RHODE ISLAND
Providence Journal
Posted May. 16, 2016
One sobering lesson of the child sex-abuse scandals of recent years is that perpetrators who are not stopped usually find new victims. Reporting by Providence Journal Staff Writers Karen Lee Ziner and Jacqueline Tempera on May 1 has added disturbing new details to the story of Howard White, one of six former employees recently accused of improper behavior at St. George’s School, in Middletown. News of the allegations against Mr. White has had a ripple effect, bringing at least three additional accusers out of the shadows.
In 1974, Mr. White was quietly dismissed by St. George’s from his job as assistant chaplain after he admitted to sexual misconduct, according to a report issued last year by the school. But his behavior was not reported to child protection authorities, as required by law.
Mr. White went on to work at a girls’ school in Virginia from 1978 to 1982 and then moved on to a coed private school in North Carolina for two years. While no accusations have arisen from either setting, additional allegations did recently emerge from Waynesville, N.C., where Mr. White served as rector of Grace Church in the Mountains for 22 years.
There, the police are currently pursuing two criminal investigations. One is based on a woman’s assertions, reported by the Journal, that Mr. White abused her at the church during the mid-1980s, when she was about 15. Another stems from a complaint by Forrest Parker Jr., 46, who contacted the Journal after reading the woman’s story.
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