Yesterday's Herald-Leader followed up on the on-going sexual abuse trial in Fayette County. (I was busy doing some work at my church yesterday and am just now catching up.)
"Anybody who knows me knows that would not happen," said former Lafayette High School drama teacher and retired Tates Creek High School principal Robert Gardner.
I know Bob Gardner. We were professional associates for a number of years as fellow principals in Fayette County and my impressions of his work were of the highest order. When discussions took place on issues of concern to all school principals, Bob was typically in the room.
So when his name was tossed in with others in the Carol Lynne Maner case I was shocked. Bob seemed to be living every school teacher's worst fear - a claim of sexual abuse. How do you defend such a claim? "It's been four years of embarrassment and humiliation," he told the court.
I can't imagine.
That said, I don't really know the truth. Like other citizens, I'm relying on the jury to sort all that out.
A colleague of mine who was at Beaumont Middle School in the 1970s, has said the suggestion that Guy Potts would have turned a deaf ear to the claims made in this case is unimaginable. That's my impression too. When I arrived in 1986, immediately after Potts retired, I found a district that was very much "by the book."
Closing arguments are due to be made this morning, and then it will go to the jury for deliberation. I wish Bob good luck; Fran Edwards good luck; the district good luck...
I wish I felt better about a couple of other characters in the case.
This from yesterday's Herald-Leader:
Former educators deny sexual activity with Maner
"Anybody who knows me knows that would not happen," said former Lafayette High School drama teacher and retired Tates Creek High School principal Robert Gardner, who called Maner's allegations against him preposterous.
Maner has alleged in her lawsuit against the school board that it ignored allegations of sexual abuse of her by Gardner, three teachers, a guidance counselor and assistant principal at Beaumont Junior High School and Lafayette in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
She alleges she was coerced into having sex with Gardner in Lafayette's auditorium. She also says she had sex with Gardner elsewhere in the school and at his home, and with another former Lafayette teacher, Rick Kazee.
Gardner's cross-examination by attorney Charles Arnold, who represents Maner, was combative.
"It's been four years of embarrassment and humiliation, Mr. Arnold," Gardner said.
Maner's lawsuit was filed in August 2003.
Arnold questioned Gardner on what the lawyer saw as inconsistencies between his testimony and what he said in a deposition.
Arnold showed Gardner love letters allegedly written to him by a high school student in the early 1970s. Gardner said he'd never seen them and denied testimony last week by his ex-wife, Cecelia Correll, that she divorced him because she suspected he had an affair with a student. Correll says she found the letters in a briefcase.
"I'm not sure I like discussing my marriage from 30 years ago," Gardner said.
Gardner said he and Correll had a rocky marriage, which he says was never the same after he answered a phone call from a man wanting to come to see her. Gardner had been away for training in the Marine Corps Reserve.
Arnold also presented a letter that he says Gardner wrote to Maner. The letter was addressed to the "phantom," and Gardner acknowledged that the handwriting looked like his own. (Maner says Gardner called her the "phantom painter.")
Gardner said it was no different than thousands of other harmless letters he'd written to students.
A former associate principal at Lafayette High School also denied attempting to abuse Maner.
Maner has claimed that Fran Edwards attempted to sexually abuse her during a trip to see an art exhibit in Nashville. She said Edwards bought her expensive clothes and telephoned her at home.
Edwards said she never took Maner to Nashville or bought her clothes. She said it was not uncommon for her to call students' homes if they were absent excessively.
That was the extent of her relationship with Maner, Edwards said.
Attorney Chris Miller, who also represents Maner, showed jurors a letter that Edwards allegedly wrote Maner. Edwards told jurors she did not recall writing it, but she acknowledged in a deposition that it was her handwriting, Miller said.
"My wish for you is the very best that life can offer," the letter said.
A former state social worker testified that Maner told him that her mother had kicked her, thrown a cheese knife at her and threatened to hit her with a chair. She said nothing about a sexual relationship with two teachers, former state social worker R. Thad Parker testified.
Board attorney Larry C. Deener asked Parker, who was aided by his nearly 30-year-old notes, to recall all of his interviews in an investigation of the Maner household in 1978 and 1979. Deener repeatedly asked Parker whether he was told of alleged sexual abuse.
A complaint against Carolyn Maner, Carol Lynne Maner's mother, was filed in December 1978 by Beaumont science teacher Jack Russell Hubbard, whom Maner is now accusing of sexual abuse.
Maner's attorneys say Hubbard and art teacher Roberta Blackwell, now known as Roberta Walter, conspired to retaliate against Carolyn Maner for allegedly telling superintendent Guy S. Potts that she suspected the teachers were having sex with her daughter.
Walter and Hubbard were arrested last week on rape and sodomy charges stemming from Maner's allegations.
Parker closed his investigation after Carolyn Maner, who was diagnosed as bipolar and having multiple personalities, was briefly hospitalized and the family went through months of family counseling.
Parker said he noticed that Carol Lynne Maner was withdrawing from the family, taking a separate vacation with Walter and becoming increasingly attached emotionally to her. He wrote in his notes that it led him to be concerned about the girl's sexual preferences.
"I'm not sure if this is an issue I should be concerned with, though," Parker wrote.
And from today's Herald-Leader:
Psychiatrist doubts Maner claim
A psychiatrist attempted to cast doubt yesterday on Carol Lynne Maner's claim that she was raped by a drama teacher in Lafayette High School's auditorium in the early 1980s.
When Maner filed her sex-abuse lawsuit against the Fayette County Board of Education in 2003, she said in an interview that she had "a friendship, an emotional relationship" with Robert Gardner, a former Lafayette teacher and retired Tates Creek High School principal.
But a year into the lawsuit, Maner filed an affidavit by former student Tom Wayman, who claimed that he witnessed Gardner rape Maner in the Beeler Auditorium. Wayman has since died.
Maner said that she had forgotten about the alleged incident and that Wayman's affidavit brought back vivid memories.
"Here's the problem with that for a psychiatrist," said Dr. Robert Granacher, an expert witness for the school board. "This isn't how the human memory works. The human memory is very explicit in that the more emotional an event is, the more likely you are to remember it."
Throughout the trial, Maner's attorneys have said she is not claiming that the alleged memories were repressed. Maner said in a recent interview she had not thought of the alleged incident as being a rape until Wayman described it that way.
Gardner has denied all accusations against him.
Granacher testified that Maner does not have post-traumatic stress disorder as she and a psychologist have claimed. He said the disorder occurs only in people who have experienced a life-threatening event.
Maner claims that the school district ignored allegations that Gardner, three teachers and two administrators at Lafayette and Beaumont Junior High School sexually abused her in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Closing arguments are scheduled for this morning.
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