A police chief's guidance to the grieving: Go see a medium

A police chief in Rhode Island gives out some unorthodox advice for those who have lost a loved one: Seek a connection to the afterlife by meeting with a medium.

John LaCross, the police chief in the Providence suburb of Barrington, lost his 21-year-old brother Joey to suicide nearly 40 years ago. Seeking comfort, he began meeting with people calling themselves mediums, but it wasn't until 2000 that he met someone he says gave him evidence of an afterlife.

Years later, he met with another medium who he says correctly described his brother's timing and cause of death, down to the manner: hanging. "But can you give me his name?" LaCross said he asked.

"It's a J name; Joseph," LaCross said the medium responded.

After that, he started keeping his brother's picture in his patrol car, talking to him and asking him for signs. Later, a different medium, he said, confirmed his brother was sending him messages.

LaCross said that medium called him out of the blue after a year of no contact — just after LaCross had asked his brother whether he was on the right spiritual path — with a message from his brother that yes, he was.

A police chief's guidance to the grieving: Go see a medium

Alleged sexual abuse victims want dismissals reversed - News - providencejournal.com - Providence, RI

The Rhode Island Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in an appeal involving repressed memory claims of child sexual-abuse against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence. The claims brought by Helen L. (McGonigle) Hyde and Jeffrey Thomas in 2008 date to the 1960s, when they were both between 6 and 9 years old.

Hyde, of Connecticut, and Thomas, of Massachusetts, are jointly asking the court to reverse dismissal of their lawsuits against the diocese. A Superior Court judge found that the statute of limitations had elapsed.
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The case in part hinges on whether repressed memory alone constitutes a form of "unsound mind"; or whether unsound mind also requires that a person be incapable of handling day-to-day affairs. The trial court determined the latter is necessary in order to stop the clock from ticking on the statute, as it relates to "non-perpetrator defendants."

Alleged sexual abuse victims want dismissals reversed - News - providencejournal.com - Providence, RI

UPDATED::Priest suspended amid abuse allegations - Story | WeAreCenralPA

I find this quite disturbing,,,

UPDATE:: Priest accused in St. George's sex-abuse scandal faces church investigation in Pa.

"The congregation has been very supportive of him, holding him in prayer, sending him cards, bringing him soup," said the Rt. Rev. Canon Audrey Cady Scanlan, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania. "They’re caring for him as they would care for any member of the congregation who is in a time of need."
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Allegations against White, 74, include that he raped and/or sexually molested a St. George's student in multiple states and Canada in the early 1970s, according to a report by SGS for Healing. That former student elaborated in an interview with The Providence Journal. The school's report said that White — whom it refers to as "Employee Perpetrator #2" — had "inappropriate and potentially sexual misconduct with at least three male students."

The school quietly fired White in 1974 after a student's parent reported the misconduct, which White admitted to the headmaster, according to a 2015 investigation report St. George's issued in December. But the school never notified child-protection authorities — as required by the state's 1974 mandatory reporting law.

That same year, a cryptic letter to White from headmaster Anthony M. Zane urged White to seek psychiatric help and not to work at any other boarding schools. Still, White went on to become academic dean and chaplain of Chatham Hall in Chatham, Virginia, and headmaster of what was then the Asheville Country Day School in Asheville, North Carolina.

UPDATE::  Former Rector of Waynesville Church Faces Allegations of Sexual Misconduct  

News 13's Rex Hodge was in Waynesville Friday, where he reported on new information about alleged sexual abuse of a minor. A WNC woman said she was sexually abused when White was rector at Grace Church in the Mountains, where White served from 1984 until 2006, when she was a minor.

UPDATE::Ex-students of prep school call for 2nd probe into sex abuse claims

Former students who say they were sexually abused at a prestigious Rhode Island boarding school are calling for another investigation after the school issued a report acknowledging the accusations.

An internal investigation recently found that 26 students at St. George's School were sexually abused by six school employees in the 1970s and '80s.

The private coeducational Episcopal school in Middletown sent a report to alumni in which school officials apologized and detailed the credible allegations. Administrators at the time fired three staff members but didn't report the matter to state authorities.

Lawyers representing some of the 26 former students said they've identified at least 39 accusers and called the report a "sanitized version of the truth," the Providence Journal reported.

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An Episcopal priest, currently serving at a church in Bedford, is accused of sexually molesting boys at a school in Rhode Island decades ago.

Reverend Howard White, a retired priest, has been serving as a fill-in pastor at St. James Episcopal Church in Bedford since 2007.

More than two dozen students allege they were sexually assaulted at St George’s School in Middletown, RI in the 1970s and ‘80s.  St. George’s is considered an elite boarding school.  Earlier this week a lawyer for three former student named Rev. White as one of six perpetrators.

Priest suspended amid abuse allegations - Story | WeAreCenralPA

GoLocalProv | Catholic Church Admits Prov. School Aide Arrested for Sexual Assault Worked at Cathedral

A teacher's aide at a Providence Middle School who was arrested for sexually assaulting a minor had been working part time at the Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul in Providence, GoLocal has learned.

Anthony Tedeschi, who was arrested on January 8 by the Providence Police and Rhode Island State Police Violent Fugitive Task Force, had been under investigation for an incident that occurred at Esek Hopkins Middle School on October 23 where another aide observed Tedeschi "inappropriately touching" a 13 year old male student with autism.

GoLocalProv | Catholic Church Admits Prov. School Aide Arrested for Sexual Assault Worked at Cathedral

ADDENDUM::Scott Harshbarger to Investigate Abuse Cases at St. George’s School - The New York Times

Scott Harshbarger, a former attorney general of Massachusetts and former president of Common Cause, was named on Monday as the independent investigator into sexual abuse accusations spanning decades at St. George’s School, an elite prep school in Middletown, R.I.

Scott Harshbarger to Investigate Abuse Cases at St. George’s School - The New York Times

See also::   Ex-Mass. AG to lead sex abuse probe at R.I. school

ADDENDUM::More Schools Notify Parents, Staff, Alumni Of Connection To St. George's Investigation | Rhode Island Public Radio

Two more private schools have reached out to alumni and parents in connection with allegations of sexual abuse at St. George’s School. The schools notified current and former families that a former employee, the Rev. Dr. Howard White, has been accused of sexual misconduct at St. George’s.

White, an Episcopal priest, was dismissed from St. George’s in 1974, after the school says he admitted to sexual misconduct with male students. The abuse was apparently never reported, and White went on to serve as academic dean and chaplain at Chatham Hall, an all-girls Episcopal boarding school in Virginia.

Another private school, Asheville Country Day in North Carolina, would later hire White as assistant headmaster. The school is known today as the Carolina Day School.

More Schools Notify Parents, Staff, Alumni Of Connection To St. George's Investigation | Rhode Island Public Radio

Addendum::Tampa Prep notifies parents after former teacher is linked to sexual abuse scandal | Tampa Bay Times

Tampa Preparatory School has sent a letter to parents informing them of the private school's connection to an unfolding sexual abuse scandal in Rhode Island.


Franklin Coleman, a Tampa Prep music teacher from 1997 to 2008, has been accused of sexually abusing boys while working at St. George's School, an Episcopal prep school in Middletown, R.I.

One of the accusers, Hawkins Cramer, spoke with the Tampa Bay Times on Tuesday and said Coleman sexually abused him while he was at St. George's from 1981 to 1985.
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In his letter to parents, Kevin Plummer, the head of school at Tampa Prep, said the Globe story identifies six employees and three students as perpetrators at St. George's. "Today, The Boston Globe identified one of the perpetrators as Franklin Coleman, who 10 years later also taught at Tampa Prep."

Tampa Prep notifies parents after former teacher is linked to sexual abuse scandal | Tampa Bay Times

Lesbian Couple Allegedly Beaten After Kissing Outside Six Flags in Mass. | Advocate.com

A lesbian couple from Rhode Island is recovering from injuries after being viciously beaten at Six Flags New England by two women, reports Springfield newspaper The Republican.

Damarielys Mukhtar, 29, and Nikia L. Butt, 27, both residents of Western Massachusetts, now face charges of assault and battery and a civil rights violation with injury for the attack at the amusement park in Agawam, Mass. Mukthar was also charged with assault with a dangerous weapon for possessing a knife.
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The victims, ages 18 and 19, and both students at at Bryant University, told police that they were verbally accosted by Mukthar when they stopped to embrace and kiss while leaving the amusement park just before 7 p.m. Wednesday night. According to their police statement, the assailant was walking by them, but stopped and stared when she saw the couple.
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Mukhtar was then joined by her friend Nikia Butt who, according to the police record, punched the second victim in the face. When a crowd began to gather around the scuffle, Mukhtar and Butt fled. The second victim then told her girlfriend she had seen Mukhtar holding a three-inch knife.


Lesbian Couple Allegedly Beaten After Kissing Outside Six Flags in Mass. | Advocate.com