JEFFERSON CITY (MO)
CBS NEWS
September 4, 2018
The attorney general of Missouri is defending a new investigation of sex abuse within the Catholic Church, even though he doesn’t have subpoena power and will have to rely on the cooperation of church leaders. Missouri is the first state to announce an investigation into clergy abuse since Pennsylvania released a scathing grand jury report last month that identified more than 300 abusive priests and more than 1,000 child victims over seven decades.
CBS News spoke with two alleged survivors of abuse in Missouri. They’re meeting for the first time, but for decades, Michael Sandridge and Joe Eldred shared a painful connection.
“For the two of you, at your lowest point, what did that look like?” CBS News correspondent Nikki Battiste asked.
“It looked like a rope around my neck and me sitting on the windowsill, ready to jump,” Eldred said.
“I’d be driving in the car, and think, ‘If — if I hit the bridge and I get killed that way, then I don’t have to think about anything,'” Sandridge said.
Sandridge said he couldn’t think about the abuse he endured in the early 1970s starting at the age of 10 when he says a priest molested him.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.