DENVER (CO)
9News
May 21, 2019
By Kevin Vaughan
Neil Hewitt, a Catholic priest who was assigned to Leadville’s Church of Annunciation, is accused of sexually abusing at two teenage boys in the 1960s.
Donna Ballentine was sorting through a box of her late mother’s papers when she came upon a two-page, handwritten letter.
She recognized the handwriting immediately – it was that of a cousin, Stuart Saucke, who’d taken his own life a decade earlier.
“Dear Neil,” the letter began. “It’s been 24 years since you sexually molested me. I also have been an alcoholic for 24 years.”
The letter wasn’t dated or signed, but Donna immediately knew it was meant for Neil Hewitt, a Catholic priest who married her and baptized two of her children at Leadville’s Church of the Annunciation.
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