KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star
August 20, 2018
By Judy L. Thomas
Missouri and Kansas authorities need to launch grand jury-style investigations into clergy sexual abuse crimes and cover-ups in the Catholic church similar to the one conducted in Pennsylvania, a local attorney and abuse victims said Monday.
“When we received the grand jury investigation from Pennsylvania, it was shocking and it was saddening,” said Rebecca Randles, who has represented hundreds of victims in priest sexual abuse lawsuits. “And then I sat down to try to figure out, well, how many priests in the Kansas City area, the St. Louis area and KCK had been similarly abusive?”
The number, Randles said, was astounding.
“We have over 230 priests that we know of that have been sexually abusive in this area,” she said of her accounting of those who have been accused. “And our population centers are much smaller. So it details that there is an even greater issue in the Kansas City, St. Louis, Missouri areas and the Archdiocese of Kansas than what we’re seeing in the grand jury report out of Pennsylvania.”
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