WHEATON (IL)
Religion Unplugged - The Media Project - Institute for Nonprofit News [Dallas TX]
May 1, 2026
By Julie Roys
While on a retreat in 1990 for students who had participated in summer ministries at the evangelical flagship Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, “Joe” had a horrifying experience in the middle of the night.
“I just remember being in a state where I’m wrestling against something that is so much stronger than me. I can’t even really move,” Joe told The Roys Report (TRR). “But I remember continuing to try to sit up, try to get up. And then, as I’m struggling, I’m realizing that someone is fondling me.”
Joe said he finally “exploded up” into a sitting position. He then saw something that seemed like “a demonic spirit … float up and go through the door of the room into the hallway.”
“It’s just matter of fact,” Joe told TRR, noting he was relaying events as he remembered them, not embellishing to sound sensational. Then he conceded that “at some level, it is sensational. A lot of this stuff is just so crazy.”
Joe said he then ran to the door of his dorm room at George Williams College about an 90 minutes north of Wheaton, where the retreat was being held. He peered into the hallway but didn’t see anything.
So, he returned to the room he was sharing with Dennis Massaro, then-director of Wheaton’s Office of Christian Outreach (OCO) and 15 years older than Joe, as well as another student.
Joe said he went into the bathroom and splashed water on his face, trying to make sense of what he had just experienced. Eventually, he went back to bed and fell asleep.
But when he awoke in the morning, Massaro was kneeling at his bed, crying. Joe said Massaro confessed he had molested Joe but swore he had been dreaming and didn’t realize what he was doing.
TRR reached out for comment to Massaro, who’s now 72 and living in Florida, but he did not reply.
Naïve and unable to believe that the well-liked and gregarious administrator, whom Joe had considered a close friend, would intentionally molest him, Joe believed Massaro’s story.
For eight years, Joe told only a select few what had happened until — through a very unlikely set of circumstances — Joe discovered there was another alleged victim. And then another.
TRR has confirmed the existence of the other alleged victims and spoken to one of them, who, like Joe, requested anonymity. (TRR has a policy of naming sexual abuse victims only if they request it). That other alleged victim, “Craig,” told TRR that Massaro sexually assaulted him numerous times over two nights while on a Wheaton-sponsored retreat in 1998.
Though their assaults were eight years apart, both Craig and Joe reported the assaults independently within days of each other in 1998 to then-Wheaton Dean of Students Sam Shellhammer. A third student and alleged victim also reported to Shellhammer around the same time.
This prompted Massaro’s abrupt resignation in May 1998 from the prominent position he’d held for 19 years, overseeing seven Wheaton-run ministry programs and more than 70 local ministry partnerships. (OCO has since been renamed Ministry and Evangelism).
But Wheaton, under then-President Duane Litfin (after whom the college later named its divinity school), kept Massaro’s alleged sexual abuse of students secret.
The college had Massaro sign a release, agreeing to keep the circumstances surrounding his departure confidential and imposing a $5,000 fine if he didn’t.
A couple years later, Massaro’s ex-wife subpoenaed Wheaton for Massaro’s employment records and Shellhammer’s testimony as part of the couple’s custody proceedings. In a letter to her attorney, Wheaton said it would comply with the request since her attorney agreed “to protect the confidentiality” of the records and testimony. Those records were later sealed by the court.
Wheaton’s silence under two administrations — President Liftin’s and President Phil Ryken’s — enabled Massaro to continue serving in church ministries for decades, giving him access to unsuspecting young men.
From 2015 to July 2018, Massaro pastored a church in Turkey, where he demanded sex in exchange for helping refugees find asylum in the U.S., according to a Turkish newspaper.
For decades after his dismissal, Massaro also visited Wheaton’s campus, giving him continued access to students and alumni and risking retraumatizing former victims who might visit their alma mater. Plus, since alumni were unaware of what Massaro had done, they would invite the popular former administrator to special events.
Craig said he once saw Massaro at a college friend’s wedding and suffered a panic attack. He also heard that Massaro attended Wheaton reunions, so he never felt it would be safe to attend one.
Craig spent decades in counseling, trying to come to terms with what happened, and said he still suffers adverse effects.
Kathy Gallagher, Massaro’s ex-wife, said Wheaton’s secrecy profoundly harmed her and the two daughters she had with Massaro. She believes if Wheaton had been more forthcoming 27 years ago, Massaro would not have gotten visitation rights with their daughters, and the girls would have been spared much trauma. She added that today, her family is deeply divided because some believe Massaro is a predator and some defend him.
In 2024, at the persistent urging of an alumnus who had witnessed Massaro’s abuse decades earlier, Wheaton took a first step to come clean. The school hired a law firm to conduct an independent review concerning Massaro and Wheaton’s handling of allegations against him.
When that was completed, the college sent an email to the Wheaton community, admitting that Massaro had been fired 26 years earlier “when allegations of misconduct involving improper sexual touching of students were reported to the College.”
But the July 2024 email didn’t give any details of the severity or scope of Massaro’s abuse or of how the college had covered it up. It also didn’t mention some of the most egregious consequences of Wheaton’s cover-up, like Massaro’s alleged sexual abuse of Iranian asylum-seekers in Turkey.
This infuriated those harmed by Massaro’s abuse, who felt the investigation and email were merely the college’s attempt at damage control.
Now, they are coming forward with their stories in solidarity with each other and to hold the college — often touted as the Harvard of Christian schools — to account. They also hope that their stories will encourage other possible victims of Massaro to come forward and receive help.
TRR reached out to Wheaton College, as well as Presidents Litfin and Ryken, with specific questions pertaining to our investigation. Wheaton spokesman Joseph Moore replied with the same statement the college emailed to the Wheaton community in 2024, which failed to answer any of our questions.
We also contacted former Dean of Students Sam Shellhammer, who replied, “I can’t talk to you.” When TRR asked if he was bound by a confidentiality agreement, Shellhammer reiterated, “I can’t talk to you.”
‘Predator grooming type behavior’
Joe remembers the first time he met Massaro. Joe was an underclassman at Wheaton and still trying to get relationally connected. And Massaro was a “larger-than-life” figure — very outgoing, well-known and well-liked.
After being introduced, Massaro immediately put his arm around Joe “and it was almost like we were best friends after that,” Joe told TRR. “Anytime he saw me … he made me feel like I was super important and special.”
Massaro was also close with Joe’s friends. And Joe remembers that during his junior year, Massaro would hang out at the student apartment he shared with three other male students. Massaro would do this “all the time,” often late into the night.
“There were times when we’re thinking, ‘Why isn’t he home with his family?’” Joe recalled.
He also remembered one night when he and his roommates were praying together at around 2 a.m. After they finished, one of them told the others he had looked up during their prayer and saw Massaro through the window staring at them. They all thought that was weird but shrugged it off.
Joe said Massaro shared way too much about “his physical relationship with his wife or lack thereof.” Massaro also repeatedly tried to set Joe up with dates because Joe was shy and afraid to ask out women.
Looking back, Joe, who is now a teacher and has been trained to spot sexual predators, realizes Massaro’s actions were typical “predator grooming type behavior.” But at the time, Joe did not suspect anything.
Because of his relationship with Massaro, Joe got involved with OCO and went on a summer mission trip in 1990 with an OCO ministry called Student Missionary Project or SMP (now called Student Missionary Partners).
That summer was a “total disaster” and “shows the incompetence of how OCO was actually run,” Joe said.
Joe went to Sierra Leone with SMP, assuming OCO had arranged everything for him to work with missionaries there. But when he arrived at the airport, no one was there to pick him up. Fortunately, he met a stranger who went to the church Joe had been told would be hosting him.
The stranger got a taxi and took Joe to the church. But the missionaries he planned to work with had no idea Joe was coming. And Joe described the rest of the summer as “disaster after disaster after disaster,” adding that Massaro “never checked in on me. … There was no communication.”
Despite this, Joe said he did not think of complaining or reporting what had happened. “That was just my personality,” he said.
‘You gotta come on this retreat!’
Joe returned to campus at the end of the summer but was not planning on attending an OCO retreat for summer ministry alumni because he played soccer and had a game that weekend. But Massaro called Joe’s housemate, Chris Fritz, who had also gone on a summer trip with an OCO ministry. Fritz wasn’t planning on attending the retreat either because he played football and also had a game.
“He called Chris and he blistered him,” Joe recalled. “He was like, ‘What do you mean you’re not going on the retreat?’ He just loses it with Chris.”
Joe said Fritz then got Joe on the phone, and Massaro “was just losing his mind.” He was angry and “demanding we come on the retreat.” So, the two men conceded and drove up to the retreat late, after their games.
When they arrived, Massaro told them they’d be staying in his room, which had two bunk beds. Fritz and Joe slept in the bunk bed on one side of the room, with Joe on the bottom bunk and Fritz on the top. Massaro slept on the bottom bunk on the opposite side.
In the middle of the night, Joe said, Massaro assaulted him.
Fritz told TRR he remembers witnessing the assault, but at the time, thought it was a dream.
“I woke up in the middle of the night and sat up in my bed because I heard or sensed something going on,” Fritz said. “I looked underneath and I saw Dennis in bed with my roommate.” (Joe says Massaro was never in his bed, just kneeling and leaning over it).
Fritz said he “thought it was a dream and kind of shook my head … and went back to sleep.”
Fritz said he told Massaro the next morning about his “dream,” and Massaro said the dream was “weird.”
Following the retreat, Fritz said he noticed Joe was “noticeably withdrawn.” One night, Joe divulged to Fritz and another housemate what Massaro had done but added that he believed Massaro’s excuse of sleepwalking.
“It was pretty devastating and confusing,” Fritz recalled. “It made me mad, exceptionally mad. Yet, I wasn’t able to fully walk away from (Massaro).”
Neither Joe nor Fritz reported the alleged crime. Fritz said he stayed in contact with Massaro after graduating and even visited him once when he was in Vienna and Massaro was nearby in Munich.
“It was some weird kind of grip — that the blessings still seemed beneficial,” Fritz recalled. He added that “nothing happened” the night he stayed with Massaro but added that he wore multiple layers of clothes to bed.
Joe, on the other hand, said he kept his distance from Massaro, though he continued to believe Massaro’s explanation.
“I was pretty frustrated with myself that I didn’t show a little bit more disgust and frustration and anger with him when it happened,” Joe told TRR. “I was way too accepting of it.”
Not the only one
In spring 1998, Joe and a then-current Wheaton student, independently and within a week of each other, told Mike Leeser, a Wheaton alumnus and professor at the time, of Massaro’s abuse of them.
Leeser had roomed with Joe at Wheaton from 1987-89, and again for several years after both men graduated. But Joe did not tell Leeser about Massaro’s alleged abuse until April 1998, when Joe was visiting Wheaton from out-of-state.
“I remember that day very vividly because I just felt sick to my stomach,” Leeser said. “And I was really angry.”
Leeser said he thought Massaro’s explanation of sleepwalking was “ridiculous.” And he was sad that his friend had been carrying the weight of the abuse for eight years, and nothing had been done about it.
Exactly a week later, a former student of Leeser’s, who was a senior at Wheaton, told Leeser an almost identical story of sexual abuse by Massaro, which had also happened on an OCO retreat.
Lesser said he does not remember specifics of how he responded to the student’s story. “I do remember that my mind is just spinning — that something needs to be done,” Leeser said. “This can’t continue to happen,” he recalled thinking.
TRR reached out to the former student through Leeser to see if he wanted to share his experience, but the man declined.
Leeser said he hadn’t received any training at Wheaton on how to report sexual abuse and was not aware of a Title IX office.
According to S. Daniel Carter, president of Safe Campuses, the Campus Sexual Assault Victims’ Bill of Rights took effect in 1993, requiring institutions of higher education to formally address sex offenses in their policies.
And three years before that, the Crime Awareness and Campus Securities Act was passed. This required colleges and universities to assist students in reporting sex offenses to “proper law enforcement authorities” and to collect crime statistics.
TRR reached out to Wheaton College, asking for its annual crime statistics for the 1990s, as well as for the college’s policies for reporting sexual assault crimes in the 1990s.
Wheaton spokesman Joseph Moore, replied with links to the college’s crime statistics from 2022 to 2025.
TRR reached back to Moore, noting that he had failed to answer our questions and reiterated our original request, but Moore did not respond.
Lesser, lacking any clear direction from the college, decided to ask his former student, whom Massaro had allegedly assaulted, if he could share his telephone number with his friend Joe, and the student agreed.
Leeser called Joe, who was “livid” when he heard about the other student. That night, Joe and the student talked on the phone and decided they would report Massaro to then-Dean of Students Sam Shellhammer.
Joe said Shellhammer arranged for him to fly to Wheaton, so he could confront Massaro in person. Joe remembers the encounter like it was yesterday. Massaro was joking with the secretary outside Shellhammer’s office, and when he saw Joe through a window in the wall, “his whole countenance changed.”
Joe said when he confronted Massaro, he claimed he didn’t remember what had happened and asked Joe to recount the assault. Massaro then said that when he was a child, other kids picked on him and called him “faggot” and “always abused him,” and that might be why things happened the way they did.
Joe told TRR that Massaro did not admit he had molested him but did not deny it either.
Joe said he thinks the student who had reported Massaro’s abuse to Leeser confronted Massaro in person, as well. But Joe was not sure because Shellhammer dealt separately with that situation.
Joe said he later learned about another victim, “Craig,” who had independently come forward to Shellhammer around the same with a story of abuse. Looking back, Joe said he believes the timing was providential.
‘I trusted Wheaton to do the right thing’
Joe said when he left Shellhammer’s office in 1998, “I trusted Wheaton to do the right thing.” Joe said he did not report Massaro’s assault to police but added that Shellhammer did not suggest doing so either.
Joe also did not follow up with Wheaton about how it handled Massaro’s dismissal — something he now deeply regrets.
Joe said he never anticipated that Wheaton would hide Massaro’s abuse or how that might endanger others, like the asylum-seekers in Turkey.
He also did not realize how the college’s cover-up would profoundly harm Massaro’s wife at the time, Kathy Massaro (now Kathy Gallagher), and the couple’s children.
Gallagher told TRR that in 1998, Wheaton administrators refused to tell her why they had fired her husband, even though she considered Shellhammer and then-Wheaton President Duane Litfin to be her friends. None of them, she said, even returned her calls.
All her husband told her about his dismissal was that while he was sleepwalking, he had touched two students. She found the uncertainty excruciating as she tried to determine whether her children were safe with Massaro and whether she should end her marriage.
In 1998, Joe also did not understand how profoundly traumatized Craig — and potentially Massaro’s third victim — were. Joe said he did not feel “deeply scarred” by what Massaro had done. But Joe’s abuse was brief in comparison to Craig’s. And Joe’s response to trauma was different, as well.
But for Craig, whose story we’ll detail in our next article, Massaro’s abuse — coupled with Wheaton’s secrecy and duplicity — left deep emotional wounds that he’s dealing with to this day.
This article was originally published at The Roys Report.