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	Latest Victim Comes Forward By Liz Mitchell Culpeper Star-Exponent June 21, 2006 http://www.starexponent.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=CSE/ MGArticle/CSE_MGArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149188642156 As a child, Robert Hammonds yearned for acceptance at Calvary Baptist Academy. But the constant physical and mental abuse he says he experienced prompted him to leave the K-12 private school in eighth grade. Now, at 27, Hammonds has been identified as a new victim in the ongoing case against Charles Shifflett, the pastor at First Baptist Church of Culpeper who resigned from Calvary in November. On Monday, a grand jury indicted Shifflett on seven charges of physical and sexual abuse against children for incidents that occurred at his former church nearly 20 years ago. Two of the charges of cruelty and injury to children are new; the commonwealth directly indicted these charges to the grand jury in connection with an ongoing investigation by the Culpeper County Sheriff's Office. According to court records, Hammonds is the victim of one of the new charges. The other is Culpeper resident Chad Robison, 29, who was the first person to come forward in the case. The commonwealth said the new charge involving Robison is sexual in nature but is considered "tormenting" a child because it cannot be proven that Shifflett had lascivious intent. Shifflett, 54, faces three other counts of cruelty and injury to children and two counts of indecent liberties with children. He is scheduled to be arraigned in Circuit Court Aug. 22, and a date for a trial will be set that day. As of Tuesday evening, he had not been arrested on the new charges. The Sheriff's Office could not confirm what the new charge in relation to Hammonds entailed, stating it had yet to receive the paperwork. And the commonwealth's attorney is on vacation. But last week, the Star-Exponent obtained an interview with Hammonds, who has been incarcerated for the past 10 years at the Lawrenceville Correctional Center on charges of malicious wounding and robbery. It was 1995 when a judge sentenced Hammonds, 16, to hard time for a crime that took place in Culpeper. A few years before, Hammonds told the Star-Exponent from a prison telephone, he was one of Shifflett's many young victims. Robert Hammonds' story Hammonds said when he attended Calvary Baptist Academy as a middle schooler in the early 1990s he was the only black student and constantly referred to in derogatory terms. "I didn't enjoy my time there because, as you expect, there was a lot of abuse going on at that school," Hammonds said. "Physical abuse and, more than anything, mental abuse." Hammonds said he started attending Calvary Baptist Church with his mother at the age of 6. When the opportunity came to join the school - Hammonds can't remember exactly what years he attended - he accepted because it was free tuition and he was hoping to fit in with the other children. "Looking back at it, I never was accepted as a part of them," Hammonds said. "And then, one night, I was shot at. Charles Shifflett came to me one day and told me that if he caught me talking to the white girls again that he would kill me. After church service, he was walking across the parking lot. Someone shot at me as I walked by the truck." Hammonds said he does not think Shifflett shot at him then. However, Hammonds said he was shot at a second time when he and other boys were forced to cut down trees, which were then sold to pay for teachers' salaries. "He shot a hat off my head," Hammonds said of Shifflett. "There is an area we would go and cut up wood. I was walking up there and he shot the hat off my head. … He told me to get up the hill. The guys, they went up the hill in a truck but he made me walk. I wasn't moving up the hill fast enough so he shot the hat off my head." Hammonds said there were some witnesses to the incident but everyone laughed it off out of fear or toleration. "You kind of dismissed it as guys being guys," he said, "but no responsible man does that to children." Hammonds said boys were not only abused with corporal punishment but they were forced to pick up horse manure with their bare hands and threatened daily with verbal comments from Shifflett and other churchmen. Hammonds said as the sole black student there, he felt he was treated as a slave when Shifflett forced him, and not other students, to do chores. Shifflett has repeatedly denied requests for interviews regarding his case, saying he will not discuss the accusations until after his trial. "He would make me tow bricks, tow logs - and I still have injuries from toting those logs - drive a tractor, which I could not drive, pick up horse manure," Hammonds said. "I would clean all the time, just like I was a slave and nobody was doing it with me. He had a pony or baby horse and he pushed the horse in the face and made it kick me. I suffered injuries but I just sucked it up." On one occasion, Hammonds said, Shifflett and others were in a truck and chased him through a field until they hit him. "I just laid down on the ground, hit the bed of the truck and rolled; and I wanted to pretend I was dead just in case they tried to do it again," Hammonds said. "They started to get worried that I was dead. They took me to the restaurant and gave me something to eat." An early father figure Growing up, Hammonds was one of eight children raised by a single mom. Since he did not have a father, Hammonds said he initially looked up to Shifflett as an example. But as time went on, he changed his opinion of his pastor. When he couldn't take any more, he left the church and did not involve his parents or other adults in what he says he witnessed and experienced. "I never really considered getting anyone else involved because I always felt like I was a loner," Hammonds said. "As an adolescent, you think things are funny. I thought things were funny but as it went on I thought, maybe this is not a joke. And when they start to become reality, I started to see this man really did see me as a nigger, as a slave, as something to use." As a student at Calvary's school, Hammonds said he learned his limits, which prepared him for prison. He gets out in three months if he stays on good behavior. For the past 10 years, he said, he's learned how to articulate his feelings and avoid expressing himself in a physical way. While he's not certain of his future, he says he is looking forward to being a productive and responsible citizen. Liz Mitchell can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 110 or emitchell@starexponent.com. At a glance The latest: Robert Hammonds, 27, has been identified as the newest victim in the ongoing case against First Baptist Church of Culpeper pastor Charles Shifflett. The charges: Shifflett, 54, faces three other counts of cruelty and injury to children and two counts of indecent liberties with children. He is scheduled to be arraigned in Circuit Court Aug. 22, and a date for a trial will be set that day. More charges to follow? As of Tuesday evening, he had not been arrested on the new charges. The Sheriff's Office could not confirm what the new charge in relation to Hammonds entailed, stating it had yet to receive the paperwork. And the commonwealth's attorney is on vacation.
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