PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial
By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net
Bernard Shero can be alone in a room with somebody, but he doesn’t know who’s there until he hears a voice.
“He can’t distinguish faces,” his mother Bonnie says. “He’s done that all his life. He doesn’t know it’s them until they start talking.”
“He has to get this close,” his father, Bob, says. He’s leaning on his wife’s shoulder, peering over her at a menu she’s holding inside a Bucks County diner. If Bernard was walking into the diner today, Bob says, he would have had to tell him, “Watch out, Bern, there’s a step coming.”
Bernard Shero was born with congenital cataracts. Between the ages of six months and seven years, he had 23 eye operations. He’s worn glasses since he was 18 months old. He’s legally blind in his right eye, and can’t drive at night.
Bernard Shero has spent a lifetime peering at the world through thick lenses, and getting too close to people. That’s why, Bonnie Shero is convinced, Billy Doe accused her son of rape.
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