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	Cops Fumbled Sex Probe of Ex-Priest, Mom Says By Laura Frank The Tennessean February 28, 1999 Metro police learned nearly four years ago that former Roman Catholic priest Edward J. McKeown was suspected of molesting a child, but the 1995 police investigation mysteriously evaporated. A boy, who was 12 at the time of the alleged abuse, told his mother and others that McKeown a trusted family friend played strip poker with him, repeatedly offered him beer and shared the same bed on overnight visits. The boy also suggested a vague memory of other, unspecified physical contact. Police launched a probe. Then they dropped it without explanation, even though a doctor who had examined the child felt there was more than enough evidence of abuse to warrant further inquiry. Today, McKeown, a former teacher at Nashville's Father Ryan High School, sits in the Metro Jail, charged with raping a different child. Police will not say what happened four years ago and many questions remain unanswered. But the mother who went to police in 1995 believes McKeown might have been taken off the street then, perhaps preventing subsequent assaults, if police had followed through on the investigation. The mother said McKeown made statements to her and a friend indicating that he had previously engaged in inappropriate activity with children and that this was the reason he left the priesthood in 1989. "Had they ever bothered to get back to me, the police would have known that," said the mother, whom ?I?The Tennessean ?I?is not identifying in order to protect the identity of the child, now 16. McKeown's attorney, Richard McGee, declined to comment. Officials at the Catholic Diocese of Nashville did not return repeated calls for comment. B?Investigation dropped?B? The mother says veteran detective Ron Carter, of the police department's youth services division, began the investigation May 26, 1995, and proposed to wire her with a recording device when she confronted McKeown with the allegations. She agreed, arranging a meeting with McKeown. But she says the detective never showed up and her repeated calls went unreturned. Police confirmed that on May 26, 1995, they received a complaint of sexual abuse against McKeown and followed up with an investigation. But they say state child sex crimes law prevents them from explaining what happened to the investigation. "The investigation of the 1995 referral did not result in a prosecution," police spokesman Don Aaron said in a written statement to ?I?The Tennessean.?I? Since McKeown's arrest last month, the police and the Davidson County District Attorney's office have begun re-examining the 1995 report, the statement said. "The re-examination has involved communication with the victim's family. Taken into context with what we now know about Mr. McKeown's past, the 1995 matter may become a component of the ongoing investigation." Davidson County District Attorney General Torry Johnson declined to comment. Aaron, in an interview, said youth services division Capt. Valerie Meece told him the department could not elaborate further on what happened to the 1995 investigation. In a second written statement, Aaron said the mother's description of what happened "does not accurately depict the events as they relate to the police department's efforts in this investigation." "However, due to the statutory restrictions imposed upon the investigative components in a child sexual abuse case, the police department, including Detective Carter, is not at liberty to discuss the specifics of the investigation," Aaron wrote. The mother said she was disappointed the police could not "admit they made a mistake and tell my son they're sorry. "They're hiding behind reopening the case rather than admit they dropped the ball four years ago," she said. "Ron Carter came to my house and told my son not to be afraid. He would protect him. Then he disappeared and my son had to stay there, living down the street from (McKeown)." B?McKeown a family friend?B? The woman's son turned 13 a few days before she found out about the allegations in 1995. The stocky, shy boy lived with his mother and sister less than a block from McKeown in the Country Meadows trailer park in Antioch. McKeown was a family friend. He took the boy to Sounds baseball games and Boy Scout father-son events. He gave him small jobs and took him to various political rallies and fund-raisers that McKeown frequently attended. "He seemed very protective," the mother said. "He was a very nice man, a very credible individual. He really seemed to go out of his way to serve other people. And it didn't seem to be just a gesture. He would really inconvenience himself. He seemed genuine. "If you look at our family pictures, Ed is in them," the mother said. "My son would go work the polls with Ed. He has served barbecue at (Juvenile court clerk) Kenny Norman's ranch. All this stuff seemed good for him." On the warm spring evening of May 25, 1995, the boy's mother was sitting in her yard with her 8-year-old daughter, who revealed that the boy had played strip poker with McKeown a few weeks before. The mother's mind raced. Her son had stayed with McKeown during the last week in April, when she went out of state for her grandmother's funeral. She had inquired then about where he slept. The son had said he fell asleep while watching TV in bed with McKeown. She had thought it a little strange, but had passed it off earlier. Now a worried feeling grew in her stomach. The boy also had been complaining recently of pain during bowel movements. All this came rushing back to the mother as she walked into her mobile home and sat down to talk to her son. She asked him about the strip poker. He burst into tears. The mother telephoned her son's longtime pediatrician. A nurse herself, the mother knew a medical examination was important in cases of suspected child sexual abuse. At Dr. Margreete Johnston's office the next morning, her fears were reinforced. Johnston's report showed the boy had a strep infection around his anus a possible sign of sexual abuse. Johnston, in an interview, said the boy showed no other physical signs of sexual abuse, but the emotional signs were disturbing. "There was something bad going on with him emotionally," she said. "After this encounter, he just wasn't able to function. It was a downward spiral." Johnston said she did not have what is known as a "rape kit" at her office to perform a more thorough examination. She did not examine the boy rectally, she said, because "his rear end was sore, sore, sore." When asked if the medical report of her examination of the boy would have been enough to spur police to investigate, she answered: "It should have been more than enough." B?Police get call?B? The boy's mother called police that day from Johnston's office. She reached Ron Carter a soft-spoken detective who has successfully investigated some of the most serious child sex crimes in Nashville. Carter met the boy and his mother at Country Meadows. "When Carter came the first time, (my son) was in his room. He wouldn't come out," the mother said. "I told Ron Carter everything I knew." When the boy finally did emerge from his room, Carter took care in asking him questions, the mother said. "He was nice, calming," she said. "We liked him." Carter left, saying he would do some checking on McKeown. Carter returned to the woman's home later that evening. He wanted to talk to her son alone. The two went out to Carter's unmarked car. "Ron Carter said he couldn't tell me what (my son) said, but he did tell me he felt sure more had happened than what (my son) was saying," the mother said. When Carter left, the boy begged his mother not to make him talk to police. He liked Carter, the boy told his mother. He just didn't want to talk about this. The next day a Saturday Carter came back to the boy's mobile home. "He had a plan," the mother said. Carter wanted the mother to wear a wire, then see if McKeown would confess when she confronted him. G.L. Martin, another resident of the trailer park, was there when Carter laid out the plan. "They were going to set it up to see what was going on," Martin said. On that Sunday, the mother called McKeown and arranged to come talk to him at his home after work Monday. The mother says Carter called on Monday morning to make sure the meeting was set. Carter said he would meet her at her home at 5 p.m. "He never showed up," the mother said. "He had acted so concerned, then just disappeared," Martin said. When she thought Carter was just late to her house, the mother called the office number on his card. She called the electronic pager number he had given her, too. B?No response?B? "He never called me back," the mother said. "We never heard from him again." At first she didn't know what to think. She suspected somehow Carter had been called off the case. Her friend Martin agreed. "I told her, "You're gonna lose this because politics is gonna take over,"' Martin said. "Ed knew all those politicians and everyone knew Ed." McKeown was well known in Democratic political circles. He frequently attended fund-raisers, worked polls and helped make signs for various candidates. He worked full time, then later part time, at the Davidson County Juvenile Court keeping and researching records. He was a full-time appraiser for the Davidson County assessor's office. He resigned when he was arrested last month. After about two weeks of calling Carter's number and getting only a secretary or no response at all, the mother quit calling and began to focus on getting her son to counseling. McKeown called her several times in those few weeks, inviting the boy to stay overnight again at his home or to go ball games. One evening, McKeown strolled into the mother's yard and pulled up a lawnchair beside her. "He said, "Something's wrong,' " the mother recalled. " "It's about (the boy), isn't it? The strip poker?' "I remember saying, "There's more to it than that. How could you do that? I trusted you.' He had tears in his eyes. He said "I know I screwed up.' "I said "I can't trust you with (my son) anymore.' "He said, "Well, you know there's nothing you can do anyway.' "I said, "What do you mean?' He said, "I'll just go back to the mental institution.' "I said, "Have you been there before?' "He said yes. "I said "For the same reason?' "He said yes. "I said "Is that why you left the priesthood?' "He said yes." Martin, the fellow Country Meadows resident, witnessed the conversation. "He (McKeown) got red in the face and squirmish," Martin said. "He said if anybody said anything, he'd just admit himself to the mental hospital." "We sat there a few minutes," the mother said. "I didn't think he meant it as a threat. It was just as if he was saying he'd been down this road before. He just kind of left. Then I started shaking. We didn't see him for a while after that." B?Giving up on police?B? The mother began taking her son to a therapist in Murfreesboro. The boy still didn't want to talk about what happened. The therapist recommended that the mother not force the boy. "He said it would be traumatic to him if we did," she said. The mother gave up on ever getting anywhere with the police. "I felt like I had not protected my son," she said. "After the police dropped the investigation, it was clear to me that screaming too loudly would not hurt anyone but my son. The system was no longer important to me. The important thing was protecting my child." She went to the manager of the Country Meadows mobile home park to warn him to look out for young boys going to McKeown's home. Gary Hooten, who manages the park with his wife, Margaret, confirmed that the woman did tell him about her son's experience. He never reported it to anyone because "she never put it in writing," he said. McKeown, who lived next door to the Hootens "paid on time and was a good tenant," Hooten said. "That's basically all there was." A year later, McKeown moved out of Country Meadows, buying a home on Ransom Village Way in Antioch. The woman said only then did her son begin playing outside again. State officials apparently unaware of the allegations against him gave McKeown temporary custody of a troubled boy who also had lived in the Country Meadows trailer park. Police records show they believe McKeown began molesting this boy in 1995. McKeown is charged with four counts of raping the boy sometime after that. "I just feel like this kid is going to suffer the rest of his life because someone didn't do their job," the mother said. "The system didn't work for my son, and it didn't work for this child either." POLICE SAY INVESTIGATION NOT ACCURATELY DEPICTED In response to questions from The Tennessean for today's story, Metropolitan Police Department spokesman Don Aaron wrote the following: "Based on the detailed scenario you gave me . . . which has been reviewed by the youth services division, here is the police department's response: The scenario which you described does not accurately depict the events as they relate to the police department's efforts in this investigation. However, due to the statutory restrictions imposed upon the investigative components in a child sexual abuse case, the police department, including Detective Carter, is not at liberty to discuss the specifics of the investigation." Aaron also pointed out that "Detective Carter is a veteran investigator of these type cases, and has been recognized in the past by this department and other law enforcement agencies for his exemplary work."
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