Opinion
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Ensuring justice
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Published: May 3, 2009
The Yadkinville child-molestation case that Sherry Youngquist wrote about last Sunday and Monday in the Journal raises troubling questions. A 10-year-old girl, Julie Murphy, told Yadkin County deputies in 1989 that her father, Larry Murphy, molested her. Her testimony got him life in prison. She recanted almost seven years ago, but he remains in prison.
Child-molestation cases are often complex. To help reduce questions about future cases, law-enforcement agencies should make sure that their officers receive as much training as possible on handling these cases.
"I think the training is a lot better now," said Yadkin County Sheriff Mike Cain, who was a young deputy with no formal training in such cases when he investigated the Murphy matter. "But there's never enough training."
Larry Murphy's attorney was unable to convince a judge that Julie Murphy's 2002 recantation means that he was wrongly convicted. The case, like others involving recantations, boils down to whether you believe what Julie Murphy said as a child or what she says now. In the state legal system, original stories told by victims and suspects are difficult to take back.
Julie Murphy now says that she confused her mother's boyfriend, who she later accused of molesting her, with her father in regard to the allegation that put her father in prison.
The case is problematic. She is being treated for depression. There is no new evidence, DNA or otherwise, to back up her recantation. The N.C. Innocence Inquiry Commission, a state agency that investigates claims of innocence, has declined to consider the case.
Larry Murphy's best hope is that he will be released soon on parole; he's been eligible since January. Upon release, he'll be a registered sex offender, unless his daughter's fight to help him is successful.
The state requires law-enforcement officers to receive a limited amount of training in handling cases of sexual abuse of children. Individual agencies can opt for more training. More of them should do so.
More training could have put to rest the questions that linger about the Murphy case. Cain said that if Julie Murphy "concocted a story that every adult believed and sent an innocent man to jail, I hate that." But he honestly believes the original statement she gave him, he said.
Cain said that the Murphy case was his first major one. There wasn't any evidence to collect, he said. So he sat down with a social worker for the interview with Julie Murphy. "Mainly I sat and listened and the social worker did all the talking," he said. "I just sat there and listened and took notes … I did the best I knew how to do."
He did get advice from seasoned investigators, he said.
He said his detectives are now prepared for such cases. But finding money and time for training is always a problem, he said. "If I send somebody away for a week or two, you're just understaffed. In case something comes up, you've got nobody to work it."
On molestation cases involving multiple victims, law-enforcement agencies can and should call in the State Bureau of Investigation. But for smaller cases, they're usually on their own.
We may never know the truth about the Murphy case, but local governments should make sure that their law-enforcement agencies have adequate money for training in how to navigate the difficult currents they may encounter in child molestation cases.
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