HARTFORD (CT)
The Day
April 1, 2019
By Joe Wojtas
Sitting before the legislature’s Judiciary Committee on Monday, Dwayne Gray of Guilford told his story in public for the first time.
The now 57-year-old business owner told members that from 1973 to 1976, the Rev. Daniel McSheffery performed oral sex on him multiple times in a room off the sacristy and one day took him to a cottage on the church property where he began to perform anal sex on him. Gray said he managed to escape and run home.
But when he got there, he said he was knocked to the ground and his parents began yelling at him — the church had called to say his services as an altar boy were no longer needed because of his actions against McSheffery. His father yelled that he could not hit a priest while his mother beat him with a belt for days.
He told senators and representatives on the committee that he never spoke about the incident because of the shame he felt and the feeling that the church was too powerful. He said he never had children because he worried about the anger he had inside from the assaults.
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