help you mel reached out on social media first of all i how do you feel that you accomplished something and got some justice here because those two brothers are behind bars now they are but justice is not completely served yet tell me what needs to be done well in my opinion i think there's you know some juvenile charges that need to be brought upon you know the parents need to be investigated much less charged um you know there's still minor children in the home why is that exactly mel did you feel that your voices were being heard that you were gonna ever get justice i mean i know you were all devastated when the two brothers walked and nobody else would be treated that way exactly um it was it was just a freak thing that if that was to happen to me you know dhs would have been there taking my children you know and not giving me a chance to speak but when you look at the amish case they it was pretty much open and shut until we came in and we were just angry angry for this little girl who has no justice did you feel that you had support there in seymour when you first started this before the chorus around the country and the world chimed in when we first started it we started a small facebook group and it kind of blew up overnight so we noticed right then that those citizens were just as angry as we are but they that's a town that is very involved in knowing who you are and caring who you are and we just kind of busted that down because we don't care who knows who when there's an injustice like this i'm going to get to lewis in a second but lonnie i want to ask you as a former prosecutor how valuable are their voices really you know they may not feel like it in the moment but it when they get so loud does that affect things oh it does believe me the prosecutors and the judges they all have ears they all know you know that the public uh has a very strong opinion like that and i truly believe that the reason they moved so quickly on this probation violation was because of the outcry that they knew was going on from the public lewis you got involved right after we did that podcast you and i are on the phone and and and we're like we got to do something we hadn't even met tiffany in mel yet and and and louis in typical style dives right in and now he has an official function working with all of you louis what have you uncovered in these few weeks since you got involved a tsunami a tsunami of sexual assaults toward children it is incredible and i again the voice the movement that tiffany and mel both started i had no idea anything like this was even possible being involved with other investigations where you're facing organizations like uh fox or weinstein bill cosby where they're protected uh because of uh folks are worried about coming forward and speaking the truth this puts those cases to shame and we've seen more than our share in those type of investigations early on when we first did this podcast anna the only people i saw online who were addressing these issues and trying to protect daisy was melanie and tiffany they're the only ones out there that i saw that had any voice whatsoever and it was a small one at that point but it was big enough that it got our attention the movement that's happened in the last two three weeks is just phenomenal um tiffany and mel have put me in touch with other victims people who have lived within the amish communities that we're talking about who would tell you straight up this is a past and current practice and nothing is going to change unless the environment changes within the amish walls and within the justice system outside the walls it's almost accepted to the point where it feels as if these behaviors are condoned sounds disgusting but that's how i feel oh i i agree with you now you you refer to someone as daisy for those who don't know you all decided lewis and the team there in seymour decided you you wanted to give this victim a name so so now and you have posters out because you've set up a hotline where people can call if they need help or they want to report something or they need to vent whatever um and it's uh we're gonna put that up and the phone number but it's a little silhouette of a girl and you've named her daisy because we don't know her name she is a victim of sexual assault and she's a minor so her identity is is protected um why'd you name her daisy thank you for asking that so daisy is was a victim of a horrible sexual assault in high school about eight years ago her story came across us uh our purview and we jumped in to help him do everything we can to get those responsible for that assault and the ongoing bullying by her community and by the suspects uh bring that to a halt her story ended up being told in a netflix documentary called audrey and daisy um daisy was probably the most powerful name in this community that had a lot of national international recognition in the circles that we fly in and every time i had a victim come forward who was on the fence whether or not they wanted to go forward if they felt the law enforcement wasn't giving their case the attention it deserved or they were being bullying online or in person but something that caught our attention where normally things that should happen weren't happening she was one of my first calls and she helped bring peace and calm and other cases to closure uh by speaking to these victims uh after ten years of this battle the daisy had she took her life about three weeks ago so in our old daisy is a very big powerful name so i contacted daisy's parents her mom and her brother and to see if it was okay if we could use her name to represent this child to humanize his child because i found myself guilty of that of calling her the 12 year old victim if it seems sterile and cold so we changed her name to daisy and there's a meaning behind it and i couldn't think of a better choice yeah and i'm sure lonnie you're very familiar with that case um because of all the work that you do oh my goodness i i do i i want to play some clips right now that you all sent us um all of the folks who you work with there in seymour stood outside the courthouse with these uh posters and you all recorded messages for daisy we're gonna play some for you now my name is melissa anderson and i am here to be the voice and to stand up for daisy we are here with you and we have your back honey god be with you and hopefully we'll see justice it's tiffany and i'm here to support daisy we love you and we support you and we are pulling for you hi i'm lisa and i'm here to support daisy we got your back hi i'm pam and i'm just here to support daisy and you feel mercy justice daisy we love you we're your voice and we will get you justice baby i hope someday she gets a chance to hear your messages and hopefully this message is carried to her even though she's in a really insulated community now as far as we all know the girl is still with the family and the two minor brothers who abused her so the the former amish victims are very active on this case from all over the country and one of them sent a letter to the office of child advocate now the child advocate in missouri is the person who's supposed to that you turn to right lonnie that that that is one step removed from child services if you don't feel that things are being treated properly right right okay so she gave us a copy of this letter that was sent back in response this this advocate said not the child advocate but the amish activist said what the heck's going on here okay and this is the response from the office of child advocate this office acts as an avenue for families and others to obtain an independent and impartial review of the decisions made by children's services stand by because now we're going to flip a table okay here's what courtney b davis writes i have concluded my review i am in agreement with the general direction of the case and made some recommendations okay lonnie what does that mean how do i interpret that legally honestly i don't even i don't get this and then and then to add to that uh true crime daily also reached out to the missouri department of social services to ask why the young girl was not taken out of the home after the abuse was discovered and their response was quote child abuse and neglect investigations are often co-investigated with local law enforcement information relating to specific child abuse and neglect investigations are closed and confidential under missouri law except for very limited circumstances so you see these activists who are doing an amazing job going to all of these different agencies that are supposed to be sort of checks and balances right who are supposed to step in when it looks like something's going wrong and yet they all seem to just be deferring back to what's already happened oh well we're doing this along with law enforcement and we're just going to go along with what they do and i have a real question for you louis looking into these cases i heard you saying it is apparent that this this behavior seems to be condoned maybe by the community maybe by the family but what about law enforcement it seems like law enforcement is it just because it's the amish community or what's going on here from law enforcement i can't explain it either any law enforcement officer i know or agency worth or assault when it comes to children you do the right thing you have so many tools available to you to go there and issue justice do a thorough investigation so by not doing that and sending them back to let the amish punish themselves what other culture does that what other religion does that uh we have a lot of friends who participated into the investigation of the catholic church they don't have this leniency i can't explain it and to go back and let them punish themselves who does that's almost visual anti-ism it's it's crazy so i i can't explain it but there's a huge recall for uh to remove this prosecutor and the judge from the case that's not going to do anything it's a culture you have to address the culture and somehow get education to those kids within the walls and the parents that care of what other avenues they can take other than going to their local law enforcement to your point lonnie all they're doing is teaching these kids or any victim sexual assault don't come forward it's not worth it right lonnie i have a question for you as a former prosecutor ordinarily wouldn't that child be removed from the home she was sexually assaulted without question she became pregnant and had a baby from 12 to 13 would she not be removed from the home i would assume so i mean clearly there should be an investigation into that home there should be reports generated about what's going on at home what are the parents doing what are they teaching do they understand that this is wrong and what would they be doing going forward if they had the child they're still in the home but in this case because apparent in this case since it appears that no one is changing their mind about this behavior this child should be taken from the home this child probably herself daisy doesn't understand what's happening to her is wrong she probably has been you know taught the same thing that this is just normal behavior mel and tiffany from your perspective there in the community what is the sentiment should she be taken from the home which could be very difficult for her since she's been brought up amish would you have to be placed with another amish family but but the two minor boys who raped her are still in the home what's happened to them absolutely nothing at this point we're we're pushing for juvenile charges i've sent letters just over the past week i've probably sent about 100 letters um in regards to you know why is there not more being done yes the schwartz brothers went to jail awesome great but there's still a lot more in this case you know that needs to go on and at this point it's just not going yet do you think now okay and i just want to share this personal moment on the day of the probation hearing last week you know lewis and i are here in california it's like have you heard anything have you heard anything and then he's like you know tiffany's there uh she's she's calling now stand by we got on the phone with you you were breathless you were that that day that whole day i was just dumbfounded honestly i i didn't understand how we're there so up to you know protect the offenders but you know daisy is just suffering at home whenever her parents come back and then what they just go through the same thing in the next six months give her a little bit of recovery time from having her child and then in six months what if there's you know a 18 19 year old cousin they won't do it on the young ones anymore but what about a 15 year old well i i i really i applaud how hard you guys have worked and it's not just youtube there's a whole bunch of people behind you so you've set up a facebook page you've also set up a website for cap we're going to link to that in um when we uh publish our podcast obviously we're going to also link um to lewis's uh website if if you want to follow this um i want to get your closing thoughts because we're going to move on we've got two women who were amish who suffered terribly they went to the police one got justice ultimately the other one is trying to get justice now and we're going to hear from them in a little bit so i want to make sure we have enough time to talk with them to get the insight on the amish community so your closing thoughts tiffany and mel what's next for for you two um warriors well we we are not gonna stop um we started with the amish case but as lewis said we are uncovering so much so we are we've got some protests planned um to get some people some help um hours away from us so they're calling us hours away and we're just not going to be silent we're we're going to get justice everywhere we possibly can fantastic fantastic i wish you all the best because we need good people in this world fighting the good fight and it's all about and i i please take this i hope you take the right way it's about ordinary people doing extraordinary things and that is how life has changed i get without thinking about it i'm so so so excited about you guys i'm so glad you're on and we did hear you we heard your voices we hear you loud and clear please as always you know i'm here for you without question whatever we can do to help you you know we got to make things right louis your closing thoughts you're involved in the investigation i know you've got a bunch of letters and inquiries out to everybody in missouri every day lewis is sending me like 10 texts you're not going to believe who i just talked to you're not going to [Music] what's next for you on this case two two things first i just uh just directly to uh tiffany and mel i want to thank you for what you're doing and for enlightening me and being patient with me because everything i've learned about what goes on in a lot of these amish communities i've learned in the last two weeks and i promise you this i'm going to make a prediction here that someday both of you are going to get a knock on your door or a phone call contacted by daisy or a daisy who's going to say the work you did put them in such a wonderful place compared to where they were so know that day is coming keep pounding that as hard as you can secondly we are in the middle of putting together a town hall meeting virtual i'll have much more information on that uh and we're gonna invite anybody in everybody in webster county especially those who are in office of power uh to share their thoughts on this and help move this in a positive direction because what's going on now not acceptable just unacceptable so stay tuned for that we've put together some incredible experts from around the nation to help address that terrific and one closing thought here with lonnie do you think it's possible that finally there will be juvenile charges um brought against the two younger brothers because we asked the prosecutor about that and he said well first of all it's all confidential so i couldn't tell you even if i knew but that happens in the juvenile courts and i'm i'm not part of that legal system so lonnie what do you think here i think if there's any chance of it happening it will be because of the voices that are being heard right now um i truly believe that because i think that they had already essentially concluded that part of the case and kind of written it off um but i think that the continued swell of voices talking about this and and letting them know that that's not acceptable that's the chance you have of something happening excellent and i want to let everyone know in all fairness that we reached out to webster county prosecutor ben burkstresser to come on this program and help us understand what happened here and what his thought process was he declined to be on the program but he did send us this comment and in all fairness we we've got to let him have his say and he said quote i sought revocation of the probation because their probationers had violated their probation terms in a fundamental way which is by having contact with the victim by moving back into the residence with her he also told us that you know we asked him well what do you think about uh the calls for your resignation and the judge's resignation and and all of the protesters and he said you know it's their first amendment right so um in that sense he supports you but obviously i'm sure he wants to keep his job and also we invited the missouri department of social services on the program they declined but lonnie read their statement so we have tried to ask the questions you know alongside you thank you so much for joining us please you watching and listening don't go away because now we've got two extraordinary women coming up well thank you so much so much thank you everyone you too so the case we've been talking about in seymour missouri is really not the first of its kind in the amish community it may be the first time a lot of us are hearing about this kind of sexual abuse but apparently this has been going on in other states for some time and our next two guests can really speak to this audrey kaufman and misty griffin were amish and they left the community after suffering terrible abuse it has not been easy for them and each one of them is trying to find justice in their own way we welcome you to the program misty and audrey thank you for having me thank you all right we've got so much to ask you about we're going to give you give everyone a little bit of background about each of you so then we can have a deeper conversation with lonnie our former prosecutor so audrey kaufman is joining us from pennsylvania and you are a former member of the amish community your ex-husband who is the father of your children is sitting in a jail today charged with 36 counts of raping and sexually abusing three of your children he is awaiting trial that should happen soon first i want to ask you audrey how are your children doing well considering where we were two years ago and where we are today we're doing well um considering everything they've been through they're fantastic my kids are troopers but it has done deep deep damage that they're going to have to untangle for the rest of their lives now i just wanna and i'm gonna talk more with you but i wanted to set up your story so people can follow along misty um missy's story is very interesting she was hired by a prominent amish bishop and you know you were hired to be the maid and the nanny to his seven children all under the age of 12 and you thought that would be a good and safe place to be right the bishop's house a very prominent person in the community missy says that the bishop not only raped her but his own children misty says that after an incredibly violent attack in 2005 she ran to the police filed a report of rape but nothing happened ultimately the bishop's own daughter reported him to the police and he now sits in a prison convicted of sexual assault so a little bit of justice there now misty left the amish and she wrote a book about her experiences she changed all the names and locations and she has asked us she said she would gladly help and participate in this program but she didn't want to use real names and she didn't want to use real locations because misty said that when she wrote her book it wasn't about revenge or anything like that it was just about speaking truth misty's book tears of the silenced an amish true crime memoir of childhood sex abuse brutal betrayal and ultimate survival wow misty it's like you've been through everything you've been through everything um yes i just want to make one correction um i didn't file a charge of rape against the bishop um partly because during the attack i i blacked out i couldn't remember exactly what happened um but i did file a sexual assault charge against him i see that correction you had been repeatedly assaulted by him yes pretty much on a daily basis for the six and a half months i lived with them i i i this is the part i think a lot of people are not going to understand the fact that misty you went to the police and nothing was done audrey you also went to the police in in a different community and initially nothing was done but when you finally called the police in pennsylvania and lonnie i want to ask you about this after misty comments is the the the state troopers in pennsylvania took this seriously what why is it that certain jurisdictions where the amish live that law enforcement takes these allegations seriously like in audrey's case because the ex-husband is sitting in prison is sitting in jail right now and others don't can you explain that audrey well first of all i'd like to make a quick correction of course he's not in jail his dad bailed him out his dad is bishop he bailed him out a day and a half after he had been arrested and his daddy's also paying his attorney so that adds a little twist there sorry to hear that but that is his legal right that is his legal right thank you for the correction so what do you make of this audrey share with us the experience you had with the pennsylvania authorities versus other jurisdictions because you're not done you you're your ex-husband's brother the children's uncle also sexually assaulted them yet you cannot get any justice what is it in kentucky yes share with us the process i'm not exactly sure why i i've asked a lot of questions um i've made a lot of phone calls the state police and all the officials here in pennsylvania have been phenomenal like they stepped up to the plate they protected us every time we were harassed they were on my doorstep within minutes like they have filed they filed harassment charges against his father for continually harassing me i mean they have followed through and done so well they've supported me and the protective protective order i got on top of the criminal charges and whereas in kentucky partly due to the fact that he's a minor and the way kentucky laws are but mostly due to the fact that the d.a who oversees that county just doesn't care he we have written admit i mean he admitted in written form that in two different letters what he did and they still haven't acted they've done nothing and so what makes the difference i'm not sure one thing that i have seen in not only our case but in others is that they too often it has to do with finances and the amish people are often good carpenters they're good electricians they're good plumbers they're stable members of the community they're seen as people who are well respected and don't cause any trouble and i've heard that repeatedly in kentucky oh the kauffman family would never do something like this and i see this in a lot of different cases they're so highly respected people refuse to acknowledge they choose denial and the way it would hurt them economically it's not worth messing with it lonnie can you make any sense of this well a couple things one um you know we've been talking about the amish community and i think that people generally still have this i think the way you put it is a romanticized view of who the amish are you know we think they're peaceful and hardworking and loving and kind and so to hear that there's this you know current of abuse going on it's hard for a lot of people to believe that um but the second thing is i think historically law enforcement when it comes to religious groups there they have this um sort of conflict of well we need to respect their right to their religious practices right so that that was why it was so hard to finally break into the polygamous sex because you know they knew that there was all this polygamy going on they're trying to balance what's their religious right versus what the law is and then finally they started doing something about it as far as law enforcement in this case too it might be well we don't want to tread on you know this religious community's feat it's also interesting in both of your cases misty your uh abuser was the bishop and i understand the bishop is like the leader right and then audrey your ex-husband's dad i think you said was also the bishop yes so you're talking about the leadership of these religious communities that are there you know with a great standing respect um and and law enforcement may some of them anyways may have an issue about wanting to not upset that it doesn't make sense especially in this day and age and we understand so much about sexual abuse and with me too and with in your cases you know hard evidence as far as proving the cases but that's that might be historically what's been an issue misty can you share with us how women and girls are treated in the amish community from your experiences and the level of sexual abuse how prevalent it is uh yes um if i could make a comment just on what um sorry lonnie all right lonnie sorry lonnie was saying um just to follow up with that um i can tell you from experience when i went to the police they specifically told me that um after i told them what had happened they specifically told me that they had to be very careful not to trample on the religious rights of the amish community they told it to me maybe three or four times it's almost like they weren't listening to what i was saying to them because they seemed preoccupied i mean the detective that was talking to me he was very preoccupied and you know when i would ask them well what are you going to do uh can you do something you know you need to help these children you know i wasn't going for myself i was going to help the seven children still in the home and he told me a minimum of three times uh we have to be very careful that we don't trample on the religious rights of this amish community and um that seemed to be their their main priority at the time i was not absolutely not the priority um so it's it's very true that um the main focus is pretty much religious rights of the community wow that's complicated but you know at the end of the day i don't think that religious freedom permits you to violate the law and commit crimes um i haven't gone to law school but i i do believe that is our basic law you're absolutely right about that that's correct okay all right um even though it may not feel like that's what happens in reality so so misty share with me how are women treated for example what do you think do you think this little girl who you know we're calling daisy do how do you think she's being treated is she getting help and support in the community now because of what happened to her well i mean obviously nobody really knows what's happening with her because nobody has access to her um the community is like sheltering her you know within the community so nobody really knows but from experience from you know my own case living in among the amish and hearing probably at least 100 other stories um it's most likely that she is being blamed for her brothers being sent to prison you know in my case when i was above the amish there was a 14 year old girl who was molested by a man in his 50s and instead of getting on to the man for molesting her the girl for the three and a half years i was among the amish the girl was often whispered about and you know people would comment that she was too friendly that it was her fault that she got molested because she was just a really friendly bubbly girl and she knew that the people were you know whispering like this about her and um you know sometimes after church she would get a little over excited and start talking and laughing with the other girls and the women would like immediately look at her and she would have to be quiet because they're like oh she's getting too friendly and loud again um you know so it it really damaged her um you know it was really damaging to her audrey i'm sorry please go ahead yeah i just say i believe in daisy's case um the amish girl most likely she's getting also that treatment that somehow it had been her fault because that's just how the amish view these cases i i'm stunned by that audrey has it been your experience that the victim is actually the problem not not the person who who did the assault or the attacking yes that's been my experience as well not only in my children's situations but in my own personal situation as a 17 year old and i in the work that i do i see it on a daily basis and i it's the thread carries through community after community after community can you elaborate on that can you explain to me what what's what's the thought process what's the mentality why do they say it's your fault that your brothers are in prison they don't hold the men responsible um it's a culture where the women are shamed and they're told that somehow they were either a modest or they were too loud or they were it was if there's some reason that they enticed the men to do what they did and make the choices that they made how prevalent is it to have men sexually abusing children and and explain to me the mindset in conversations with both of you it's almost as if you're telling me they don't know it's wrong wants to tackle that audrey or or misty um i i would say that um of course they know it's wrong i mean anybody with basic sense i think knows it's wrong but um it's sort of normalized i believe among the amish so it's not exactly that they probably don't know that they're doing something wrong but it's it's just sort of normal behavior i mean when i when i was amish i would witness uh brothers molesting their sisters just right out in the open um it was very common in my community the family that i lived with the 17 year old brother he would molest the 14 year old sister just right out in the kitchen he would come up behind her and be like tickling her but in inappropriate places um and then he would like trap her on the stairs and um you know tickle her supposedly and you know the mom was there she never reprimanded him she the only thing she would ever do is tell the girl to get back to work like you know ella go what get back to washing the dishes or ella you're supposed to be collecting the eggs but she never said you know eli what are you doing you know that is inappropriate that was never the case and i witnessed it you know after church you know some of the older like 10 11 year old boys tickling the younger girls um so it it's never recommended by the parents and that's one thing i don't quite understand um there's no reprimand or consequences for it and then those boys you know they grew up to be men and you know they got away with it when they were boys so you know they're going to get away with it when they're men and the other men in the community are not going to hold them responsible uh so you know there just really needs to be some sort of sex education or something among the i'm sorry sex education among the amish to you know teach them that you know you can say no and this is inappropriate behavior um but you know how would you start something like that because the amish are not going to go for it um they're said in their ways and they believe their ways are right so audrey you said to me that when you were having a lot of problems with your husband and his father was the bishop that they sent your ex-husband away several times for some kind of behavioral modification can you tell us what that's about i believe that's how the amish take care of these problems it's pretty it's pretty common if you can't be dealt with by you know church discipline then they send them away to various types of programs in our case that he was sent to pure life ministries in kentucky the amish have different programs that program itself was not sponsored and run by plain people but there are a lot of different facilities that are run by the plain people for these types of men um now there again i like the way you worded it their behavior modification programs they don't address the root of the issue and what i say often is the amish have a serious domestic violence problem and they do not know how to address it and the fact that the culture is so patriarchal and the women have no voice leaves no space for change so you could tell a child all day long that they have a voice and that they're allowed to use it but that means nothing in the space of their culture i want to ask both of you this is very interesting to me that the prosecutor in the seymour case in daisy's case said well one of the reasons that i you know initially let them off in the sweetheart deal is because the amish community had already severely punished them and therefore that is why you know i don't i didn't initially think they needed to go to prison audrey what do you think well i i their their idea of severe punishment um is humorous at best um usually their form of severe punishment is excommunication for six to ten weeks which means they don't eat the same table with the other church members so even a father would sit at a separate table in his home they wouldn't sleep in the same bed he wouldn't sleep in the same bed at his wife he wouldn't be greeted with the holy kiss at church he wouldn't participate in communion and he would have to make a you know an apology before he would be taken back and the church would take a vote so if you consider that severe punishment i i think the most severe part about it would just simply be the shame of it but like misty said it's so normalized in the culture that it's really no big deal lonnie what do you think you know the fact that the the brothers admitted in the probation hearing last week in which they ultimately were sent behind bars that oh um you know oh we didn't realize we weren't supposed to be with our little sister you know the one that we raped oh really that's not uh i know i signed it but i didn't you know i didn't know the terms oh and oh one more thing lonnie as part of their um as part of the probation they were each supposed to write a letter of apology to the amish community and they each the judge said you each wrote the same letter just different signatures once again right proving what here lonnie that they never got it right and it's interesting here's what they wrote part of the quote it says i confess to having had several inter several sexual intercourses with blank under 14 years of age i do regret and am sorry for having done any such sins i mean that to me is very clear that somebody fed them what to say and what to write i have a question about um you know what is the education as far as reading and writing um because i do think i don't think that these guys got it one um because i think if this the amish community all they do is you know shun them for six weeks they really don't understand consequences right so you can tell them that they have these all these consequences but they're not going to believe it until it actually happens to them until they actually were walked into that prison and the gate shut that's the first time they probably realized that what there's something you know to to consequences to to my actions but the other thing is i really wonder do they you know intellectually are they taught about these things are they taught to read and write to a to a level where they could understand this and you know myself i guess my question is two parts you know is it is it part lack of education is it part of just the the way they're socialized or is it a combination of both um i would say it's a combination of both um from my experience you know i i thought that the girls sort of did better in school usually amish girls um they seem to get better grades pay more attention um but i noticed that a lot of times if you didn't want to pay attention in school you really weren't made to all that much at least in my community um a lot of the the boys were not that well educated you know um sometimes boys require just a little bit more attention to make them focus on you know school house not all of them but some and you know some of the girls too but um a lot of the boys in my community were very undereducated you know they say that they went to the eighth grade but um you know they just usually would just keep them going from grade to grade without you know really making sure that they got it and they passed it and you know some of them even struggled to read so um but also it's socialization and not knowing how the outside world works i mean there's a good chance that these boys barely even got the concept of what prison is i mean they're they're quite young still so so um they probably understood you know a vague idea of what prison is but um most likely didn't really understand what prison is i don't think can i ask you about daisy audrey can you tell us you know one of the discussions that we're having here and the question is what happens to this girl should she be removed from the home as would happen with probably any other case of rape and incest where there's also a baby that's born if she's removed from the home how how difficult do you think that would be for this girl to if she's removed from an amish family into a regular family or or is it best to supervise her and help the family what what's the solution here audrey because i don't know what's best for her given where she has been brought up i think personally i think in daisy's case in the setting in the amish setting that specific culture that she's in uh that's a good question removing her and placing her into a so-called english hymn would definitely be a huge adjustment and traumatic although in a loving healthy environment i think it would be a far better choice than sending her home to her abusers i mean as we all understand there's two minor sons and as far as i know they've not been removed from the home so she's been put back with her abusers and she's been put back with parents who have not protected her from the get-go um her child's been taken from her and so i don't see any way that that environment could be healthy supervised or unsupervised because you cannot supervise a situation like that enough to keep a child safe it's not possible you said her baby was taken from her what do you mean by that from what i understand the grandparents are raising the baby and like i said i don't know how the specific case is but very often in these cases the baby is taken from the mother when they're very young and placed with an aunt an uncle grandparent someone outside the immediate family and in a lot of cases these babies grow up and don't even know who their real parent is they have no idea they were never told there's multiple stories that i could share in a brief span of time where there's generations of this that has happened it's very common wow lonnie what do you make of that it's shocking so they keep the baby in the amish community but they take it away from the mother yes well that just shows you how accepted this lifestyle i mean it's become a lifestyle essentially it is because they actually know what to do when there's a baby born from incest they just it's the level of this is so eye-opening i think it's so important to understand it misty what do you think is going on uh with that girl do you think it would be too jarring to remove her from the home and maybe that's why child services you know that when they look though the totality of a child who has been assaulted is damaged and what is best for her do you think that she should be removed from the amish community or maybe re-homed with another amish family somewhere else what is the best answer for her unfortunately like audrey said that's a good question but personally um she i believe that she's young enough that she could be taken out of the home and placed with an outside family you know she's 13 years old uh you know children teenagers they learn to adjust but i believe until she is taken out of the home and taken out of that environment you will never really find out her true story and what really happened to her we have no idea if these four boys are her only abusers or if there's other children being abused by the minors or by other family members you know we don't know that if she were to be taken out of the home and put somewhere safe on the outside of the amish community and you know after maybe a couple weeks she feels comfortable she can talk to you know a detective or a social worker she could tell her story and what's really actually happening but while she's inside the community you are never going to find that out because she's being told what to say whatever she has said so far is what she has been told to say and most likely on a daily basis she is being at least emotionally traumatized you know being told it's her fault look your brothers are in prison look what you did you know you told the this to the doctor and now look what happened you know you can never fix this and because of you your brothers are going to hell i mean that's very likely uh what she's being told oh my god i have a question lonnie in cases like this when you're a prosecutor if there was a child victim would there be a court appointed um advocate or would she as a victim have a voice in the court and the court proceedings do you know what i'm saying i i know there's a term ford and i'm sorry i don't know what it is well yeah a lot of it's a child advocate because she's 13 years old you know and and so there needs to be someone who works just directly with her who she feels like is is her person right to represent her that she feels comfortable with i would think that the prosecutor would have adamantly determined that that happened because they want to make sure that i mean the prosecutor's supposed to be representing the victim right that's what we do we represent the victim and especially when you're talking about a 13 year old old girl living in such a unique environment you want someone who they bond with who they feel comfortable with who they feel comfortable giving the whole story to like misty said um and so i would think that it would be upon the prosecutor or the judge i mean the whole system essentially failed her by not making sure that she had someone who took the time to find out what was really going on and to make her feel safe and to ask her what's going to be the best for you i know you're 13 years old but you know at least at least have those conversations with her um but if no one is bonding with her then you're right she she's going home every day to her parents and that's that's who's going to be influencing her and telling her what to say and not saying what to think and what to go along with the same people who fail to protect her fail to protect her it's it's just shocking to me as as we're winding down here i want to get your thoughts on what's happening in seymour as far as the at you know the just the the regular folks who have come out and are protesting demonstrating writing letters making calls they're not even amish but they are outraged by what's happened audrey and misty do you believe that this is having any kind of a profound effect and is going to have a change we'll start with audrey i think it will and it's unfortunate that normal human beings that do normal human things and experience normal human emotions to this type of atrocity are looked at as heroes in a situation like this it should be just normal human response and i i've seen it in other cases as well that when the public is outraged and when they speak up and they protest and they send letters things happen and it's a crying shame in our day and age that it ha that it has to come to that but i'm so proud of them for doing that and for stepping in for daisy and i can say from our own personal experience those people that have stepped into our stories and have advocated for us and you know been a voice it's huge and it's very healing for the victims and i don't know how much daisy will find out but i just really hope that somehow she knows how many people are out there fighting for her even though she can't use her invoice and fight for herself misty yeah exactly what audrey said you know that it's kind of strange that you know the outside people just being outraged by this you know that it's looked on as something of you know sort of heroism you know that they would care about a child that's amish but you know it's our duty as adults as human beings to look out for all children no matter you know what race religion you know sexual orientation whatever they are you know we're supposed to look out for them and be outraged if you know sexual abuse or any other kind of abuse is being covered up so you know we're very thankful for the people of seymour you know stepping in and raising awareness about this you know i highly doubt that the boys the amish boys would have went to prison if it hadn't been for the protests that they they've been doing so um you know raising your voice and you know speaking out about injustice you know it it does and it can make a difference and also we want to mention and congratulate misty just had a baby last week so quite a blessing congratulations thank you yeah super adorable of course he is he's a baby well ladies thank you so much audrey kaufman mr griffin thank you so much for being on this program um for opening your very difficult and painful stories to us it's been a pleasure to talk with you even before i met you on zoom um we but we spoke on the phone and um i i really wish you a lot of success with the fights that you are still continuing to fight and i know for you audrey your family is going to court and that's going to be of course continuing to be traumatic to your children and i i just i'm i i i hope that they get all the support that they need to get through this thank you both so much we appreciate thank you for having us thank you so much lonnie all i can say is wow wow yeah everyone's story right amazing and and that they are doing so much to try and change it to make it better you know for these victims that are continuing to live in this but the strength and the courage was you know so admirable and to be able to hear audrey and misty explain it from the inside is so important for us to be able to know you know what we're fighting actually exactly i think change is going to be very difficult in the amish community but my hope is that at least when the crimes are reported to the police that the police and the prosecutors and the judges will take this more seriously and that it will be evenly distributed the justice because we see how in pennsylvania they're taking the cases really seriously but in kentucky and in missouri it's a whole different approach to these crimes yeah and the key is really for law enforcement and the judges and the prosecutors to just accept that sexual abuse is the same whether it's done in an amish community or out it has to be treated the same under the law especially for these young girls who are living with this every day and there is no religious exemption to committing these crimes that means they can't be prosecuted that is ridiculous and that has to change yes yes well lonnie thank you so much for guiding us through this legal entanglement and helping us understand what's going on is always it's such a pleasure we also want to thank louis and tiffany and audrey and misty for joining us the conversation has been unbelievable uh i do want to ask you know are our listeners our viewers however you you listen to the podcast or watch it you all spoke out about this and your voices were very clear and loud which is why we did this special podcast i'd love to hear from you what you thought about this i want to hear whether you want us to do more like these more in-depth reaction podcasts to what's really happening in the world and i mean we we peeled some of the layers back lonnie i feel where where people got to see it's like what was happening and who went to the courtroom and and why were they demonstrating and all the video and the pictures for those of you who are watching this on youtube those were provided to us by the activists and seymour so you have photos of the family you have the demonstrators i mean these are just simple homemade signs right um so i can't wait to hear everybody's um thoughts on this lonnie where can people reach you if they want to follow you and know what you're up to and and just like all good things lonnie yeah so i'm on instagram and twitter and facebook but i do have a special that's going to be airing on december 6th on the oxygen network it's called the case died with her and it's about a young woman who was allegedly sexually abused by her high school track coach it took her 18 years to break that terrible secret and what happened after that wow that will be incredible because i just know how passionate you are thank you lonnie much success with that and for all of you we thank you for joining us you can find all our content on apple podcast itunes spotify stitcher google play youtube however you consume your podcasts you can get updates by subscribing to our newsletter at truecrimedaily.com we are community as i say the crime family we are 4.1 million strong and those are a lot of voices you know i read your comments you can always find me at anna g news anna with 1n and until next week this is true crime daily the podcast and as we always say don't do crime you

Channel: True Crime Daily

Views: 964,602

Rating: 4.7384782 out of 5

Keywords: True Crime Daily Podcast, Ana Garcia, Loni Coombs, Amish brothers Seymour Missouri, Petie Schwartz, Aaron Schwartz, Springfield Missouri, Attorney Will Worsham, Webster County Prosecuting Attorney Ben Berkstresser, Missouri Department of Corrections, Seymour Missouri Amish, Luis Bolanos, Tiffani Hill, Child Advocacy Against Pedophilia CAAP, Daisy Amish Missouri, Webster County Judge Michael O. Hendrickson, Misty Griffin

Id: q1K6KzyAKSY

Length: 74min 20sec (4460 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 30 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/ThoughtfulBlackKey]

Thank you for sharing the video.

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Hearing about these types of situations, makes me happy the congregation was cold to my mother...

[u/5ft8lady]

i follow these british people...who happen to be here in the usa during the pandemic. While in the country, they learned about amish and i was shocked at the similarities.

example the amish don't believe in schooling because they believe, the more you learn, the more different views, and if you try and leave, your family will shun you. here is the video

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skip to 3:50-4:15 - they discuss the "amish disfellowshipping"

skip to 8:45-8:58 to hear how they discourage higher education

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWOsZ0w8a0s