Bruce Perkins, 50, recently discovered a new talent. Formerly a
successful businessman, he is now a fine water colorist, painting
Western art, sensitive still lives and portraits -- and he is a prison
inmate. "It's just an exercise to pass time and find a way to put a
piece of myself and the love I have for someone in a few cents' worth of
paint daubed on a piece of paper," he explains. Among his
most poignant pictures are those of his grandchildren, painted from
photos a few years old.
Perkins has good reason to "pass time" -- he has been in
prison for two years now, sentenced to thirty years for sexually abusing
those grandchildren, despite a complete lack of evidence, other than the
contradictory and bizarre testimony of little children who may have been
coerced by therapists, social workers, and police using pseudoscientific
methods.
Bruce and Carol Perkins have an uncommon marriage in our modern era.
They are more concerned about one another than themselves. Bruce
worries primarily that his incarceration is hard on Carol, while she
devotes her life to gaining his freedom.
"We've been together since we were fifteen years old,"
Bruce says, "and being without her is the most horrible part of
this nightmare."
The frightening thing about "this nightmare" is that such a
nightmare could happen to anyone. Once a sexual abuse allegation
is made, and the wheels of the Child Protective Services system begin to
roll, logic and presumed innocence can fly out the window, even here in
America, where we pride ourselves on our concern for justice.
Fortunately, some who have been unjustly imprisoned in this sex abuse
witch hunt are being released. Kelly Michaels, accused of smearing
peanut butter on children's genitals and pushing Lego blocks into their
anuses and vaginas, has finally been freed after five years from a New
Jersey prison, just as Robert Kelly's conviction in a similar North
Carolina day care case has been
overturned.
But in a courtroom in Texas, judges still believe that children can
never be led into a lie, however absurd and impossible their claims
might be.
Bruce Perkins remains in prison, where he paints beautiful pictures
of his grandchildren. He has served two years of a thirty year
sentence.
Bruce and Carol have two sons, Larin and Lann. Before
allegations surfaced, the Perkins' family was particularly close-knit.
Then Trish, Larin's wife, entered therapy in 1991 for depression and
parenting difficulties. Soon, however, she began to uncovered
supposedly "repressed memories" of abuse by her grandfather
when she was a child. She began to see signs of sexual abuse
everywhere. After observing her children "playing
doctor" with friends, she grilled them about possible molesters and
soon accused several of their playmates of abuse. Then, suspecting
an adult perpetrator, she asked her four-year-old daughter whether
"Pawpaw," her granddaddy Bruce, had ever touched
her. Trish had never liked her husband's parents. Now she
questioned her daughter repeatedly about what Pawpaw might have done,
but the child insisted that nothing had happened.
Finally, in the fall of 1992, the child told her mother something
about Pawpaw Bruce. Trish frantically called Patty, Lann's wife,
who questioned her four-year-old daughter. Soon, Child Protective
Services became involved, then the sheriff's department. The
police questioned both granddaughters closely.
Many recent studies have demonstrated that children --particularly
preschoolers -- will say just about anything to please an adult.
Small children have active imaginations and, if properly coached and
repeatedly led in a particular direction (often using sexually explicit
dolls), they will accuse almost anyone of sexual abuse. That is
clearly what happened in the case of Bruce Perkins. Fortunately,
we have the tapes of a police detective's interviews with the
grandchildren. Though the children had already been coached by
their mothers, the leading nature of the questions is obvious:
Interviewer: Did he ever put anything wet [on your vagina]?
Child: Uhh, no.
Interviewer: How about, did he ever use any kind of oil or
ketchup?
Child: Ketchup.
Elsewhere, the policeman asked how the child knew that Pawpaw Bruce had
also molested her cousin. "Cause my momma told me," she
answered.
Eventually, an elaborate set of horrifying accusations came out of
these protracted interviews. In October of 1991, Carol Perkins
hosted a birthday party for her husband at their house, attended by over
forty friends and relatives. During the party, Bruce Perkins
supposedly lured seven children, including three grandchildren, up to
his bedroom, where he stripped them naked, smeared cake, ice cream,
ketchup, and mustard on their privates, licked it all off, pushed Lego
blocks inside them, took pictures of them, cleaned them up, and sent
them all downstairs, with no one the wiser.
Adding to the improbability of this story are several facts. The
bedroom door had no lock. Perkins was supposed to have abused a
cat during the birthday molestation, even though Carol Perkins hates
cats and won't have them in her house. Four of the seven children
were not even at the birthday party. No photographs or any other
evidence were ever found.
Other allegations were even more preposterous. Perkins was
supposed to have taken one granddaughter out to the chicken house and
forced her to have intercourse with their dog, after which he cut off
the dog's penis and squirted blood all over the child.
All of this purportedly occurred in a 4' by 4' area, and the dog not
only survived the experience, but grew a new penis! There were
also supposed to be magical moving walls in the bedroom.
Incredibly, Bruce Perkins was found guilty by a jury. He had
passed a lie detector test administered by Ernest Halsey, the chairman
of the Texas State Polygraph Examiners Board, but the judge refused to
let Halsey testify, so the jury never heard about the test.
The human tragedy caused by these misguided sex abuse hysteria cases
is incalculable. After the trial, on her 31st wedding anniversary,
Carol Perkins sent her sons a tape of the country western song
"Daddy's Hands," to remind them what their father meant to
them:
I remember Daddy's hands, working 'til they bled,
Sacrificed unselfishly just to keep us all fed.
If I could do things over, I'd live my life again
And never take for granted the love in Daddy's hands.
Instead of the sons remembering their father's hard work and love, they
interpreted the song as their mother's cynical attempt to rub their
noses in what "Daddy's hands" had done, molesting his
grandchildren. Meanwhile, the grandchildren themselves have indeed been
abused, by the very system that was supposed to help them. They
will probably always think now that their loving grandfather did
something awful to them.
Bruce Perkins' first appeal has been denied, but his new lawyer, John
Ackerman, has appealed to a higher court. In the meantime, Carol
Perkins has been forced to sell everything she ever owned, including
their business and home, to pay for legal fees. She now lives with
friends and sells cars to make a living. And she visits Bruce in prison
once a week for two hours, where he has a new painting waiting for her.
The wheels of justice are slow. People who know and love Bruce
are working desperately to save him from a life in prison on unlikely
charges. Justice is also expensive. A defense fund has been
established. Donations may be sent to: "Justice for Bruce
Fund," c/o Carol A. Perkins, 7019 State Highway 75 S #12,
Huntsville TX 77340. Any amount is welcome. Those who donate $100
or more will receive one of Bruce Perkins' paintings.
Mark Pendergrast is an investigative journalist, the author of Victims
of Memory: Incest Accusations And Shattered Lives.