By David McGrath, Author of Obsessed
Validation. I was searching for that when I decided to undertake the project of telling a coherent story regarding the most dangerous era in history for children. Some intrusive thoughts come to my head about wanting to burn the whole thing down. Expose it all. I suffered a lot of sexual abuse at the hands of my mother’s revolving door of boyfriends. It was mostly for ages 8-12. 1992- to say early 1996. When I first started hearing the stories of all the abused, missing, and murdered children from the 1970s in New England, I started doing math in my head. I became fixated on the idea that some of these men slipped through the cracks and ended up in my home in the early to mid-90s. I remember all of them. Their faces. They were old and certainly from the era.
I am still searching for validation. Many victims I interviewed over the last 8 years have told me a very familiar story. The abuse started with the men showing them pornography. That’s exactly how it started for me. I felt a kinship with the victims I have never felt before. It’s more than with my fraternity brothers or my fellow soldiers. It’s like knowing a secret handshake. Another common thread in the victim’s abuse stories was the use of photography. To this day, I cringe when I hear the snap of an old-style Polaroid camera. The sound of the shutter instantly turns me from a 40-year-old man into a scared 10-year-old boy. He is omnipresent. When I get a haircut and the barber flips me around to see my face, there’s that boy again. Staring back at both of us. It’s like being on a terrifying ride at a theme park and being chained to the floor. The ride never stops.
I want validation that it happened. Wayne Chapman and company terrorized this area for years, but it seems like it’s lost to history. Only known to the people who lived through it. I live in Providence, just 3.8 miles from where Wayne Chapman worked. Even closer to where he lived. This project was 7 years in the making. I took 9 flights. Spent countless hours in horrible motels in places like Great Falls, Montana, and Jamestown, New York. All because I wanted to make sure I got the story right. Every name that could be exposed, no matter how small their involvement, needed sunlight. I wanted to tell it right and then put it down and never think of it again. Part of me knows that just like my own abuse, I will never fully let go of my grasp on this story. There’s just so much more to know. More names to expose. There are families out there who are featured in this book that have gone through nearly fifty Christmases without their loved ones with no answers. Not even a grave site to drop flowers. Nothing. I want validation and justice for their families and most of all, I want you to know their stories.
Read about and buy the book OBSESSED by David McGrath.
