Sex Offenders Aren't Like Us

Originally published

in the Tigard Times

March 1996

Pedophile. It's a nasty word. A nasty word for a very ugly monster. These monsters are very different than you and I. Their sexual appetites include small defenceless children, even babies. And their disguises are perfect. That's why we don't realize their danger. They look exactly like us.

I have had much personal experience with pedophile and sexual perverts, and the recent arrest of an Aloha teenager brought it crashing into my mind again. This youth has been arrested on 16 charges of abusing other children ages four to nine, including attempted sodomy.

From my personal experience I can tell you that parents are always the last to know. I don't know why children don't tell, but too often they don't. My son was molested by a trusted family friend, a man we admired and respected. Our friend was different, above average in intelligence and appearance. He never married, but always surrounded himself with children and was one of the first single males in Oregon to be allowed to adopt children. I didn't learn what happened until my son became an adult and sought professional counseling. I hated myself for not knowing, for not figuring it out. After all, I was a detective. I should have known what was going on. I didn't!

And the disgusting crime happened again in my extended family. An ex-brother-in-law confessed to sexually abusing his former wife's six year old daughter for more than six months. He divorced and eventually remarried. He found another woman with a six year old daughter, and yes, he raped and abused her too. After a year and a half, the little girl flew into hysterics and told her mother what the monster was doing to her. He was convicted in Clark county Washington and sentenced to three years to life in jail.

We tell our children that there is no such thing as a monster. It is a lie! As a writer, I had to get to the bottom of this and I made a deal with my ex-brother-in-law. “If you tell me the truth about thoughts and actions, I'll never reveal your name.” In spite of himself the truth came out. I spent countless hours visiting him in prison at Monroe, Washington and received dozens of letters and phone calls from him. I wrote a book about him and how he turned from a little boy into the monster behind bars.

In the final analysis, it makes no difference whether these monsters are created by an abusive upbringing or whether they are born with sexual deviancies. The end result is the same. They require sex withchildren, and they seek jobs and positions that put them in contact with their prey. They smile, they cajole, they pretend to be a friend. Whatever it takes to get the defenceless child to them.

In my book I call my ex brother-in-law “Ben.” Ben told me there is no remorse, because there is no conscience. There is only lust and desire, manipulation and evil.

Once these sex monsters reveal themselves, (and of course their sex drive forces them out into the open) they must be locked up and never released. Our laws regarding them are not strict enough because we do not realize how dangerous they are, how purely evil they are. They cannot be rehabilitated. The state of Washington realizes this and doesn't even try. If we can't execute them then we must keep them incarcerated forever.

By Don DuPay

ABSOLUTELY NO PORTION OF THIS ARTICLE MAY BE REPRODUCED OR DISSEMINATED WITHOUT EXPRESS PERMISSION FROM THE AUTHOR, DONALD LEE DUPAY, UNDER PENALTY OF COPYRIGHT LAWS!!