MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio
[with audio]
Madeleine Baran St. Paul, Minn. Feb 25, 2014
The mother of the boys abused by the Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer no longer ends her days with a silent prayer. Memories and flashbacks surface too easily in those quiet moments. Instead, she plays solitaire on her cell phone until sleep.
It’s been nearly two years since she learned that two of her sons were abused by Wehmeyer and that one of the boys, in turn, sexually abused his 5-year-old twin sisters. Last year, a third son told her that he, too, had been abused by the priest. One of the boys, she also learned, abused an additional sibling. In all, six of her nine children have been sexually abused either by Wehmeyer or each other, she said.
Wehmeyer pleaded guilty in 2012 to sexually abusing two of the boys, ages 12 and 14, and possessing child pornography.
The family’s life is now a blur of therapy appointments and psychiatric hospitalizations. It is, the mother said, “a war zone.” She once hoped that some of her sons would become priests. Now she hopes that none commit suicide.
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