There were so many details in the women’s reports to law enforcement that were hard for me to read. That they were just little girls when it happened. That a man many knew as the “fun uncle” had touched them sexually under their skirts and tops. And that it happened in church or while swimming at the lake or during games of hide-and-seek. They were as young as 5 years old, according to the police reports. Some could even remember what they were wearing when it happened: a fluffy multicolored skirt; a pair of jeans with purple flowers on them.
But by the time my co-reporter from the Minnesota Star Tribune, Andy Mannix, and I got those accounts — spanning from the early 1990s to the 2010s — the girls’ abuser, Clint Massie, had already pleaded guilty to four counts of felony sexual conduct with victims under 13. In March of this year, he began a 7 1/2 year prison sentence. Arguably, the case was over.
But we kept hearing from the victims and alleged victims, former church members, investigators and prosecutors that the outcome had fallen far short of true accountability. Massie, they told us, was a symptom of a much larger problem within the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church, or OALC, which he and his victims attended. They told us the leaders of this little-known faith tradition pressured victims to forgive Massie, then to forget about the abuse and never speak of it again. In some cases, these “forgiveness sessions” took place between the children and Massie; one girl described the terror she felt being hugged by Massie as her father and a preacher looked on.
