CAMBRIDGE (MA)
Boston Globe
By Joanna Weiss, Globe Staff | February 1, 2005
CAMBRIDGE -- The former Sunday School classmates agree on this much: Their class was rowdy, the teachers were overwhelmed, and the three most raucous boys sometimes left the classroom, including one who accuses defrocked priest Paul R. Shanley of raping him during those hours.
But when they testified at Shanley's child rape trial in Middlesex Superior Court yesterday, the four classmates offered strikingly different memories of St. Jean Church in the early 1980s.
They disagreed about where the classes were held in the Newton church and whether Shanley himself pulled the boys out of class. Several couldn't name their teachers and could only recall a few classmates. One said she hadn't seen Shanley's alleged victim since confirmation, but the man testified last week that he was never confirmed.
In a case that hinges on recollections from two decades ago, jurors yesterday got a taste of the vagaries of memory, as Shanley's defense lawyer grilled the former students on the details of St. Jean's. The jury also heard testimony about the controversial subject of repressed memories and heard a psychiatrist acknowledge that some in his field believe they are phony.
Prosecutors rested their case yesterday, the fifth day of testimony in Shanley's long-anticipated trial. Superior Court Judge Stephen Neel eliminated one of the three child rape charges against Shanley, 74, after the defense and prosecution agreed there had been no evidence presented on it. Shanley now faces two charges of raping a child and two charges of indecent assault and battery on a child, and he could be sentenced to life in prison if found guilty.
Those charges stem from the memories of a 27-year-old man, a firefighter who says Shanley repeatedly raped and fondled him in church pews, the boys' room, the rectory, and the confessional from ages 6 to 11.
Posted by kshaw at February 1, 2005 06:25 AM