BishopAccountability.org
 
  Closed Files Kept Family out

By Mary Ellen Lowney mlowney@repub.com
The Republican
March 17, 2006

http://www.masslive.com/chicopeeholyoke/republican/index.ssf?/base/
news-0/114258504111680.xml&coll=1

Editor's note: This is the last of a six-part series held in conjunction with Sunshine Week, a national observance focusing on the role of freedom of information in a democratic society.

SPRINGFIELD - For the Croteau family, it's still not over.

But more than three decades after the murder of their young son Daniel, at least they are able to see and hold the voluminous record of the subsequent investigation that remains open to this day.

And to Carl Croteau, the father of the boy who was just 13 when he was beaten to death in 1972, that's something to be thankful for.

"There's never closure, as long as they're still investigating," said Croteau, a Springfield resident who is now 75 and a retired Hampden County Housing Court mediator.

"But to see what they had been compiling all those years, the things they told us were too important to the investigation to make public, that's something. We waited so long," he added.

The Croteau family had to wait for a 2004 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling that followed a challenge brought by The Republican and a Greenfield lawyer who represents clergy abuse plaintiffs. The case for disclosure, argued by a lawyer for The Republican before the high court, was opposed by both a lawyer for the prime suspect in the murder - a defrocked Roman Catholic priest - and Hampden County District Attorney William M. Bennett.

The Croteaus had long been told that most information about Daniel's death was confidential due to the ongoing nature of the investigation. But years went by, and while rumors persisted about the possible involvement of the family's then-pastor, the Rev. Richard R. Lavigne, the now-defrocked priest, little was released publicly or privately.

Daniel's body was found beneath the Robinson Bridge on the Chicopee River. No one has been charged.

Even when Lavigne was publicly identified in 1991 as the only suspect in the crime, the district attorney's office in Hampden County was far from forthcoming with additional information, saying the investigation was ongoing.

Lavigne, who lives in Chicopee, served 10 years' probation after pleading guilty in June 1992 to molesting two youths.

The district attorney's office argued that release of the files might impede the suspect's right to a fair trial, should he ever be charged, and harm future investigations.

The Republican and lawyer John Stobierski, who represents more than 40 Roman Catholic clergy sexual abuse plaintiffs, argued that the investigation would not be impeded by unsealing records, in part because the newspaper had already published much of what investigators knew based on interviews with them and on records released under the newspaper's previous court challenges.

The newspaper also argued that Lavigne has already been the subject of significant publicity, not only because he was identified as a prime suspect in the murder case, but because he has been accused by more than two dozen people of sexually assaulting them.

The Republican hired Boston lawyer Jonathan Albano to argue the case before the Supreme Court after Bennett successfully appealed a ruling by Hampden County Superior Court Judge Peter A. Velis that the files should be opened. Springfield lawyer Joseph P. Pessolano had argued the case for the newspaper before Velis.

As for the Croteaus, seeing the information on the decades-old investigation was a reward, if an agonizing one.

"It was very emotional, very difficult to read through it," Croteau said of the visit to the state police office on State Street he made with his wife, Bunny Croteau, where the files were opened for them for the first time.

The Croteaus have six other children, including another son who sued the diocese over his own alleged sexual abuse at the hands of Lavigne.

Croteau said seeing the 2,035 pages of documents was cathartic, in a sense.

"It was a huge amount of information, like an encyclopedia. Thousands and thousands of pages of things we were told we couldn't see. Even the autopsy report we had never seen," he said.

Croteau believes that as hard as the information was to digest, it should have been made public long ago. While Bennett said the case against Lavigne was closed in 1995 after DNA tests failed to conclusively link the ex-priest to the crime, he said the case remained open around the time legal challenges were being waged to open up the records.

In addition to the high court ruling, The Republican also successfully filed suit to open up many other records, including in a 1996 state Appeals Court case and a 2002 Hampden County Superior Court case.

Court action by newspapers has been crucial to uncovering the extent of the clergy abuse scandal. A Springfield judge, Constance Sweeney, opened the floodgate on the Boston Archdiocese scandal when she agreed with a Boston Globe argument that church documents should be unsealed there.

Croteau said freedom of information laws are key to a democratic society.

"Those laws are very important. People have the right to know what's going on in government," he said.

"Otherwise, there are innuendos, and you don't trust your own government. It's about the truth. Let's bring the truth out," he added.

Croteau looks back on all the years the records were kept from him and his family and still feels let down by the system.

"All those years, we didn't know beans. It wasn't fair to me or to my family."

 
 

Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.