courier-journal.com (Kentucky)
21 September 2011
Written by Peter Smith | The Courier-Journal
An Owensboro police investigation was unable to confirm reported allegations of sexual abuse made by a suicide victim against a priest, but newly released witness statements conflict with the Diocese of Owensboro’s report that the man never alleged abuse within the church.
In the days before he shot himself to death outside Owensboro’s Blessed Mother Catholic Church in February, 23-year-old David Jarboe Jr. had told friends and a lawyer that he was sexually abused by a priest and considered suing the diocese, according to a police investigative report released through an open-records request.
Jarboe had also told several people he was long troubled by an incident in which the parish’s former pastor wrestled him to the floor at the rectory when Jarboe was 16 years old.
But witness accounts of Jarboe’s varied claims lacked corroboration and specifics, Owensboro police said, and a Daviess County grand jury that reviewed the information did not bring an indictment.
On Tuesday the police released a 10-page investigative report in the case filed by Detective Kevin Kabalen, including summaries of interviews with several witnesses.
“We conducted a thorough investigation and interviewed everyone that was willing to speak to us that we knew of,” said Sgt. David Powell, an Owensboro police spokesman. While several spoke of the wrestling incident, police determined that “based on those statements, there were no criminal acts committed.”
The diocese had hired a retired state police detective to do its own investigation earlier this year. It said in a statement Wednesday that neither police nor its own investigator could “substantiate that David Jarboe had been a victim of sexual abuse within the church.”
But the police report does contrast sharply with the diocese’s summary of its investigation, issued in August.
The diocese said that, while Jarboe had talked to friends and relatives about past troubles, he “consistently declined to allege that he had been sexually abused within the Church.”
In the police report, Jarboe’s girlfriend, three other friends and a lawyer all said Jarboe spoke of being sexually abused by a priest on one or more occasions.
The priest named by several witnesses, the Rev. Freddie Byrd, acknowledged to police that he had wrestled with Jarboe and regretted doing so — but he denied any sexual misconduct, the records show.
Jarboe, who was an Owensboro Catholic High School football player and graduate, was found lying in the grass at Blessed Mother church on the morning of Feb. 3.
Jarboe left a Facebook suicide note referring to sexual abuse within the Catholic Church and said he hoped to “save at least one child from the pain and torment that I had to go through.” But his note lacked specific allegations.
Among his farewell messages was one to Byrd, who was pastor at Blessed Mother from 1998 to 2008: “I forgive you.”
Byrd remains an active priest with the Diocese of Owensboro as pastor of St. Peter of Antioch and Sacred Heart parishes in Waverly.
Reached by phone Wednesday, Byrd said any comment would need to come from the office of Bishop William Medley, which did not immediately reply to follow-up questions about its written statement.
Some friends and relatives said Jarboe never spoke of abuse, while others said he was troubled by the wrestling incident.
Jarboe’s roommate at the time of the suicide and the roommate’s girlfriend said he spoke of being abused for years by Byrd. The roommate said Jarboe would “go to Blessed Mother and sit in the parking lot until early in the morning, in the days leading up to the suicide, then come back to the apartment, ‘smoke’ and talk about the incidents of abuse.”
The roommate said Jarboe told him that he had been molested in the confessional, and that Byrd would make him undress while Byrd undressed and get on top of him, the report said.
Numerous people, including Jarboe’s parents, told police that he spoke of the wrestling incident, which some said occurred when he was about 16 and visited Byrd in the parish rectory.
Byrd wrestled him to the floor and got on top of him, the witnesses told police. One friend said that Jarboe had gotten up to leave the rectory when Byrd “blocked the door,” swept Jarboe off his feet and got on top of him on the floor, with Jarboe elbowing the priest to free himself, according to the report.
Jarboe described that incident as sexual abuse to his girlfriend shortly before his suicide, police reported. She and a lawyer told police he was considering a lawsuit against the diocese.
Jarboe told yet another friend that, during the wrestling incident, Jarboe felt the priest had rubbed his genitals against him through his clothes, according to the police report.
With other friends and relatives, however, Jarboe described the wrestling incident as upsetting but didn’t mention sexual overtones.
Jarboe’s parents said the wrestling incident “really affected their son.” They added that he had “a mental disorder that affected his way of rationalizing things that happened sometimes” and had for a time been misdiagnosed and given the wrong medication.
Two sisters of Jarboe said he had never discussed any abuse, while a third said he told her of being beaten once by Byrd but didn’t elaborate.
Byrd admitted to police that the wrestling could have appeared sexual to an outside observer.
The priest said he used to be a high school wrestling coach and that Jarboe had asked him to demonstrate some wrestling moves in the rectory, the police report said. But he denied that there was “anything sexual, nor did he receive any sexual gratification,” the report says.
“Byrd stated that … a man on top of a man would look sexual and knowing what he knows now about sex abuse in the church, he would have never done it,” Kabalen wrote in his report.
Byrd said Jarboe never told him this activity bothered him and that Jarboe visited him subsequently.
If Jarboe was 16 at the time, the incident would have occurred around 2004 — or two years after the peak of the sexual-abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church resulted in U.S. bishops agreeing to ban any abusers for even one incident of sexual misconduct with a minor.
That crisis also prompted new emphasis on priests maintaining proper boundaries with minors.
For example, a 2003 code of conduct published by the Archdiocese of Louisville forbade ministers from being alone with a minor in a rectory and from physical contact with a minor when alone, including contact that could be misconstrued.
Asked by Kabalen why Jarboe would “forgive” Byrd, the priest speculated that it was because he urged Jarboe to return to a Minnesota seminary where he was having a difficult time and was later told to withdraw or face dismissal.
Powell said police have not received any other allegations of abuse even with extensive media coverage, but he said police would pursue any new information that becomes available.
How is it that the diocesan investigators did not manage to speak to one single soul who said that David Jarobe confided in them that he had been sexually abused by a priest? The police managed to track down five such persons: Jarobe’s girlfriend, three friends and a lawyer.
It’s too late now. The boy apparently felt he just couldn’t live with the pain and shame any more.
I know I get repetitive, but, this is heart-breaking. Heart breaking.
May David Jarobe now rest in peace.
May justice be done and the truth come out.