Ellie Harold
P.O. Box 803
Norcross, GA 30091

Detective Grant Foster
Marietta Police Department
150 Haynes Street
Marietta, GA 30060

June 4, 2003

Dear Detective Foster,

Thank you very much for meeting with me and Pattie Hunter Bagley on March 31.
I appreciate your support in resolving the issues arising from our experience of molestation. Per your request, I am enclosing my account of what happened to me as a child at St. Joseph Catholic Church and School, as well as my subsequent attempts to find reconciliation between all the parties involved in this matter. As I mentioned to you in our meeting, only within the last year has it hit home with me that in fact a crime was committed against me and the other children who were sexually molested by Father Biggers.

Thank you for taking this report. I appreciate the opportunity for my account to be made part of an official police record. I understand the current statute of limitations precludes charges being brought against the offending parties. However, it is an important part of my healing to realize that, if there were no statutory limitation, charges would indeed have been filed.

Please do not hesitate to contact me for any reason regarding this account. I am willing to do whatever is needed on behalf of this case. I will also pass on the word to the others I know who were also molested by Father Biggers that you are available for consultation about reports they might like to make. Thanks again for your assistance in this difficult matter.

Sincerely,

Ellie Harold

cc: Olivia Van Houten, Attorney-at-Law
Gayle White

My family moved to Marietta from New York in January of 1960. My father was a commercial artist who was recruited by Lockheed to work in their Art Department. He found us a rental home near Lockheed School where I attended the second half of 3rd grade. In summer of 1960, my parents bought a home on Campbell Hill St. My mother, a Roman Catholic, wanted us to live close to the Catholic church so we could attend the school there and be part of the Catholic community centered in that neighborhood. I started 4th grade in August, 1960 at St. Joseph.

Like the other boys and girls, I wore a uniform to school: a navy blue jumper with a white blouse and blue sweater, a red clip-on tie, and a blue felt beret. A badge with the school insignia was sewn to both the hat and jumper. It was important to wear the uniform and we were reprimanded if some part of it was missing. I remember mornings of panic when I couldn't find my tie or beret. The only time we didn't wear our school uniform was when we wore our Girl Scout uniforms on days we had meetings. On gym days we wore shorts under our uniforms.

We were in school from 8:15 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. Because we lived in the neighborhood, however, many of my friends and I spent a lot of time around the church and school when classes were over in the afternoon and during the summer. I was a very devout little Catholic and was eager to please God by helping out as much as possible.

Sometimes I clapped the erasers for my teacher and cleaned the green "blackboard" for her, but mostly I spent time after school and on weekends weeding the shrubbery around the antebellum mansion that served as the convent. I remember the smell of the privet hedges and the pine straw we laid as cushion around the bushes. As a reward for our efforts my friends were given watered down Kool-Aid. This was exciting to me because we never had soft drinks or Kool-Aid at home. The house was rumored to have been a hospital during the Civil War and some said remnants of blood could be found on the carpet in the hallway. Given that, and the strange black habits worn by nuns who were feared as much as they were admired, helping out around the convent was a mysterious adventure in which I felt privileged to participate.

As I got older (this was when I was in the 5th and 6th grades, or 10-12 years old) I was also given the opportunity to help out in the church office. The church office was located in what was known at the time as the "new" building. The new building housed the 6th and 7th grade classrooms, as well as the Kindergarten, and a set of boy's and girl's restrooms. One end of the building had an exit leading down steps to Lacy Street; the other exited onto a sidewalk that went to the church. Located above the new building was a playground and parking lot; below, another parking lot and the old building that housed the other grades and the Principals office. The church office had a desk for the Pastor as well as for the church secretary.

Helping out in the church office mostly involved folding bulletins after the secretary ran them off on the mimeograph machine. I remember the smell of the mimeo ink. I also had the job of sorting the collection envelopes each week. At Mass there were two collections, before and after Communion. Families put their collection offerings in envelopes, wrote their names on the back with the amount of their gift, and then the envelopes were put in the collection baskets. By the time they got to me, the envelopes were empty but the names and amounts still needed to be recorded. My job was to put the envelopes in two different piles-one for each collection-and then sort them by name in alphabetical order. I did this faithfully almost every week and felt quite important for having this regular job to do. For the most part I liked staying after school and having assigned tasks that were mine to do. The part I didn't like was what happened sometimes when I was there alone with the Pastor.

The church secretary worked until 4:00 p.m. and sometimes my work meant that I stayed later than that. So there would be times when I would still be sorting the envelopes-on holidays there were usually a lot more to sort, and sometimes I might have missed a week and had to catch up-and Father Biggers would still be in the office.

Father Biggers was a new priest to the parish and was known for being very outgoing and friendly. He was tall and handsome and funny and made going to church a lot more enjoyable than when the only priests at the church were old and boring. My mother liked him a lot and it seemed my family made a point of going to the Masses when he was scheduled. Father Biggers had instituted fun things around the school too: roller skating parties at the rink in Mableton, swim parties at the Pine Tree Country Club.

He had a white car with a blue interior that seemed quite fancy to me, and from time to time he would select me to ride with him to the parties, or he would give me a ride home from school, even though it was just around the corner in easy walking distance. My family didn't have a nice new car like his so it felt very special to go for a ride with him. One time in the car he gave me a set of rosary beads that glowed in the dark. He explained to me how to hold them under a light and then take them under the covers to see the glow. He blessed the beads before giving them to me. It felt very special to be given a holy gift by him.

I think that's why I didn't know what to do when he'd come over when I was sorting the envelopes in the office when the secretary had gone home. I'd try to look very busy and ignore him, but he would grab me up and put me on top of a file cabinet. There he put his face very close to mine, hugging me. I remember the feel of the fabric of his black shirt and coat, and the way the white collar seemed to dig into the reddened flesh of his neck.

I didn't like the way he breathed on me. He would usually say "Come on now, give me some sugar." I didn't know what he meant by this, but it was followed by him putting his tongue in my mouth and moving it around. This felt disgusting to me, like having a big worm or slug in my mouth. It seemed like forever that his tongue was in my mouth and I looked up at the ceiling at the perforations in the tiles, looking for some kind of pattern, trying to breathe and waiting for it to be over. Then it would be over and I'd squirm away from Father Biggers and get away as soon as I could. On those days I hated when he said he'd give me a ride home.

I was terrified someone would come in and see what was going on. Eventually a partition was built in the corner of the office where the file cabinets were located, so even when the secretary was still there, Father Biggers could do as he pleased. I still didn't like what he was doing-and did what I could to avoid it-but at least I was not so afraid of someone finding out.

I felt very confused about what was happening. On the one hand Father Biggers was said by all to be a great priest-and I also felt that he way. Plus, his attention made me feel special. On the other hand, though, I didn't like having his fat tongue in my mouth. I felt that it was wrong, what he was doing, but I didn't exactly understand why. I don't recall him telling me not to tell anyone, but I knew I shouldn't. Plus, I'd have been too embarrassed. I couldn't imagine that I wouldn't be punished. Besides, this was a man of God, a holy person. God must want this to happen. I convinced myself that this was the sort of trial or penance that the saints who were described in my prayerbook would have been asked to undergo. I felt that I was being tested to see how holy I was.

In the summer between school sessions and on Saturdays, Father Biggers would sometimes let me and my friends into the new building to play Hide and Seek with him. We'd joke about it afterwards-how we never wanted to get caught by Father Biggers or be "It" with him. We never said why, however, and it wasn't until 1999 that I knew for a fact that he'd molested anyone besides me.

One day Father Biggers led me into the Sacristy, an area adjacent to the Sanctuary where he would dress in the liturgical vestments before Mass. In the Sacristy were kept the Communion wafers and the wine used in the Sacraments. He took a box of the wafers from a cupboard and showed me how, because they had not yet been consecrated, you could eat them just like regular food. I remember taking a handful from the box and chomping down on them, but it felt weird because at that time in the church you were supposed to swallow the wafer whole-it was considered a sin if you even let the host touch your teeth-and here we were eating them like it was normal.

Another time stands out in my mind when I'd been playing around the school. It was summertime and I was dressed in shorts and a sleeveless top. I was in Father Biggers' office alone with him and the door closed. There was a couch near the secretary's desk and he was crouched down in front of it, and the back of my legs was up against it. Father Biggers had his hands all over me, front and back, and then he slipped his hand down the back of my shorts and underpants. I felt tingly all over when he touched my bottom. I don't remember what happened after that.

As best I can recall the kissing and fondling episodes went on for about a year. One day I came home to find my mother quite upset about something. She said she had spoken to some other parents about Father Biggers and she wanted to know if I had ever allowed Father Biggers to touch me. I felt terribly ashamed but said yes. She then told me I should never let him touch me in that way ever again. I felt that it was my fault that my mother was angry with Father Biggers.

Soon thereafter school resumed. A new Pastor was brought in. We were forbidden to go near the church office. I felt that I was being punished, since I had enjoyed most aspects of helping out after school.

One day, the seventh grade girls and the eighth grade boys were sent to separate rooms. A nun met with the girls and the new Pastor met with the boys. The nun said the purpose of the meeting was to answer any questions we might have about boys and sex. One girl asked why it was wrong to French kiss. I didn't know what French kissing was, but I started to get the idea when the nun said it was wrong because when an unmarried man put his tongue in the mouth of a woman it indicated the desire for sexual union, and, outside of marriage, this was a sin. This was the first time I realized what Father Biggers had been doing with me, and why it felt both exciting and wrong.

I was starting to get interested in boys at this time. At the end of the seventh grade a new boy came to our class from England. Like several other girls in my class, I had a terrible crush on him. We chased him around the playground and always tried to go to the Mass where he served as altar boy. At recess one day he told us that if we didn't stop chasing us he would rape us. My girlfriend and I knew he had said a bad word but we didn't quite know what it meant. We looked it up in the dictionary at home and it mentioned the term "sexual intercourse," but it still wasn't clear to me what "intercourse" meant. I wondered if Father Biggers had raped me. I didn't know enough about sex to know whether this had happened to me or not. I did not feel I could talk to my mother about it.

Over the next several years, the memory of what happened with Father Biggers seemed to fade. But whenever I found myself in a situation with a boy where kissing might take place, I felt extremely awkward and scared. I was afraid I'd be found out to have had more experience than I should have had. I didn't know, for instance, what a normal kiss was supposed to be life. The first and only time I played Spin the Bottle, I was so upset I spent the whole next day crying.

When I was fifteen, my older sister's boyfriend was giving me driving lessons. She was away at college and he was supposedly just being friendly. He had me drive out by Cheatham Hill and Kennesaw Mountain where we'd end up parked on deserted country roads. He kissed me, and at first it seemed quite romantic. But then he became more aggressive and I was scared. Again, I felt myself in a situation similar to what happened with Father Biggers, and I didn't know how to stop it. From the outside it looked like Joe, who was 21 at the time, was just being nice and doing me (and my father) a favor by teaching me to drive. I wanted to get my license and this looked like the only way. This went on for months, and didn't stop until for some reason Joe told my sister. She wrote me a letter saying I shouldn't let him do that to me. I was embarrassed, and, again, felt that somehow it had all been my fault.

As I grew through adolescence I often found myself in sexual situations with boys/men who were older and more experienced than I was. I did not know how to say no to their advances and felt that I must give them what they wanted if I wanted to keep seeing them, even though I felt more confusion and repulsion than attraction. Every time I kissed some guy for the first time, the memory of Father Biggers' tongue in my mouth would come back to me. When I was sixteen I recall explaining to my first steady boyfriend about what had happened to me. I felt even then that I was not normal in my sexual response, and I wanted him to know that it was my fault, not his, that I didn't act more interested in sex, or get more pleasure from it.

I graduated from Marietta High in 1969. As I walked across the platform during the ceremony to receive my diploma, I looked out at the people who filled the stands of Northcutt Stadium and, to my great horror, one face stood out from all the rest. Father Biggers-who I'd not seen since he left sometime when I was in the 7th grade-was beaming at me from amongst the crowd. I felt pure rage when I saw him. I thought angrily to myself, "Oh, he's come to see his little girls graduate." I guess I knew there must have been others he'd been messing around with, but still I had never spoken about this to anyone else it might have happened to. I felt my graduation had been ruined by seeing him-it was like some evil shadow had moved in like a dark cloud.

I went off to college in Boston for one year. I became quite promiscuous in my sexual behavior and this lasted for many years. At first I attributed this to the "freedom" of the late 60s and early 70's, but looking back, I was compulsively sexual with men whether or not I liked them. I dropped out after that first year and came back to Georgia.

To some degree I recognized this was a problem when I turned on a nice man I liked who I was also very attracted to because he told me he loved me. I was so totally repulsed by his declaration that I told him I wanted him to go away. He did but I was left with the feeling that this was not normal-this was someone who really cared about me-why couldn't I let him love me? I was going to school part-time at Georgia Sate University so I went for help to the Psychological Services. I started in therapy with a graduate student there for a couple of years, trying to understand why I had problems with intimacy.

Therapy helped me feel better about myself, but the problems continued to plague me for years. Even though I married when I was 26, within a year my husband started an affair with someone else and we split up. I continued to seek professional help, but resumed and continued my promiscuous behavior. I eventually earned a degree in Nursing and started working as an R.N.
I was most attracted to married men, particularly those who were doctors, therapists or spiritual teachers. I was able to justify my behavior because I was inclined to believe the best about my partners and to see our situation in very romantic terms. I didn't really see that I'd been imprinted at an early age by my experience with Father Biggers. Years later I learned that my first sexual experience with a man was with him, and there I'd learned a model of relating that I continued to practice because, to me, this was what I'd been taught!

When I was 33, I was in the process of leaving nursing because I'd received a calling to be a minister. A few months into my seminary training, I had a brush with cancer that opened my eyes to the way I'd been living. I started to desperately want to heal the dysfunctional patterns in my life that kept me from loving God and myself and others in healthy ways. I began to have insight into why I had trouble saying "no" to people and situations that weren't in my best interest. I had not been able to say no to Father Biggers without feeling I was betraying God, so I learned to say "yes," whether this was the right thing to do or not. It still took me several more years to translate this insight into new ways of behaving. I am still ashamed of those I hurt because of this. In 1990, I returned to Atlanta from the Bahamas where I'd been ministering for two years. I began therapy once again. In the Spring of 1991, I was invited to lunch with several of my former classmates from St. Joseph Catholic School. After we ate, one of them, K.F., snickered, "You'll never guess who said Mass at the consecration of the new church recently." His name was never spoken, but I knew she was referring to Father Biggers. I was incensed.

As a minister I was now more aware than ever of the power a clergyperson holds over those in the congregation. I was upset that the church would allow someone whose victims might still attend the church to preside in an official capacity at a church service. I didn't know if K.F. had been one of those victims (as it turns out it, she was not but her younger sister was). But she certainly knew enough about him to make the comment. I cynically recalled that my abuse had occurred while sorting the offering envelopes for the Building Fund that eventually resulted in this new church finally being built. How ironic that he should abuse again in that new location!

I left the lunch and drove over to St. Joseph Church. I asked to meet with the current pastor, whose name I do not recall. I explained that I had received the information about Father Biggers participating in the Mass and why I thought it was unconscionable for this man to ever perform a public worship service where one of his former victims might be present. The pastor said he wasn't aware of what had happened with Father Biggers back in the 60s. But regardless, he said, wouldn't I consider it best to simply "forgive and forget" what had happened so long ago. Besides, he said, Father Biggers had been living for a long time at the monastery in Conyers, surely his life of prayer was penance enough for what he might have done. I explained that it was difficult to forget something whose consequences you live with on a daily basis.

Now that I knew the whereabouts of Father Biggers, I discussed with my therapist my desire to confront him. With her approval, I called the abbot of the Monastery of the Holy Ghost. "I was sexually abused by one of the priests living at your monastery," I told him. "I'd like for you to set up a meeting for me with him in a public place." The abbot was very cooperative and got back to me with a time and location where we could meet. Like the pastor at St. Joseph, however, he did not once inquire about how I was or if I needed assistance.

I wrote about my meeting with him in a book I authored in 2000:

I had been to this monastery once before, on a field trip that had taken place at the time of the abuse. I was struck this time by how large the abbey loomed over me as I drove down the shady lane to meet with Father B. Thoughts racing with anxiety, I suddenly recalled one of the fond names Catholics have for their religion-Holy Mother Church! I felt the confusion of any child who has been an incest victim. How could the Mother have let this happen? Why did she not protect me? Why had the only way open for me to enter the church been through the back door-as the Other Woman?

When I met the priest, he clearly remembered me but denied doing anything wrong to me. I reminded him that he had kissed me with his tongue. But, he argued with complete innocence, those deep-throated kisses he had forced on me were simply his way of expressing affection. It took me an hour and a half of recounting to him the ways in which his behavior had adversely affected my life both spiritually and sexually to elicit any response resembling remorse from him.

When at last he admitted a small measure of regret, it struck me he really didn't think he had done anything very wrong. "At least," he protested, "I'm not like those priests you read about in the newspapers." I asked him in what way was he different from them. With all sincerity he replied, "Well, I never did touch any little boys."

He as much as said he was just a normal, heterosexual male expressing his prerogative in an androcratic system to do what he pleased with a female. Because he did not have intercourse with me, he had not broken his vow of celibacy, at least not technically. He had played by the rules, more or less, and his mask of virtue remained intact as he pursued a life of monastic prayer.

I left the meeting with compassion for this man. In his desire to be pure enough for the church, he had allowed his own sexuality to be repressed and distorted. He had unconsciously become an ordained instrument for the abuse of power the Old Church wields. I also felt a deep sadness. I recalled my own desire as a child to be of service to God, and how I had been refused for all but service to this man. I had once confused him with God, but now saw him as a pitiful pawn of an institution which entitles men at the expense of women. As a result, the Old Church was also cutting itself off from the feminine aspect of all of creation, again limiting itself to only half the truth.

As I drove away from the monastery, the abbey church looked a great deal smaller. It had been a risky encounter and friends I told about it later remarked how gutsy I had been to set it up in the first place. And I had surprised myself that I was able to expose the Old Church of my childhood. As much as anyone, I would have liked the assurances I believed my compliance might have brought me. Being true to myself, however, was more important.

Prior to this meeting I had considered whether or not I should pursue some legal remedy for what had happened to me. I spoke with a lawyer friend in Missouri and he seemed to feel there might be a way to sue for damages. But after the meeting, I felt a certain amount of resolution. I felt I'd done all I could do and was ready to let it all go and go on with my life.

I was able to make progress in my therapy, so much so that, after another three or four bad relationships, I eventually met a good man with whom I was able to establish a committed partnership. We married in 1998. I went on to write a book about my experience of ministry and church and was at work on promoting this book and a new ministry when, in January, 2002, the media broke a story that forced me to revisit my painful past with Father Biggers and the Catholic church once again.

Watching the television account of the arrest, trial and subsequent conviction of John Geoghan, a former priest, for his molestation of a large number of children, I had two main reactions. One was the recognition that I was not the only child a priest had ever molested-apparently there were thousands of us. Second was the realization that what happened to me was not merely an unpleasant occurrence like a childhood disease, but was in fact a crime. Until the moment I say Geoghan in handcuffs I could not have imagined Clarence Biggers being held accountable for what he did to me.

In response to what I saw on the evening news, I wrote an OpEd article that I sent to several major newspapers. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published it on January 23, 2002. I sent a copy of the article with a cover letter to the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, as well as to the Marist Order, to which Fr. Biggers had belonged at the time of the abuse.

It was several months before I received any response, but I did eventually hear from Kathi Stearns, the Vice Chancellor for the Archdiocese and Father Dennis Steik, the Marist Provincial. Ms. Stearns invited me to tell meet with her and an attorney for the Archdiocese. I retained a lawyer of my own and agreed to the meeting. Fr. Steik called me to tell me he believed I was telling the truth about what happened to me.

Meanwhile, I approached Gayle White of the AJC and told her about my dealings to date with the Archdiocese in this matter. She interviewed me at length and a story detailing my allegations was published on April 2, 2002. Following publication of this article I was contacted by several local television stations and was interviewed by Fox 5 and 11Alive news. Within a couple of days, I received phone calls from several women who said they had also been molested by Clarence Biggers who wanted to offer their support.

Fr. Steik visited me and my mother on April 7. 2002. He produced a letter my mother recognized as one she had typed on behalf of a group of parents in October, 1963. From this document we were able to learn the names of several other girls who were apparently molested too. In total, I have come to know of the existence of twelve women who were molested by Clarence Biggers as children. I suspect there are more.

In the last year I have largely suspended other activities to serve as an informal coordinator and spokesperson for these women. We have met several times, and on March 23 three of us attended an Alumni Mass at St. Joseph's Catholic School. A framed photograph of Clarence Biggers was still hanging in a prominent place in the foyer of the church. When we introduced ourselves to the school principal, Charles Kraft, he became irate, asked us to leave, and called the Marietta Police Department before we could do so. Needless to say, one is sorely disappointed at the lack of compassion shown to the victims of Clarence Biggers by those associated with the Catholic Church.

To date, no one seems to be willing to assume accountability for what happened to the victims of Clarence Biggers. The Archbishop of Atlanta, John Donoghue, repeatedly says it's the Marists' problem. The Marists say they wish they could help but can't afford to reimburse the women for past therapy expenses, as originally promised. It turns out the financial committee that makes such decisions for the Marists has a member, Timothy Sugrue, who was found liable in an Arkansas civil court for raping an 8 year-old girl when he was an Air Force chaplain. He avoided paying the $1.5 million judgment brought against him by showing that he'd taken a vow of poverty. And, again, the Marists couldn't afford to pay it so the victim went uncompensated.

I truly hope this record of what happened to me will further the effort to bring to justice to all who have been abused by clergy of the Roman Catholic Church. I further pray that a way will be found to hold accountable those who knew of the crimes committed by these priests and still allowed them to pursue a ministry that would bring them into contact with children. Finally, I look forward to the time when the statutes of limitation are lifted and charges may be filed against those who harmed me and others.