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	When Child's Plea Goes Unheard; Another Pedophile May Go Free By Susan Campbell Hartford Courant February 27, 2008 http://www.courant.com/features/lifestyle/hc-susan0227.artfeb27,0,3341474.column My mother married her second husband against the wishes of just about everyone, including her three children. Love might be blind, but a child sees all. Things got so bad at home that I broke the code. I went outside the family for help, stepped up to my fourth-grade teacher's desk and told her that my stepfather was hurting me. She looked confused, so I said it again, as loudly as I dared, considering that the kids in the front row could hear, and then know. She quickly sent me back to my desk, where I spent the day trying to decide what would happen next. After school, I pretended to stack and restack library books in the classroom because I thought she would call me back to her desk and help me, but she pushed some papers into a satchel, waved to me and left. I went home knowing no one would save me from my stepfather, the pedophile. Some of the sad victims of George Reardon, too, tried to tell someone that the respected St. Francis Hospital endocrinologist was hurting them. Maybe they spoke as inexpertly as I, but you can forgive us because children are not supposed to know how to deal with sexual abuse. When it happens — and it does — it's up to a caring adult to step in. We know now that the state stepped in after multiple complaints that Reardon was molesting children, yet a psychiatrist and psychologist in three different evaluations gave the doctor the go-ahead to return and do what he did. Even when one of Reardon's young patients — now an attorney whose clientele includes child-abuse victims — gave the examiners a detailed description of the doctor's genitalia, it wasn't enough. And so Reardon continued his practice, which appears to have included fondling and photographing children in explicit poses — sometimes with other children. Another generation of kids was left up there on the altar, their childhoods sacrificed to perversity. Reardon called this "research." Last year, the book "How Doctors Think" by Dr. Jerome Groopman described how medical professionals get things right and what happens when they are wrong. Reardon's examiners might have made their tragic mistake for no reason other than Reardon was a respected doctor, and molesting children is not something respected doctors do. Believing otherwise runs counter to what we think we know about how the world works. But respected doctors do molest children, as do respected clergy, teachers and coaches. My stepfather was a three-times-a-week churchgoer, and as his victims, my brothers and I were often reminded how lucky we were that he was willing to take us in. Surely a man like that could only and ever be an upright citizen. Reardon retired in '93 and died in 1998, but the sad facts of his life were exposed when last year thousands of pornographic photos and videos were found hidden in his former home. Since then, more than 60 adults have filed suits. Now, we have mandated that professionals who regularly come into contact with children must, by law, report suspected child abuse or neglect. But the rest of us — those not charged by law to pay attention — still don't want to acknowledge the evil in our midst. The pervert just might be the affable churchgoer quick to take on the thankless task of raising someone else's children, or the doctor who is extremely devoted to his patients, so much so that he'll take them on camping trips and keep them in his office at all hours. We still want to think that the pedophile doesn't look like us, that the pastor at the storefront church or the beloved doctor next door could never hurt a child because, well, they're the pastor or the doctor. But where children gather, so, too, will pedophiles. The quicker we acknowledge that, the sooner we all can heal. Contact Susan Campbell at scampbell@courant.com or 860-241-6454.
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