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If anything good can possibly come out of a child molesting case, it may be that more people will be talking to their children about molesting, said one local victim advocate Wednesday.
"More than anything, it's important with this happening that parents use it to talk to their kids," said Becky Moreno, victim advocate for Warsaw. "It's a very sad and a very real threat to them."
Moreno was referring to the arrest last week of Anthony J. DeMarco, 25, of Mentone, on charges of child molesting.
Five accusers, ranging in age from 13 to 17, have come forward to allege that DeMarco molested them. This is the time for parents to talk to their children about exactly what molesting consists of, Moreno said.
"Teaching what it is, for one thing - kids might understand the worst-case scenario, but maybe they don't think touching is molesting," she said.
Lisa Eckert, executive director of the Mental Health Association of Kosciusko County, said she realizes many parents have a hard time talking about such a delicate and personal subject.
"I know it's uncomfortable to talk about," she said. "But the more we talk about it, the less uncomfortable we are and the more everybody knows about it. Silence is what these guys count on."
Moreno and Eckert also said child molesters come from all walks of life.
"Most child molesters don't look like child molesters," Moreno said, and Eckert said, "It does show that child molesters are average people. ... It's the guy next door. It can be anybody."
Child molesters are experts at manipulating children and adults, Eckert said.
"They choose children they're attracted to or they think are the most vulnerable," she said. "Then they do a 'grooming' thing - they'll take months to gain the child's trust."
The molester also usually knows all the "in" stuff for the age group he's going after, Eckert said. "They know all the cool stuff, the right words, the latest games."
Child molesters also know how to gain the confidence of their targets' parents and families, Moreno said.
"They're very likable, very well liked," she said. "They go for the whole family - if they have the family's confidence, they have it made."
The molesting process often begins with the molester inviting a child out for ice cream and patting his or her back or tousling the kid's hair.
"It starts with casual touching and gradually moves into sexual touching," Eckert said. "Often the child doesn't realize it's the wrong kind of touching."
By the time the molesting escalates into intercourse or rape, she said, "the child is probably in a place where they don't know how to say 'no.'"
"Sometimes people get confused because the victim performs sex acts on the perpetrator, but that falls into the grooming thing," Moreno said. "The molester is very, very good at finding out weaknesses and exploiting them."
Moreno said very few children lie about being abused.
"If a child reports to you that they've been abused, it's most likely it happened," she said, "no matter how great the perpetrator seems."
Statistically, the percentage of false reporting by children in molesting cases is 2 percent - much less, Eckert said, than is average in reporting other crimes, including robbery and homicide.
Boys have a more difficult time coming forward, Moreno said, because the molestation causes them to question or struggle with their own sexuality.
Moreno said the average child molester victimizes between 30 and 60 children before their first arrest.
Both Moreno and Eckert said children who have been molested need immediate and intensive counseling, for at least two years, and probably off and on for many years.
"There is such a sense of betrayal," she said. "They usually don't know who to trust."
