The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
In March 2018, I posted a story about Mormon Sunday school teacher Noel Anderson’s arrest on aggravated sexual assault charges. At the time, Anderson admitted molesting ” four children between the ages of two and six over the past seven years.” Yesterday, Anderson, 23, was sentenced to fifty years in prison without the possibility of parole.
Anderson’s arrest and conviction troubled his fellow church members. One church member said, “He was an outstanding youth in our church. The gold standard for what you would want your son to grow up to be.” He may have been an “outstanding youth,” but he was also a sexual predator. Faith does not protect children from such people.
I do find myself wondering what, exactly, went wrong with this boy. News reports say that Anderson molested these children for seven years. This means he was 15 when he began preying on children. While my heart goes out to the victims, I do feel sorry for Anderson. He will be 73 years old before he is released from prison. I wonder, what drove him to molest these children? Was there anything in his past, his upbringing, that was a contributing factor? Were there other victims, children that have not come forward? How did Anderson behave while on mission?
One thing is for certain, child molesters don’t stop harming children until they are caught. I have no doubt that the victims coming forward saved other children from being preyed upon by Anderson. If they had not spoken up, Anderson would have continued in his predatory ways. More ruined lives left in the wake of his vile behavior.
My mom’s molester was 14 when he sexually abused her when she was 5. He went on to retire with the highest rank of non-commissioned officer in the US Air Force. My mom didn’t tell anyone about the abuse until after her uncle was dead. I wonder how many others he got away with abusing. My great-uncle was a mean guy who ruled his family with an iron fist and treated his wife like an inferior.
People who start sexually abusing others when they are so young and who target the youngest children should be locked away for a very ling time. I suspect their rates of recidivism are high.
Such heartbreaking stuff and I do wish we had the knowledge and experience to move beyond the punishment paradigm, the too simple blaming that covers the real issues involved. When it is our children who are harmed, we cannot endure the pain let loose. How could we… Nevertheless, sick boys who obsessively harm little ones are not just black and white evil people but people who have been harmed themselves and are in denial, living out their own suffering and spreading it around. Is there no way to help someone like this, only a few decades into life? Sure he needs to be segregated and away from young kids but is it not worthwhile to us in the long view to try to seek more insight and understanding in these matters? We know a good deal already about people who hurt children. The church wants us to give up on humanity and do a Flip Wilson but we can do better.
One thing is certain, cultic Christianity, and all religions of extremes, attract abusers and creates more of them through its practices of self-disgust and lack of respect for healthy human boundaries. Thank-you, God of Delusion, for your ‘love’.
he probably suffered the same type of abuse and passed it on. Mormons live in perpetual denial sometimes for generations as they are discouraged from questioning anything. witness lots of dysfunctional Mormon families.
How do you know this? Have you actually experienced this or actually observed what you describe? You make blanket comments about Mormon families that just is not true. The fact is that most child abusers have experienced abuse before they started their abuse of others. There are other contributing factors such as child pornography and abuse.