Trauma and Memory

Ep 6: Trauma and Memory - In this powerful episode of Open Investigation, host Melanie McLaughlin dives deep into the profound effects of trauma, memory, and survival. The episode covers stories of child survivors of clergy abuse and other forms of childhood trauma, exploring the way memories resurface and the mechanisms the mind employs to cope. Melanie shares her own journey and how her search for answers in the disappearance of her friend, Andy Puglisi, led her into the dark underworld of organized child trafficking and abuse networks.

This episode is dedicated to the families of missing and murdered children, honoring the survivors who continue to fight for justice.

Key Topics

1. Witness Testimonies: Melanie revisits heartbreaking testimonies, including those from a victim of Father Gallagher, detailing the normalization of abuse in their community. Witness X’s story provides harrowing accounts of childhood abuse and murder he claims to have witnessed, describing chilling details uncovered through therapy.
2. Investigative Journey: Melanie recounts the making of her HBO documentary Have You Seen Andy? and the life-altering revelations that surfaced after its release. As she balanced her roles as a mother and child advocate, Melanie faced new challenges and connections related to Andy’s disappearance.
3. Dissociative Amnesia and Trauma: Featuring insights from renowned trauma expert Dr. Judith Herman, Melanie discusses how trauma impacts memory recall. Survivors like Witness X and St. Mary’s Victim experienced dissociative amnesia, a coping mechanism that allows victims to disconnect from the trauma to survive.
4. Peter Haskell Investigation: After years of investigation, a surprising turn of events saw FBI agents combing through Haskell’s property after his death. This long-awaited response seemed to validate Witness X’s claims, with evidence including child mannequins, disturbing items, and videotapes.
5. Healing from Trauma: Dr. Judith Herman discusses the critical steps for trauma survivors to find healing. She emphasizes the importance of community acknowledgment, support networks, and taking personal action to reclaim safety and justice.

Key Quotes

• Melanie McLaughlin: “The healing is in the telling. I’m doing this for the children of CSA—those who survived and those who didn’t. I believe you, and I’m sorry for what happened to you.”
• Dr. Judith Herman: “If secrecy and denial are the tyrant's first line of defense, then public truth-telling must be the first act of a survivor's resistance. And recognizing the survivor's claim to justice must be the moral community's first act of solidarity.”

Resources 

• The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
• Trauma and Recovery and Truth and Repair by Dr. Judith Herman
• Articles: New York Times - Dr. Judith Herman on Trauma
• Crime and Memory by Dr. Judith Herman
• Peter Haskell Georgetown Search Affidavit
• National Center for Missin

Follow: @openinvestigation
Support: Patreon.com/OpenInvestigation
Based on the HBO Emmy award-winning documentary "Have You Seen Andy?" - haveyouseenandy.com | @haveyouseenandy

Transcript

Open Investigation

Episode 6: Trauma and Memory

Melanie McLaughlin: Previously on Open Investigation

Dr. Ann Marie Mires: We don’t have unlimited resources. We don't have unlimited time. So you have to utilize what you can. We started with informants. We started with a likely spot. There definitely was a pit here. Was there a body in it? No. Could there have been at one time? Maybe.

Melanie McLaughlin: 

This is Open Investigation, a true-crime podcast about the search for answers to the disappearance of my childhood friend Ans and the incredible story of dozens of other missing and murdered children disappeared or were found murdered around the same time Andy vanished. [00:01:00] All while a hidden network of child trafficking was thriving in our community. 

I’m your host, Melanie Perkins McLaughlin. This is episode 6, Trauma and Memory.

In previous episodes you learned about the abduction and unsolved disappearance of 10-year old Andy Puglisi from Lawrence, MA, my childhood friend. I continue working on Andy’s case because he was my friend. And because Andy and his family deserve justice no matter how much time has passed. 

But, honestly, I had no idea what I was getting into. I thought about Andy a lot when I was growing up. And, over time, I realized that I could try to find out what happened to him and maybe help his family and me and the rest of the kids from the projects, better understand that tragic August afternoon when Andy vanished and all of our lives changed forever. I didn’t know I’d uncover organized pedophilia and child trafficking in our community, or the billion dollar child sex abuse CSAM industry that existed [00:02:00] in the 1970s then called child pornography.

Mostly, I didn’t know how close all of this would come to me and my own family and the housing projects where we lived with dozens of neighborhood kids. I had no idea there were other unsolved cases of missing and murdered children in Massachusetts. I didn’t expect to be sitting here decades deep in research telling this story on yet another platform. But I know that I have to. It’s part of my journey. Of our journey. Those you may call victims but we call survivors. 

The healing is in the telling. 

Most of all, I’m doing this for the children of CSA, those who survived and those who didn’t. I want them to know. I believe you. And I’m sorry for what happened to you. This episode is dedicated to families [00:03:00] of the unresolved missing and murdered. We know that trauma never goes away. We only hope we can help you feel less alone. 

Act 1: Witness X

On June 12, 2007 my documentary, Have You Seen Andy?, was broadcast on HBO/Cinemax to millions of viewers. It took years to make. Andy’s story was finally being heard. But as I was approaching the deadline to deliver the documentary to HBO I knew I was uncovering more information. I just didn’t know what it meant or how to include it in the 70 minute broadcast.

I also didn't know that I was 10 weeks pregnant with our third child. The pregnancy was complicated. Our daughter was diagnosed prenatally with Down syndrome and a large hole in her heart. Our daughter, Grace, was born on December 26, 2007 just 6 months after the film was broadcast. I wouldn’t be going on the road with Andy’s [00:04:00] film. I wouldn’t be doing outreach to help prevent child exploitation like I’d hoped. There would be no education kit and few press interviews. 

Instead I would be giving birth to and taking care of our medically complex daughter. Life is strange. I had no idea this turn of events would fundamentally change me. The core of who I was would be stripped bare and I would reevaluate everything I ever believed. Having a daughter with a disability changed me. Gracie helped me become more compassionate. More accepting. I had been a child advocate since the time I was a child myself. But because of her, I became a professional child advocate. I took leadership courses and completed a year-long fellowship.

I took the time and did the work to learn about and begin to heal from my own childhood trauma. Grace was teaching me who I was. I was beginning to understand how my [00:05:00] own lived experience was helping me transform pain into purpose. I do believe we all have a purpose. And a life well-lived means finding what that is and doing it.

There were some things that occurred related to Andy’s file during the time I took off to care for my daughter. For example,one month after the documentary was broadcast on HBO in the summer of 2007, I received a letter from a man who I will refer to as Witness X, as he has been referred to by law enforcement. The letter claimed Witness  X had watched Andy’s documentary. Witness X wrote that he was abused as a child in the 1970’s by a neighbor in Georgetown, MA named Peter Haskell. He claimed to have witnessed Peter Haskell murder a young boy by Peter Haskell. Georgetown, MA is about 10 miles , MA. 

Witness X wrote in graphic detail what he [00:06:00] claims to have witnessed. 

Here’s an excerpt from one of his letters.

“When I saw what was in the bushes I froze. There was a boy laying flat on his stomach. His hands were tied behind his back. His feet were tied together; they were tethered to something coming up from the ground. Something was stuffed in his mouth, he was gagged. The boy looked at Haskell...The man picked up the rock and launched the rock at the boy's head with great force. The scene was horrific…”

Witness X said the traumatic memory had been recalled through hypnosis. He included his contact information, contact information for his therapist and family members. Witness X believed Andy’s case might be related as he said the man told Witness X that he and other men had taken boys who were “bad”, murdered them and buried them in or near [00:07:00] a pond in Georgetown, MA. Baldpate pond in Georgetown MA lies between an abandoned cap and a psychiatric hospital. The letter included a map with an arrow pointing to the area. Underneath the arrow was the inscription, “this is where Haskell said he put the boys he killed.”

Witness X said he had reached out to police in Boxford and Georgetown, MA as well as the Massachusetts State Police but no one would take him seriously. He pleaded for my help. I didn’t know what else to do. I believe seeingAndy’s documentary resulted in a trauma trigger for this man. 

In 2008 Witness X reached out to me again. He asked me to help him contact the CT police as he had met with a few MA police officers but they seemed to refuse to believe his story. There are several children missing from Connecticut also from the 1970s - one of whom, Janice Pockett had been linked to a Lawrence boy through a deathbed confession [00:08:00] by the convicted child murderer, Charles Pierce. Janice Pockett was a 7-year old girl who vanished from Tolland, CT in 1973. She has never been recovered and her case remains unsolved. Janice is one of four girls that went missing in a short period of time in Connecticut. 

You may remember from earlier episodes Charles Pierce was a convicted child murderer from Haverhill, MA a city that borders Lawrence. He was convicted of murdering 10-year-old Michelle Wilson whose remains were recovered in Boxford, MA near Baldpate pond. Michelle’s skull had been crushed. Pierce had a deathbed confession that included statements about a Lawrence boy and Connecticut girl. He also claimed to know the main suspect in Andy’s abduction, Wayne W. Chapman. We will talk more about Pierce, Chapman and others in our next episode, Connections. 

For now, let’s get back to Witness X. Witness X wondered if any of the CT cases might be related to the murder of the boy he claimed to witness in Boxford, Mass. [00:09:00] He was desperately trying to figure out who the boy was. Witness X also claimed Peter Haskell had been sexually abusing him since the age of 6 or 7. The first time he contacted  me, Witness X was in his 40s and Peter Haskell in his 70s. Witness X claimed Peter Haskell told him that Haskell and other men had murdered several children by crushing their skulls. Witness X wrote that Haskell told him he and the men buried the children together at a location in Boxford, MA near Baldpate pond, next to Baldpate psychiatric hospital and Camp Dennison, an abandoned camp for inner-city kids that was active in the 70’s. He said the mass grave was covered by a pile of rocks with the rocks representing the children.

These letters were traumatizing and harrowing.  I didn’t know what to believe. Except I knew that when people recall trauma it [00:10:00] is recalled in the minutest detail. And this letter was written like that - every little detail. 

And, the thing is the area where Witness X said the murders occurred is adjacent to where 13-year-old Michelle Wilson’s body was found on the side of the road in 1969. Michelle died from a crushed skull. Charles Pierce was convicted of her murder. Charles Pierce was a child murderer and admitted necrophiliac who also claimed he knew Wayne W. Chapman, the prime suspect in Andy’s case. Pierce was a suspected serial killer who confessed to several other murders including a boy . Witness X is convinced Chalres Pierce and Peter Haskell knew each other.

And, in one of those too bizarre to be believed circumstances, another convicted child murderer, James Kater from Lawrence, MA, abducted a 13-year-old girl from North Andover, MA, a city that borders Lawrence, MA. and took her to the same remote area [00:11:00] in Boxford, MA where Michelle Wilson was found and where Witness X claimed multiple children are buried. James Kater, thinking the girl dead after strangling her, left her tied to a tree in the heavily wooded area in Boxford, MA. The girl managed to regain consciousness, untie herself and get to safety. James Kater was later convicted of the murder of Mary Lou Arruda, a 15-year-old cheerleader he strangled to death and left tied to a tree. 

In 2009 a case manager from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children contacted me. He said Witness X kept calling the Center mentioning my name. They told me they thought his claims were credible. I suggested they refer the man to the FBI. The person at NCMEC told me it was the FBI that referred him to NCMEC.

That’s when I decided to pick up the phone [00:12:00] and call the Mass State police detectives assigned to Andy’s case and ask them whether they had spoken to the man or were taking his allegations seriously. I was told they had interviewed the man but found he ‘acted strangely’. I told Witness X he should contact the Attorney General’s office. Witness X shared this letter with me that he received from the MA Attorney General's office:

December 1, 2009

Re: Complaint Against Peter Haskell

“....Please be advised that the Criminal Bureau is not going to investigate your review or complaint at [00:13:00] this time.”

Sincerely

Assistant Attorney General 

Criminal Bureau. 

We just kept hitting dead ends with this man’s story. I was a documentary filmmaker. I didn’t know how to get law enforcement interested. I didn’t know how to help this man. 

But in 2016 the shit hit the fan, as they say. 

As I said at the top of the show, I had been trying to just live my life and raise my children. But on this day I was driving down the highway listening to National Public Radio. What I heard made me nearly drive off the road. 

Act II: Believe Me The First Time

News Reporter 

Local, state and federal investigators spent much of the day combing through this property of Chestnut Street in Georgetown this morning. A spokesperson for the FBI tells us the agency's evidence response team is conducting court authorized activity in connection with an ongoing investigation, They say the man who lived here, Peter Haskell passed away recently.

Peter Haskell died on November 16, 2016. A few weeks later the FBI were digging up his backyard. Headlines [00:14:00] like “Allegations of Child Murder Revealed in Georgetown” and “Police Searched for Boy’s Remains in Deceased Man’s Home” were all over the news. I was told when someone dies in their home police are required to view the scene and determine there was no foul play. Peter Haskell died of natural causes but what police saw in Haskell’s home led them to involve the FBI and get a search warrant. Suddenly, 9 years after he first contacted me, Witness X’s story was finally being taken seriously. 

And that’s how we got here. 

After nearly driving off the road I drove home and pulled out ALL my letters from Witness X. I contacted the DA’s office and the detectives working on Andy’s case. I contacted the Massachusetts State police once again. I shared the information I had shared before with previous detectives about Witness X AGAIN with new detectives. I made sure to send the map that Witness X had sent me. That’s the thing with these long-term unresolved cases. Law enforcement officers come and go. There have been [00:15:00] at least a dozen different detectives who worked Andy’s case. But the family never leaves. And, according to Andy’s mom, Faith, she said I feel like family now. Faith asked me to be the keeper of all the information about Andy. She asked me to hold the frontline and let her know if there was anything she needed to know. Because it is just too painful for her to continue to make the calls to get people to follow up. 

I tried desperately to contact Witness X with no luck. And police were tight-lipped about what, if anything, they found in Haskell’s house. The media reported there were child mannequins dressed up in soccer uniforms and cut up barbie dolls. There were also hundreds of child IDs allegedly from a soccer [00:16:00] team Haskell had coached. Haskell had been a soccer coach in Beverly and it was suggested he had kept them as some sort of memento. According to the Executed Search Warrant inventory there were videotapes, lots of videotapes with handmade labels and titles like Nature of Sex, Puberty and Barney's Beach videos mixed in with movies like Cape Fear. There was 1 child's mitten, 1 Dell computer, 19 audio cassette tapes, 3 bones and a human tooth that the police took with them from Haskell’s home. To be clear Peter Haskell was a single man with no other family members living in his home. It remains unclear to me if the bones were human or the tooth has been checked against Andy, or anyone else’s, DNA. This is from the affidavit in support of a search warrant dated 12/22/2016

“On July 26, 2007 Detective Thomas Dejoy of the Georgetown police received a phone call from Witness X. Witness X told Detective Dejoy that....when he was between the ages of five to six years old, he witnessed [00:17:00] a murder of a child who was between the ages of eight to twelve by a person that lived in Georgetown named Peter Haskell....Detective Dejoy advised Witness X that he would have to report this in person..." 

A month later, Witness X flew from Virginia to Georgetown, Massachusetts to report what he had reported over the phone in person. Here is some of that testimony with Witness X and Detective DeJoy from 2007:

Det Dajoy: I'm Detective DeJoy of the Georgetown Police, and I'm here with, uh (censored tone).

And, uh, (censored tone) is here to, talk to me in regards to an incident that he witnessed, uh, back around 1969, 1970 in which he states that his neighbor, uh, by the name of Peter, uh, Peter Haskell, uh, had, uh, killed a young boy up on, uh, in BaldPate Pond, I guess it was, sometime that he [00:18:00] witnessed. And he now, uh, with the help of counseling and whatnot, is able to talk about the incident. So I will, um, let you talk and, and basically tell me, you know, what, what you know and, and, um, we'll go from there.

Witness X: So, I lived at 16 Chestnut Street before age 6 for about a year and a half. At that time, when I was in that neighborhood, I was taken to BaldPate Pond by Peter Haskell.

He took me out in the woods. He had a child tied up on the ground with his hands tied behind his back and he was laying flat on the ground. He told me, this is what happens to bad little boys. And he picked up a rock and he crushed his head. 

Det Dajoy: Do you recall [00:19:00] about how old Mr. Haskell was? 

Witness X: And a guess, an educated guess, he was approximately 28.

I recall him saying that he, he worked with an oil company. Okay. Or a gas company. 

Det Dajoy: He's listed as occupation was at the time, or listed in our residency book as a truck driver. 

Witness X (2): Uh huh. 

When my mother came home, I did tell her that. I told her that the man down the street, Peter, had taken me up to the lake and he had crushed a boy's head with a rock. And my mother told me that people don't do those sort of things. I must have had a nightmare the night before. And she said I had let my imagination run wild. 

I don't know how much time had passed, but it was a hot day that I went over to Peter's [00:20:00] house and it was, I believe a Saturday. He wanted to go up to the pond. And I was wanting to go up to the pond too. So, we left his house. When we left his house, he was not the same person. He was weird. I was scared. I was scared from the moment we turned the corner on Chestnut Street. I was very scared. When we got to where the hill starts to go up to, the first hill there, he hit the gas like this. I mean, and it scared the hell out of me. And I, and I asked him at that point, what is the matter, what's going on? And I'm telling you, the whole time, from the time we left that house, to the time we got out of the vehicle, I bet he didn't say two words.

 He started talking. He changed up. And we went out into the woods, and there's a small pond out there. I knew I was in trouble. I knew it. And, uh, I got, I moved away from him. I knew I was in deep crap. He said, what's the  matter? And I told him and I stuttered my way through it. I said that it's okay. I said, my mother knows where I'm at and she, she, she knows where I'm at and I moved away from him. 

And he went and picked up a rock. He wanted me to get closer to him. He had that rock in his hand. Before he picked up that rock, I was probably 20, 20 foot away from him. [00:22:00] I was not close. He couldn't have caught me. He wanted me to get close to him. And I went over by that pond. And he went over by that pond and He had that rock in his hand and he wanted me to get close and look down in that water. And I didn't. he said to me, he said, Don't you want to go out and play in the woods, behind the trees? And I didn't recall. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. He said, Don't you remember the kids out there? They're out there. He had taken many children out there, and they were still out there playing. Would I like to go out and play with them? And I told him, No. I'd be a good boy. I wouldn't say anything. That's what I told him. I escaped death that day. 

Melanie McLaughlin: 

Witness X also told police about going into Haskell's cellar [00:23:00] where he smelled a terrible smell. Witness X said there was a body buried there. At some point Witness X called a state police detective and said "tell Haskell back of the head...." According to Witness X the reference was to where he dropped the rock on the boy's head. But the state police detective used that statement as an alleged threat and called Peter Haskell into the station. Here is a portion of the conversation with detectives and Peter Haskell. 

State Cop: The date is Monday, November, or correction, Monday, March 23rd, 2009, approximately 1255 pm

And Mr. Haskell, back to you. Did you have any kids, or? 

No, sir. 

No kids? Were you ever married?

Nope.

No girlfriends, anything like that? 

No, sir, none. 

Detective: Do you remember a guy, a kid by [00:24:00] the name of (censored tone)?

Peter Haskell: Yeah, I know him. Just a kid in the neighborhood. 

Detective: Okay, (censored tone) come up with some allegations about you. What would be the reason why he would say things about you?  How was your relationship? 

Peter Haskell: I have no idea. He was just another kid in the neighborhood. 

Detective: Well, to be specific, he said, uh, something along the effects that he was gonna take care of you. And, left side, back of the head. And he wouldn't elaborate that, on that? So he's pretty angry with you, for some reason. 

Peter Haskell: That's very strange. I don't know why he'd say that. Something must have happened to him. Something’s wrong with him. He must have cracked up or something.

Detective: Did you ever get in trouble? 

Peter Haskell: (chuckles): Once in a while, when I was like, uh, [00:25:00] 37, I got stopped at Salisbury Beach for driving under the influence, and they took my, uh, license away for a year. One of my mother's best friends said, I read that in the paper, and she said, uh, well, Pete Haskell finally did something wrong in his life.  

Melanie McLaughlin: There is a section in the affidavit that claims a woman who survived an attempted abduction in 1999 in Georgetown, MA when she was 13 years old saw the video recording of Peter Haskell in 2013 and identified him as the man who tried to abduct her. The affidavit included a composite sketch from the 1999 attempted abduction alongside a photo of Peter Haskell. There is a striking resemblance.

Later I got access to pictures of the interior of Haskell’s house which included pictures of the cellar Victim X  (fix) described. Do you remember the movie The Silence of [00:26:00] the Lambs starring Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins? If so, you will likely remember the apartment the fictional character Buffalo Bill lived in. It was filthy and as creepy as it gets. That’s what Haskell’s place looked like. Just like Buffalo Bill’s. Creepy as fuck! 

I’ll connect the full affidavit from the search in our show notes. If you want more information on this case join our patreon for exclusive researcher access. I’m sharing the information so that anyone interested in pursuing truth will responsibly look into these cases. All that I ask is that you keep families and victims at the center of your search. Advocate with them and for them. And, always, fact check your information. I can not tell you the number of assholes that have tried to tell Andy’s story and gotten so many facts wrong. 

I also swear a lot when I’m triggered. In case you haven’t noticed, the Haskell incident is a [00:27:00] trauma trigger for me. 

Back in 2016, I had only  recently begun learning about trauma and how it affects our life - my life. Not unlike Witness X and many others in this podcast, although perhaps not as extreme. I learned about complex post-traumatic stress disorder C-PTSD, a mental health condition that results from having experienced trauma over an extended period of time such as childhood. Trauma affects our bodies and our minds and we can be re-traumatized by related events. 

For me when I am experiencing a trigger like hearing the FBI were finally digging an area that we had been trying to get anyone to look at for years I get sort of an adrenaline or cortisol rush. My heart starts racing. I feel hot and I can literally lose my words or seem forgetful. Like in the last episode after I met Father Curran. I tried to go pump gas at the gas station. And I literally couldn’t remember which gas pump to use the diesel gas or the regular. It’s really wild when you see it happen in action. I read a really great book called, The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel VanderKolk, that taught me [00:28:00] so much about trauma. That and years of trauma informed therapy taught me that when I’m experiencing trauma my primal brain is activated. It is trying to figure out how to survive in the situation. The blood rushes to my main organs so I can fight or flee if needed. That primal response is called fight or flight. I didn’t realize that is often why I shiver when I’m reliving a traumatic event. Trauma is biological. It’s also very difficult to concentrate or recall memory. That part of our brain is shut down so we are only using our most necessary resources. 

So, with all of this cortisol and adrenaline running through my body I hoped, once again, maybe this would be the time that something would give in Andy's and the other children's cases. E xcept, just like before, after a few days in the news the case disappeared and no one asked about Peter Haskell, Witness X, any bones or human teeth again. [00:29:00] Because there was presumably nothing found during the dig the case just faded into oblivion like who knows how many others? 

Years later I happened to meet an FBI agent from the ERT in Boston. I asked if he had worked on the Georgetown MA case. He told me he had and there's a lot more to the story. I asked why they didn't dig where the map from Witness X indicated the boys were buried. That agent replied, "what map?" 

My colleague and I, Dr. AnnMarie Mires, who consults with law enforcement as a forensic anthropologist/archaeologist to advise on ground truthing strategies, met with the FBI agents and shared the info that Witness X had shared with me along with the map. Ground truthing means making sure the information is accurate and not inferred. In this instance they wanted to show the map was up to date event though it had been written years earlier and that nothing in the area had changed. We drove [00:30:00] together to the wooded area in the near the Georgetown / Boxford, MA line . The first thing I saw was a road sign that said Farmer Bob’s Way. We drove down a dirt path into the woods into the curved road baldpate pond where we saw the pond next to the abandoned camp. Camp Dennison that honestly looked like something out of a horror movie. The FBI agents, Dr.. Mires and I walked around the wooded area while talking about the letters from Witness X. We were excited to finally have law enforcement out in the area. And maybe get them to use sophisticated technology and collaborate with local and state police. Collaboration is key in cases like this. The FBI has resources that the MA state police and local police may not but the agents told us they have to be invited by local and state law enforcement to be part [00:31:00] of the case. I was hopeful that this time things would change. Unfortunately, about three months later I finally got an email back that said "The FBI does not have the resources to work on this case at this time.

Witness X continues to insist he witnessed Peter Haskell murder a young boy In the Baldpate pond area of Boxford, MA. 

 Act III Dissociative Amnesia

Part of why Witness X may not have been believed for so long may be because he has a criminal record. It may also be because he talked about recalling his childhood trauma after beginning therapy. Some survivors of CSA experience what's called dissociation or dissociative amnesia. Dissociative amnesia is defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (a tool for medical professionals) as 'one or more episodes of inability to recall important personal information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature, that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary [00:32:00] forgetfulness.' Dissociative amnesia may also be referred to as traumatic amnesia. 

Dissociation is defined as a mental process that involves a person disconnecting from their thoughts, feelings, memories, or sense of identity. It can be a typical experience that everyone goes through, but it can also be a way the mind copes with stress or trauma. Some examples of typical dissociation include: Daydreaming, Highway hypnosis, Getting lost in a book or movie. Others may include feeling detached from your body, and feeling like the world around you is unreal.

You may recall in previous episodes survivor Adrian Hooper discussed dissociative amnesia when he recalled abuse by his perpetrators after seeing a picture of one of them at a press conference. And the St. Mary's victim talked about dissociation and dissociative amnesia when she discussed feeling out of her body and recalling her most traumatic memories over time. 

In 2004 the Boston priest, [00:33:00] Father Paul Shanley was convicted of r*ape of a child, a man alleged Shanley had abused him over several years starting at age 6 at St. Jean's parish in Newton, MA . The man recovered traumatic memories of childhood sex abuse that occurred during episodes of dissociative amnesia after his sister called him with the news that his childhood friends had come forward alleging abuse by Shanley. In 2007 Father Paul Shanley appealed the conviction disputing the validity of dissociative amnesia. His attorney's referred to dissociative amnesia as 'repressed memory' and 'junk science'. The case went all the way to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and was closely watched around the world. In 2010 the court upheld Shanley's conviction thereby reinforcing scientific evidence of dissociative amnesia. Shanley served 12 years for the rape of the six year old. He was released in 2017 and died in 2020. You may recall, Father Paul Shanley was mentioned in the Other Boston [00:34:00] Sex Scandal, Episode 3 and Pedophile Priests Episode 5. He was the notorious street priest who allegedly trafficked runaway boys and foster children with the help of social worker Dick Bavley and others. Shanley also promoted what he called man/boy love and the organization NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Love Association that was founded in Revere, MA in the 70’s. When speaking of what he called adult / child 'sex' "the adult is not the seducer - the kid is the seducer".

As may be heard in 12-step recovery programs 'more will be revealed'. The way I understand dissociative amnesia is it is our mind's way of protecting us from the worst pain by shutting off or shutting traumatic memories down. Something like this happened to me during the birth of my first child. I had a c-section and in the middle of the surgery the anesthesia wore off. Moments before the anesthesia wore [00:35:00] off, I knew something terrible was about to happen. I felt the most excruciating pain I have ever felt. I screamed. And passed out. When I came to I thought the doctor's knocked me out with extra anesthesia because of the pain. I was told that was not the case. My brain had shut off because of the extreme pain. It's a defense mechanism. 

I decided to reach out to a trauma expert. Dr. Judy Herman is considered among the premiere trauma experts in the country. She is Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Director of Training at the Victims of Violence Program in the Department of Psychiatry at the Cambridge Health Alliance in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a founding member of the Women's Mental Health Collective. Dr. Herman has fondly been referred to as the 'mother of trauma'. In the 1990s she took the concept of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder [00:36:00] PTSD off of the battlefield and into the home. Here's Dr. Judy Herman:

Dr. Judy Herman: I began my psychiatric residency in 1970. And it was in the consciousness raising groups that women started to talk about rape and intimate partner violence and incest and human trafficking, sexual trafficking, and all the gender based violence that they were subjected to that nobody dared to talk about. when I started my residency, my very first two patients on the inpatient service where I began my first rotation were women who'd made serious suicide attempts and been hospitalized. And both of them told me that they had been sexually abused by their fathers. Now, at that time, The, the basic [00:37:00] psychiatric textbook estimated the prevalence of all forms of incest of one case per million. . So what do you think the chances are that a complete newbie would get two cases in a couple of weeks? 

Melanie McLaughlin: Yeah, I don't know what those odds are. You're the better statistician than I am, but certainly, yeah, well, out of the realm, 

Dr. Judy Herman: something didn't compute there. So, and not only that, but when they started talking about it and were believed and were met with compassion instead of You know, disbelief and shaming. They got better. They did well.

Dr. Herman writes:

The common denominator-the A criterion of psychological trauma is the experience of terror. Traumatic events are those that produce "intense fear, helpless-ness, loss of control, and threat of annihilation." This is the definition in the fourth edition of the Comprehensive Text- book of Psychiatry, and extensive studies in [00:38:00] the DSM-IV field trials have essentially confirmed this observation. People in a state of terror are not in a normal state of consciousness. They experience extreme alterations in arousal, attention, and perception. All of these alterations potentially affect the storage and retrieval of memory.

Dr. Judy Herman:

I often ask when I teach about dissociation and dissociative amnesia. I often ask people in the audience, how many people have been in an auto accident or near miss? And you know, we get a lot of raised hands. And then I say, well, can you describe what happened in your mind right when you saw it was going to happen, but the minute of, you know, before it happened, and they'll say things like, well, it's funny, you know, I got very calm and time seemed to slow down and I didn't feel anything.

And then. I don't exactly remember the impact [00:39:00] moment, but then the next thing I remember I was at the side of the road and I was shaking and, you know, crying, and that's dissociative amnesia and people can relate to that when you, it's, it's hardwired, just like fight or flight. It's a freeze response when you, from inescapable danger, when fight or flight is useless.

And if it happens to you over and over again, as in child abuse, kids learn to leave their bodies. Um, to, you know, say, I felt very sorry for that kid on the bed, but it wasn't happening to me. I watched it from outside my body. And when you're in, in that altered state of consciousness, memories are not laid down in normal manner, and they're not stored in and they're [00:40:00] not retrieved in the same manner and you can actually see that on fMRIs that dissociative can actually see dissociation and the abnormal memory storage on images on brain imagery. And when the memories are not stored normally they're not retrieved normally either. 

Melanie McLaughlin:

Dr. Herman is the author of several books. including the 1997 book, Trauma and Recovery and the 2023 book, Truth and Repair. She also co-wrote the article Amnesia, Partial Amnesia and Delayed Recall among Adult Survivors of Childhood Trauma with Dr. Mary R. Harvey and an article entitled Crime and Memory. I'll include links to these in the show notes.

In her work Herman distinguishes between single-incident traumas – one-off events – which she termed Type I traumas, and complex or repeated traumas (Type II).[5] Type I trauma, according to the United States Department of [00:41:00] Veterans Affairs Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, "accurately describes the symptoms that result when a person experiences a short-lived psychological trauma".[6] 

Type II – the concept of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) – includes "the syndrome that follows upon prolonged, repeated trauma".[7] Although not yet accepted by DSM-IV as a separate diagnostic category, the notion of complex traumas has been found useful in clinical practice,[8].

Dr. Herman writes "The ordinary human response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud; this is the meaning of the word unspeakable. Atrocities, however, refuse to be buried.

Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are essential tasks for both the healing of individual victims, perpetrators, and families and the restoration of the social order. "

Here, again, is Dr. Judy Herman:

Dr. Judy Herman:

What I've learned from the survivors I interviewed for Truth [00:42:00] in Repair is that the betrayal of the community in some ways is, hurts worse than the actual betrayal of the perpetrator, All the people who looked the other way, the people who didn't want to know about it, or didn't care, or, , covered up for the perpetrator or, colluded with the perpetrator. Or all the people who said, well, it's just none of my business. It's a private matter. And that, being  betrayed by the community, that's what made the survivors feel isolated and alone. And so what they wanted most, was acknowledgement by the community, not just of the facts of what happened, but also the harm that was done., and vindication by the community. They wanted the, the community to say that was wrong. [00:43:00] That should never have happened to you. You, you know, no matter what you did, you didn't deserve that. And, they wanted the shame taken off their shoulders and put on the shoulders of the community. Offenders where it belonged and then they wanted the community to step up and do whatever was necessary to prevent it from happening again.

Melanie McLaughlin:

I asked Dr. Herman why society seems intent on disregarding the idea of organized CSA or pedophilia. 

Dr. Judy Herman:

I think public awareness of organized child abuse is maybe where we were 30 years ago on understanding the prevalence of child abuse in general. The fact that there's a huge market both for child pornography and for child prostitution, and that you can find it in every community, that there's basically organized sex trafficking in every community. I [00:44:00] think people are not yet aware of that. People don't quite get how, how huge the sex industry is. I mean, sex trafficking is up there with drugs and guns as, it's not billions, it's multi trillion dollar, worldwide industry.

I asked Dr. Herman what it takes for trauma survivors, survivors to heal. Here's what she told me.

Dr. Judy Herman: 

That's where people really need to find their own [00:46:00] communities.      I think that's one reason why support groups for survivors are so important. It's the validation from, from peers that really makes such a difference. Some of the groups are wonderful answer to isolation or an antidote to shame. And they're also very empowering because, group members not, not only receive help, but give help to one another. And so they find that, through their own experience, they can make their experience a gift to others. 

One of the things that Ann Burgess found in her study of survivors was, that the majority didn't get much mental healthcare other than what they got in the emergency room.

But most [00:47:00] people four years later, had made pretty good recoveries. And the two things that, really predicted a good recovery were, first of all, taking some sort of action, to reestablish a sense of safety. It didn't really matter what the action was, some people went to the police, but the majority didn't, I mean most rapes are not reported, because survivors are afraid they won't be believed or they'll be blamed um, but they did something. They changed their locks on their doors. They changed their phone numbers. They got a dog. They moved in with family. They moved in with a roommate. They took self defense class, you know, they did something to make them feel that they weren't so vulnerable.

Taking action was one thing and reaching out to other people, telling someone was the [00:48:00] other. There were some people who told someone and didn't get a supportive response right away, you know, immediately, but they kept trying. until they found someone who was supportive.

 So connecting with other people and taking action, those were the two things that really predicted good recovery. Isolation predicted the worst recoveries. 

And the best recoveries of all, there were about 10 percent of the survivors who got involved in some sort of social justice action. As a result, they developed what my colleague Robert J. Lifton calls a survivor mission.

About 10 percent of the survivors did things like they testified before the legislature or they got involved in public education or they. Volunteered at a rape crisis center. They did something to [00:49:00] say, I want to prevent this from happening. If I can prevent this from happening to one other person, then maybe it won't have been completely in vain.

Melanie McLaughlin:

I decided to end this episode with Dr. Judy Herman, who I consider a hero, reading a paragraph from her book Truth and Repair. 

Dr. Judy Herman:

If secrecy and denial are the tyrant's first line of defense, then public truth telling must be the first act of a survivor's resistance. And recognizing the survivor's claim to justice must be the moral community's first act of solidarity.

Melanie McLaughlin:

Next time on Open Investigation - Connections, Episode 7. This episode will tie together the many connections made throughout this podcast and throughout our investigation. New episodes are released every Tuesday. Stay tuned. And please share our podcast on social media and with friends and family. The more we get the word out the [00:50:00] higher our hopes are of making real systemic change. Thank you!

This episode was produced and written by me, Melanie Perkins McLaughlin

Edited by Mike Gioscia

Original music and additional editing by Drew O’Doherty

Coordinating Producer: Anngelle Wood from Crime of the Truest Kind

Graphic Design and Website by Cheryl Crawford Design and Justin Strasburg

Research by Melissa Ellin and Maggie Schneider

Production Assistance by Darren McFadden, Sarah Ruemenapp and Alexandra Vega

Our social media producer is Carla DiStefano

Links

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/24/health/judith-herman-trauma.html

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S246874992100034X