THE FRANKLIN COVER UP:CHILD ABUSE,SATANISM AND MURDER IN NEBRASKA

THE FRANKLIN COVER UP:
CHILD ABUSE,SATANISM AND 
MURDER IN NEBRASKA
BY John.W.DeCamp


AUTHOR'S NOTE 

I have brought out this new, special 200412005 edition of The Franklin Cover-Up because the story and its implications continue to have exploding effects upon the American political and social landscape. In the years since the first copies of The Franklin Cover Up hit the streets, not only have I and others learned far more about the Larry King political sub-culture of drugs and child abuse and the horrors of child abuse committed and covered-up by certain members of the Catholic clergy, but the circulation of The Franklin Cover Up throughout the United States has brought many new cases to my doorstep. 

And, one after another. I have become involved as attorney on one side or the other in these startling cases-from Columbine to the Oklahoma Bombing; from MY first-of-its-kind lawsuit against any Catholic Diocese for covering up .child abuse by priests to today, when it seems every day brings a new revelation about the abuse and use of children by clergy. What I was condemned for saying 15 years ago, when the first edition of The Franklin Cover-Up first came out, is now shouted from the rafters of the churches and POLITICAL HALLS across the United States. AND THE ABUSES ARE BEING CORRECTED. 

When this book first came out, it was the first to open the ugly side of many of these issues-and I was certainly condemned by many for doing so. In fact, I was so threatened because of that first book that I had to move my entire family to a small town of 300 people, Clatonia, Nebraska, where I felt I had more security and neighbors to help watch out for and protect my children. That move has worked out fine for me. And my children are the greatest ever. 

I wish I COULD DROP THIS ISSUE ENTIRELY, but I have too many daily, weekly calls from folk all over America asking for help or guidance or information or direction on their particular problems. Hence, I thought the best way to answer them was to make this book available to them with current updates. That is part of what I have tried to do in this 200412005 edition of The Franklin Cover-Up. I have never spent one penny advertising or promoting this book. However, whatever caused it, it has sold well over 110,000 (One Hundred Ten Thousand) copies. Hopefully, it will do some good for some and give courage to others to Fight Back and Tell the Truth. 

John DeCamp December 2004/January 2005 

... May God be with you. 

2004/05 UPDATES AND DEVELOPMENTS 

SINCE FIRST FRANKLIN 

COVER-UP EDITION 

In late 2003, Troy Boner walked into a hospital in New Mexico screaming, "they're after me, they're after me because of this book." The book Troy was waving was this book, The Franklin CoverUp. Boner was "...mildly sedated and calmed down ... and put in a private room for 'observation.'" When nurses came to check on him early next morning, Boner was sitting in a chair, bleeding from the mouth and quite dead. Former FBI Los Angeles Bureau Chief Ted Gunderson tried to get autopsy and other information and details that were promised him on Boner's death, but Gunderson, and apparently every other entity, were totally shut out of all information. No news stories on Boner's death were published in the news, despite Boner's previous front page fame and "notoriety" in the Franklin case. 

Developments on INDIVIDUALS & ENTITIES 

named in The Franklin Cover-Up: 

WARREN BUFFET, has become the second wealthiest human on planet earth, at $35 Billion, second only to Bill Gates. LARRY KING was recently released from prison and is now in Washington, D.C., .... Duh, big surprise, huh? DECAMP is trying to collect the million dollar judgment he won against Larry King but Larry claims he ... has no money." JOHN KERRY & BOB KERREY both tried to become President and George W. Bush became President. JOHN KERRY claimed he knew of horrible atrocities done in Vietnam but JOHN DECAMP helped establish in 2001, 2002, 2003 that Lt. Bob Kerrey was the officer in charge who ordered slaughter of 25 unarmed women & children at place called Thanh Phong in Vietnam, for which Kerrey was decorated under claim that these had been armed Viet Cong soldiers. DeCamp returned to Vietnam in 2001 and met with the "survivors of the Thanh Phong massacre" and was asked to help them. DeCamp directly contacted both Senators Bob Kerrey and John Kerry to look into the matter and see if they were willing to help out these survivors. BOTH JOHN KERRY AND BOB KERREY REFUSED to do anything.

Catholic Church and many clergy members have been sued successfully in lawsuits identical to DeCamp's first lawsuit against the Church. DeCamp's suit first showed Americans the very serious problem with abuse and cover up of the abuse throughout the United States by members of the Catholic clergy. Boys Town and the Archdiocese of Omaha have now also been named in multiple lawsuits for the identical activities that DeCamp alleged in his 1991 lawsuit, which, as stated, was the first of its kind in America to open and expose this abuse cesspool. 

FINAL COMMENT & UPDATE: 

I have become involved in a number of super high profile cases since First Edition of Franklin Cover-Up came out .... but, perhaps the most frightening to me has been the COLUMBINE case where I represented various victims of the massacre and/or their families. 

I believe as a result of those cases I am the only lawyer to have taken the depositions of the Harris boy's mother & father, and I am one of the only victims' lawyers to have seen certain Columbine materials and tapes. I have reached certain conclusions on Columbine which I feel obligated to put into print here in hopes it will some day make a difference. 

More court action has been done to keep everything secret and destroy the depositions than anything I have seen in my 40 years of court activity. SO, for my own personal and LEGAL safety and protection. let me say simply that everything-absolutely everything- I say here is simply MY OPINION AND BELIEF and not done to violate any court orders or sealed records. But say these OPINIONS and BELIEFS. I MUST. 

1. I believe the first crime committed at Columbine was the slaughter of the children (Harris and Klebold's classmates) by Harris and Klebold. 

2. Just as surely I do believe the second "crime" of Columbine has been the continuing and strong suppression of the information and evidence by the Legal System which keeps parents and the public from really ever knowing the truth-or at least having a real opportunity to make judgments as to what the truth is, by having available all the information from which to make judgments.

3. I believe-as sure as I believe anything on this earth-the claim I made IN A LAWSUIT IN FEDERAL COURT in which I alleged, on behalf of the Columbine children, that the Harris boy's actions, including PARTICULARLY AND ESPECIALLY HIS FINAL ACT OF SUICIDE, were caused or influenced to occur by the antidepressant drugs he was taking. 

4. Remarkably enough, within a year or so after I dropped out of this lawsuit and the lawsuit was dismissed by the Federal Judge, IT BECAME PUBLIC INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE THAT CERTAIN OF THESE ANTIDEPRESSANTS DO IN FACT CAUSE SUICIDAL BEHAVIOR, PARTICULARLY IN CHILDREN AND TEENAGERS, AND NOW THIS FACT MUST BE PUT ON THE DRUGS WHEN THEY ARE SOLD OR PRESCRIBED TO CHILDREN. But, of course when I had this lawsuit going, none of this information was public knowledge BUT WAS ALL DENIED by the drug companies. And, one of these days-SOON-when I get a legal comfort level to do so without getting punished by the legal system I intend to BLOW IT OUT ALL STRAIGHT ON THE REAL COLUMBINE TRUTHS. 

FOREWORD 

"What do Ronald Reagan, President George Bush, fanner CIA Director William E. Colby, Democratic presidential candidate Bob Kerrey, billionaire and second richest man in America and now head of Salomon Brothers-Warren Buffett, and Ronald Roskens, the current administrator of the Agency for International Development, all have in common?" I asked my close friend and adviser William Colby one day in 1991. 

"I give up," fanner head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Colby said. "What could that group have in common?" 

"Three things," I replied, "all of them a burden at times for those who have to carry them. The three things are me (John DeCamp), a case called Franklin and a man named Larry King."

"Are you serious?" Colby asked. 

"Dead serious," I responded. "And I hope that word 'dead' does not tum out to be a prophetic pronouncement, as it has for at least fifteen other Franklin-related personalities." 

My statement to Bill Colby was not made lightly. Colby and his wife, Sally Shelton Colby, a United States ambassador under President Jimmy Carter, were at that very moment warning me to get away from the Franklin child abuse investigation, Larry King, and anybody else linked with Franklin, as quickly as possible for the sake of my own life and safety. 

Sally and Bill had never talked to me like this before. They sat me down, made it clear that this was not one of our routine discussions about life and health and happiness, and emphasized to me the serious nature of what and whom I was dealing with. 

"What you have to understand, John, is that sometimes there are forces and events too big, too powerful, with so much at stake for other people or institutions, that you cannot do anything about them, no matter how evil or wrong they are and no matter how dedicated or sincere you are or how much evidence you have. That is simply one of the hard facts of life you have to face. You have done your part. You have tried to expose the evil and wrongdoing. It has hurt you terribly. But it has not killed you up to this point. I am telling you, get out of this before it does. Sometimes things are just too big for us to deal with, and we have to step aside and let history take its course. For you, John, this is one of those times," Bill warned, with Sally nodding her head in affirmation. 

When a caution of this nature comes from someone of the stature and experience of Bill or Sally Colby, you have to take it seriously, even if you do not want to. I had already had warnings enough, that unless I backed off from the Franklin situation, I might be looking at life from a pine box six feet underground. 

Bill Colby had ample reason to know the seriousness of the Franklin case. In secret, Colby had been hired a few months earlier by the Nebraska Legislature's investigative committee, to look into the single-engine plane crash, in which the Senate's private investigator, Gary Caradori, and his son were killed. 

"But Bill," I argued, "somebody has to do something. The problem here is that our institutions of government have been corrupted. If there is a cover-up-and I now absolutely believe there is, even though originally I thought this whole Franklin story had to be a fantasy-then that cover-up can only take place with the cooperation and even the active assistance of some of our key institutions of government, from the courts to the cops, from the highest politicians, to the media representatives, to the wealthiest business leaders of our community and country. 

"I can't believe what you are telling me, Bill. Are you saying I should just lay it down, and walk away from this, when I know kids are being abused and killed; when I know our most respected citizens and business leaders are up to their eyebrows in drug dealing and official corruption; when every bone in my body tells me that evil is triumphing and everybody who is anybody is scared shitless to do something about it, for fear of one thing or another? How can any honest or intelligent person do this? If I, or someone like me, do not keep pursuing this, then who will? And if we quit now, then when, if ever, will the truth come out and something be done about this evil and this corruption?" 

Bill could tell I was excited, frustrated and almost angry. 

"Relax, just a moment, John," he said. "Relax, and I will tell you my own personal story. Maybe it will have some message for you. 

"Last night I returned from Russia," Bill began. 

Our conversation was taking place shortly before the now infamous August 19, 1991 coup attempt to throw out Gorbachov, and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union as it had existed since 1917. 

"Why was I in Russia?" Bill explained. "For meetings in Moscow, to try to work with other world leaders and Russian leaders, privately and quietly, so that when and if a transition of power and a change of government and economic policy occur in Russia, they occur in such a way that it avoids a war. 

I was staying at a hotel located right near Red Square which, as you know, is the most guarded, sacred spot in the Soviet Union. It was about 1:00 in the morning. I could not sleep. The next morning I was to return to the United States. Not being able to sleep, I thought I would see if it was possible to walk around and get some exercise. 

"I walked out of my room, expecting to be stopped by the guards or secret police. But nobody paid attention to me in the hallway. I walked on down into the hotel lobby. Nobody seemed to care. 

"So, I walked out the door of the hotel, directly onto Red Square. Nobody paid attention. I stopped by Lenin's tomb. I stood a few feet away from the entrance to the Kremlin. 

"Then it struck me like a ton of bricks: It was over. Here was the head of the CIA, once hated and feared by the Soviet Union, wandering unwatched and unguarded around Red Square, after spending the previous week meeting with their leaders, trying to help them save themselves from economic collapse and political revolution, which might turn into a new totalitarian dictatorship. And nobody cared. The guards did not care who I was or what I was doing. The system had collapsed. It was over. Communism was dead. That was the happy part." 

Bill went on, quietly, "But I also realized, that this walk in Red Square was going to be the only victory parade I would have, to celebrate my forty-year battle for this. There were not going to be any parades down Madison Avenue with ticker tape. This walk in Red Square was the only victory parade I was going to have." 

"So, what's the message?" I asked. "What are you trying to tell me?" 

"Sometimes," Bill said, "There are forces too powerful for us to whip them individually, in the time frame that we would like. We have to keep working at our goal. But we have to be sensible enough, not to risk everything and get ourselves destroyed or killed in the process. That victory we seek may take much longer than we wanted, and come in ways we never anticipated. 

"Maybe, just maybe, you have to have your own private victory parade. You maybe have to face the fact that you cannot 'right' all the 'unrightable wrongs.' That there really are people too powerful, interests too big; that the rich and the powerful, even when doing evil, can and will succeed and you can do nothing about it at that moment. 

"But," Bill continued, "you do the possible, recognize the impossible, and if you are right-and you are, and we both know it-there will be a time when victory will come and the good will triumph over the evil. Only the when and where and how are usually unknown to us. The best we might be able to do sometimes, is point out the truth and then step aside. That is where I think you are now. For your own safety and survival, step aside." 

"Maybe I should start carrying a gun," I suggested. 

Bill gave a cynical laugh and said, "No, that will only likely get you killed. If they are going to get you, a gun you are carrying is not going to stop anything. The best thing you can do for your personal safety is to tell your story, and make sure you have the national press interested in this and looking into it with some really good investigative reporters." 

"Huh," I muttered, "Maybe the simplest thing for me to do is to try to tell the story." 

"Maybe it is," Bill said, "Besides, I myself want to fully understand what you said at the beginning about what all those prominent individuals, from President Bush to Bob Kerrey, from myself to billionaire Warren Buffett, have in common." 

"Maybe I'll have to write a book, and tell you, won't I, Bill?" 

Well, here it is. 

PART I 

INTRODUCTION 

On June 21, 1991, 21-year-old Alisha Jahn Owen was pronounced guilty by a jury in Douglas County, Nebraska, on eight counts of felony perjury. On August 8, 1991, she was sentenced to serve nine to twenty-seven years in prison. Owen was indicted for telling a grand jury, before which she testified in 1990, that she was sexually abused as a juvenile, by a Nebraska district court judge, by the chief of police of the city of Omaha, by the manager of the Franklin Community Federal Credit Union, and others. Alisha Owen also witnessed, she said, the abuse of other children by figures in Nebraska's political and financial establishment whom she named, among them the publisher of the state's largest newspaper, the Omaha WorldHerald. She testified that she was in a group of Nebraska children who functioned for years as illegal drug couriers, traveling nationwide, for some of Nebraska's wealthiest, most powerful and prominent businessmen. 

Two grand juries, one local and one federal, had a mandate to consider these and other charges of child abuse connected with the Franklin Credit Union. They indicted the victim-witnesses for perjury instead! 

"This is unprecedented, probably in the history of the United States," commented Dr. Judianne Densen-Gerber, a lawyer, psychiatrist and nationally prominent specialist on child abuse, during her visit to Nebraska in December 1990. "If the children are not telling the truth, particularly if they have been abused, they need help, medical attention. You don't throw them in jail!" 

Both grand juries admitted that Alisha Owen and Paul Bonacci, whose testimony extensively corroborated Owen's, had been badly abused. But this was done, they concluded, by persons other than those the young people named. Bonacci, too, was indicted for perjury. Two other victim-witnesses, whose stories buttressed those of Owen and Bonacci, recanted under immense pressure. Alisha Owen and Paul Bonacci refused to recant.

.......

America is suffering an epidemic of child abuse. "S.O.S. America," a 1990 report from the Washington, D.C.-based Children's Defense Fund (C.D.F), said that "a survey by the American Association for Protecting Children indicates that 2.2 million children were reported abused, neglected, or both in 1987-a 225 percent increase since 1976, and a 48 percent increase in the previous five years." C.D.F and other estimates caution, however, that only one in every five cases of abuse and neglect gets reported. "The dimensions of the abuse are staggering," Dr. A. Nicholas Groth, director of the sex offender program at the Connecticut Correctional Institute, told the New York Times in 1990, "If we saw these same numbers of children suddenly developing some kind of illness, we'd think we had a major epidemic on our hands." 

Shocking as the numbers are, the nature of the crimes is more so. Ever more frequently, abuse involves what law enforcement officials refer to as "sadistic, ritualistic" features, or, to speak plainly, satanism. What the victims of this type of abuse describe is so horrific, that parents, teachers, and even child welfare workers have great difficulty to grasp what they are being told. The mind recoils from such evil, inflicted on the most innocent of all people, children. 

In recent months, news media around the country have been full of propaganda to the effect that children who report abuse are just telling what they fantasized, or stories fed to them by adults. As for satanic or ritualistic abuse, many newspapers declare that it does not even exist, as the New York Village Voice did in a June 1990 article, which attacked "the great ritualistic abuse hoax."

A banner-headline story in the Chicago Tribune of May 17, 1991, "A chilling tale of child abuse no one can prove," gave typical coverage of the debate over whether or not children are being abused by satanists: 

'All nine children tell the same story, a grisly tale of being taken out of school and abused in a blue house. They name the same culprit, a school administrator who performs satanic rituals as part of his twisted routine. In the 14 months since the first child came forward, police said they have conducted 150 interviews and cannot substantiate the claims of the children, who range in age from 5 to 9. Prosecutor Stanley Levco is more blunt: He doesn't believe them, and he plans to publicly clear the accused. 

But the children's enraged parents believe them. And a once-skeptical psychologist also thinks they are telling the truth. 

All agree the children have been traumatized. The problem is, no one can prove how. 'In all these cases, I don't know of a single shred of credible, corroborating evidence,' Levco said. . . . 

The stories of the Evansville children reflect a recent, bizarre trend in child abuse cases across the country. As more children are encouraged to step forward and expose adults who hurt them, police are encountering more cases of child abuse accompanied by allegations of occult rituals. 

The Tribune cited Kenneth Lanning, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's expert on occult crime, on the virtual nonexistence of ritualistic abuse. Lanning, who has publicized his opinion that "more people have been killed in the name of Jesus and Mohammed than in the name of Satan," said on this occasion, that there had "been only one criminal conviction stemming from charges of satanic ritual abuse in the U.S." 

On April 28, 1991, the Omaha World-Herald carried a story along these lines, titled "Satanism ... Lots of Talk, Little Proof." It said that the problem was not an epidemic of satanic abuse, but rather, "authorities say, America is witnessing an epidemic of concern over Satan and his minions, especially among adherents of fundamentalist Christianity. So-called ritual abuse is only part of it. But are these stories of incest and human sacrifice true? Many mental health experts think not. And at least two law enforcement officers, with the FBI and the San Francisco police, say they have looked into some of the claims and found nothing." (Emphasis added.) 

An embattled minority of law enforcement officials disagrees with Lanning of the FBI. Ted Gunderson, a 28-year FBI veteran, former special agent-in-charge of the Bureau's Los Angeles Field Division, speaks from his personal knowledge of one of the most infamous recent cases involving ritual abuse, the McMartin pre-school case in California. After a 33-month trial, and despite voluminous evidence against them, school operators Peggy McMartin Buckey and her son, Raymond Buckey, were exonerated in January 1990 on 52 counts of molesting the children in their care, while the jury failed to reach a verdict on thirteen other counts against Raymond Buckey. 

In a May 25, 1990 interview with Executive Intelligence Review, Gunderson said, "In the McMartin case, for example, before any criminal charges were filed against anyone, 460 complaints were filed with the Manhattan Beach police. Are we to believe that 460 families fed their children the same story of ritualistic sexual abuse, animal sacrifices, etc.?" He stressed that the crimes were reported in an affluent suburban area, where residents are typically skeptical about organized child abuse or satanic conspiracies. 

Gunderson commented on the effect of Lanning's disclaimers: "In my opinion, other than [satanists active in the United States in the twentieth century] Aleister Crowley, Anton LaVey, and Michael Aquino, Ken Lanning is probably the most effective and foremost speaker for the satanic movement in this country, today or any time in the past." 

Evidence from Gunderson's investigations has convinced him that tens of thousands of children or young people disappear from their homes each year, and that many are ritually sacrificed. A decade ago, one estimate, printed in Reader's Digest in July 1982, was that "approximately 100,000 children are unaccounted for" each year. That number sounds too high, but nobody knows what the true figure is, because the FBI does not keep count. Gunderson observes: 

"The FBI has an accurate count of the number of automobiles stolen every year. It knows the number of homicides, rapes, and robberies, but the FBI has no idea of the number of children who disappear every year. They simply do not ask for the statistics. Every month, every major police department in the United States files its uniform crime statistics with the FBI. It would be simple for the bureau to add one more column to the statistics and get a breakdown of every reported case of missing children-not to even mention children who are kidnaped for ritualistic purposes, and, in some cases, murdered. I am convinced that the FBI does not ask for these statistics because they do not want to see them. They would be confronted with an instant public outcry for action, because the figures would show a major social problem. That problem would demand action." 

........

The Franklin Credit Union scandal, centered in Omaha, opens a window into the hideous world of child abuse, and of organized, illegal drug peddling, patronized and protected by powerful figures in politics and business. 

National media interest in the case flickered in 1988, when the Franklin Community Federal Credit Union was raided by federal agencies and shut down. Franklin's manager was Lawrence E. (Larry) King, Jr., then 44, a rising star in state and national Republican circles, an officer of the National Black Republican Council. King sang the national anthem at the GOP national conventions in 1984 and 1988. 

Nearly $40 million was missing from the coffers of the small, ostensibly community-oriented credit union. The financial scandal turned into something more, when it became known that children from Omaha and its surroundings said they had been flown from city to city, to be abused at parties held by Franklin's officers and well-known Nebraskans, including nationally prominent Republican Party activists. "A Lurid, Mysterious Scandal Begins Taking Shape in Omaha," headlined the New York Times. 

Three years later, people living outside eastern Nebraska are unlikely to be aware of the Franklin scandal, and those in the region have been told that the case is closed. Larry King is serving his jail term for misappropriation of funds, after a guilty plea. Law enforcement at the local, state and federal levels said there was no evidence of drug-peddling, organized child abuse, or satanic activity by King. The allegations of child abuse were "a carefully crafted hoax," according to one of the two grand juries that examined the affair. A chief witness, Owen, stands convicted of perjury. 

The day after Alisha Owen's conviction, 3,000 Nebraskans responded to a local radio station's poll; 94% of them said they believed that she had been railroaded and that there was a cover-up. 

What the public suspects, the careful investigator of the Franklin case confronts face to face. This case is far from closed. 

This book will explore the substance of the Franklin case, much of which has never been revealed to the public until now. That means evidence concerning key players, which apparently was never brought before, or was ignored by, the grand juries. It means evidence gathered for the Nebraska Legislature's special committee on the Franklin case, which found and verified the tracks of criminal activity, where law enforcement purported to see none. The legislative investigation, which began in November 1988, ended on January 9, 1991, when a new Legislature was sworn into office, and the investigative committee authorized by the previous Legislature was automatically terminated as required by the state constitution. The Legislature had the option to renew the investigation, but did not; many members knew or suspected what the stakes were, and were terrified.

.......

I write about the unfolding of the Franklin case, its exposure and its cover-up, as not only an eyewitness, but a participant  in these events. I knew how high Larry King's reach went; I was sitting in the front row, just fifteen feet from the main podium, at the 1984 and 1988 Republican national conventions, duly elected by the people of the State of Nebraska as a delegate, pledged, in the first instance, to Ronald Reagan and, in 1988, to George Bush. 

I was there, as the story of the Franklin Credit Union and the child abuse broke in Nebraska. I wrote the "DeCamp memo" in 1990, which marked a new phase of the case. I will describe events in which I personally was involved. Most of these have never been made public, and it has pained me tremendously at times, when I knew that the Omaha World-Herald was saying something false or distorting a fact, that I had no forum or no legal right to respond, because I had to protect a client or honor a legal privilege. 

As an attorney, furthermore, I have some specialization in cases of allegations by youngsters against adults in the area of child abuse. It has been my policy and belief, as it is now, that there is nothing worse than child abuse, with the possible exception of falsely accusing people of child abuse. Just in the past year, I have overturned two felony charges against individuals in rural Nebraska, who were charged with abusing their daughters, based on allegations from the daughters. I was convinced the girls were not telling the truth. I successfully proved this in both cases, and the girls broke down and told the whole story as to why they had lied. 

In addition, I am the lawyer for the National Child Abuse Defense and Resource Center of Nebraska, which fights against false accusations of child abuse, and is made up of adults who have been falsely accused of child abuse. 

By contrast with these cases of fantasy, I can say without reservation that in one Franklin-related instance after another, there was sufficient evidence and corroboration available for anyone seeking it, to back up the victims' tales. 

My own recollections and considered judgments are just a fraction of the huge record of the Franklin case. 

The files of the Legislature's main investigator, the late Gary Caradori, testify to the mass of leads law enforcement would not pursue. Documentary evidence presented in this book, never before made public, makes it possible to contrast the assurances of local and state officials that there was little or no Franklin-related abuse, with what those agencies had in their own files. 

The chapters of this book dealing with Franklin are based, apart from my direct experience, strictly on documents available and documented facts. I do not claim to know the accuracy or veracity of every statement made by every witness or other person, recorded in these documents. I do claim, however, that the statements and the evidence were officially presented exactly as described. Readers can draw their own conclusions, as to what is or is not believable. 

I have been very careful to present only material and documents which I can legally and properly, in my opinion, make available. 

I also must state, that I received none of the Franklin committee documentation from the committee's chairman, Senator Loran Schmit, other than what I was entitled to as attorney for Paul Bonacci. Some people inevitably will claim, as they did when I issued the DeCamp memo in January 1990, that Senator Schmit, whose private attorney I am, "leaked" everything to me. I said then, and I say now, that nothing could be further from the truth. 

Neither is anything whatsoever from grand jury documents-some of which I had access to-presented here, because I am not allowed to disclose this information. I wish I could. I wish everything about Franklin could be made public. Then, the public could judge even more thoroughly about what is true and what is false. I believe that sunshine and exposure of all facts from all agencies that have information about Franklin would establish the truth of the stories of drug abuse, child abuse, pedophilia, abuse of positions of public trust, cover-up by institutions of government, and, most tragic, involvement in this conduct and later cover-up by some of our most respected and wealthiest citizens. 

I believe that the record must get out into the open, to the extent possible, and that the public has to share the information.Otherwise, truth becomes whatever those who control the institutions of government, and the press, say it is. Benjamin Franklin said, "Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech." For a textbook example of how this can be done, I would say: Come to Nebraska! Watch how when you totally control the press, when you own the press, you can make truth be whatever you want, you can make villains out of heroes, sinners out of saints, and vice versa. 

In this book, therefore, much of the material has been kept in its documentary form-the words of investigators, state senators, victim-witnesses, parents, police, or FBI, as recorded in police documents, eyewitness reports, testimony to the Legislature, published interviews, and so on. I will allow these documents to speak for themselves. 

Spelling and punctuation have been left as they appear in documents, except for minor punctuation changes in transcripts. Interpolations in quoted material are denoted by brackets []. When the name of a victim or other person is not his or her real name, it is marked with an asterisk *the first time it appears.

.......

The Franklin case, which has dominated political life in Nebraska for three years, has chilling implications for.the whole United States. The unfinished business of the Franklin investigation is a matter not only of justice for children in one state, but of the lives of untold numbers of children everywhere. Evidence developed from Franklin and King's activities leads into drug-trafficking, money-laundering, pornography, child prostitution, and the kidnapping and sale of children in different parts of the United States, and abroad.

The shocking treatment of Alisha Owen and Paul Bonacci by the courts in Nebraska is one give-away, of what a high stake has been wagered on suppressing the Franklin scandal. Members of the state Senate and investigators who sought to discover the truth of the matter, found that out earlier on, in a personal, violent manner. 

 

CHAPTER ONE

 "NEBRASKA IS DEATH-LACED" 

"If even half of what I have heard is true, this is the biggest thing to ever hit Nebraska," Gary Caradori told his wife, Sandie, late one night in August 1989. Although he was exhausted, the new chief investigator for the Nebraska Legislature's Franklin committee did not sleep that night. There was more cause for sleeplessness in the weeks that followed. 

On September 14, 1989 someone broke into the Caradoris' home. 

By January 1990, Caradori was writing to Nebraska Secretary of State Alan Beerman, "We-my employees and myself-have been followed and questionable situations have arisen during this investigation. Threatening situations have resulted numerous times. Why? Am I too close to something they do not want to become public?" 

On April 13, 1990, a repairman from the Executone company reported to Caradori that his phone was tapped, a finding confirmed to him by sources inside the phone company. 

The investigator continued to work, with a growing sense of the importance of his task.On May 29, 1990 Caradori wrote to Franklin committee chairman Loran Schmit. "To be frank," he told the senator, "it is my opinion that we are the only ones who are seriously working to get this case 'out in the open,' so to speak. I honestly feel that should we terminate this investigation that no further work will be done on it." 

On June 23, 1990, Caradori took a few hours off to attend a barbecue at the Omaha home of Mary Lyons-Barrett. Most of those present were members of the Concerned Parents, a group of citizens who were outraged about the lack of a serious investigation of child abuse by state or federal authorities, and the campaign in Nebraska's major newspaper, the Omaha World-Herald, to discredit young victim-witnesses. Arriving in a 1980 white Corvette, Caradori told Concerned Parents president Trish Lanphier he had taken the car out of storage for the day's drive, because his other vehicles had been tampered with, and he was "sure that no one had ever seen that car." He was planning to sell his boat for the same reason, but what he most feared, he told Lanphier, was that someone would tamper with the private plane he often flew. "It would be so easy to tamper with a plane." 

In early July 1990, Caradori phoned Senator Schmit. "We've got them!" he exclaimed about some new evidence he had just developed. "There's no way they can get out of it now!" He and his son Andrew would be flying to Chicago for the All-Star Game the weekend of July 7-8, he told Schmit. Caradori was going to do a little investigating on the side and would review the new evidence with the senator, upon his return the following Wednesday. 

On that Wednesday morning, July 11, 1990, Senator Schmit was in his office, talking with a journalist about the Franklin investigation. He related the numerous threats received by himself and Caradori, and Caradori's evaluation of those threats. "It's unlikely that they would kill you or me, Loran, because that would be too obvious," Gary had said once, "But then again, you never know." 

At about 10:30 a.m., Senator Schmit took a phone call. He listened for a moment, appeared shaken, and said, "Oh, my God, no!" After asking a few questions, he hung up, tears in his eyes. "Gary's dead." 

It happened at 2:30 a.m. on July 11, when Gary and AJ. were flying back to Lincoln, Nebraska from Chicago. A farmer in Lee County, Illinois reported that he saw a flash of light, heard an explosion, and saw a plane plunge to the ground. The Caradoris were killed, the plane's wreckage scattered over three-quarters of a mile. The eyewitness account of a flash of light and an explosion was on the early edition of television news in Nebraska, but got pulled from subsequent reports, which said that the plane exploded on impact. 

At the Nebraska statehouse that morning, Senator Schmit talked to reporters, who soon filled his office. "There were a lot of people in this state who wanted to see Gary dead," he charged. "They got their wish. The question to be answered is whether it was a coincidence." 

Gary's brother Dick Caradori was interviewed by the Lincoln Journal about the many threats Gary had received. "I know that it weighed a lot on his mind," Dick said. "He always hoped that they just didn't cover it up. He said there was a lot to it and a lot of big names involved and hoped their money wouldn't sweep it under the rug." Gary's mother, Mary, told the paper that Gary "cared dearly about the people involved in the Franklin case. He worked day and night for them." 

Sandie Caradori never received official notification of her husband's and son's deaths. She heard the news from friends, who heard it on the radio. Early the next day, before the bodies were even home from Illinois, the FBI descended on Caradori' s office with a subpoena for all his records. 

What evidence had Caradori turned up? According to the Lincoln Journal the day after Caradori's death, "Schmit confirmed that Gary Caradori had been trying to obtain pictures that some alleged victims said were taken of them during the period when they were being abused. He also confirmed that Caradori had been told that some of those allegedly involved in child sexual abuse 'had exposed some of the victims to satanic cultism. He was working on places and times.' " He was also working on leads into Washington, D.C. 

Mystery surrounded not only the crash of the airplane, but Caradori's whole trip. Gary and A.J. had stayed at the Days Inn Lakefront Motel in Chicago, where both his wife and his associate Karen J. Ormiston had telephoned, asked for him by name, and spoken with him (their phone bills showed the calls), but motel management would tell Caradori's investigative firm there was no record of his ever having stayed there. And if there was no record that Caradori had registered at the motel, there was also no record of what phone calls he might have made from Chicago. 

After months of investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board had not come up with the cause of the crash. My friend Bill Colby, former director of the CIA, commented after he looked into the matter, that the cause would probably never be known. Mary Caradori rendered her own verdict on the deaths of Gary and AJ.: "My son and grandson were murdered." 

Many Nebraskans echoed her opinion. They have growing grounds for suspicion. From late 1988, when the Franklin case first broke into public view, until mid-1991, at least 15 people associated with the case as investigators, alleged perpetrators, or potential witnesses, died sudden deaths, many of them violent. 

In December 1990, as Dr. Densen-Gerber prepared to travel to Nebraska at the request of the Legislature's Franklin committee, she consulted several friends with relevant expertise. One of them was a member of the New York State Police, who warned her, "Don't go. Nebraska is death-laced." 

Caradori's death cast a pall of terror over the state. Civil rights leader Rev. James Bevel, who visited Nebraska in October 1990 as part of a fact-finding commission, said that he had never seen such terror on people's faces, "not even on the faces of Mississippi Negroes in the 1950's and 1960's," who lived under the threat of lynchings by the Ku Klux Klan. 

In this atmosphere, Douglas County and federal grand juries indicted victim-witnesses Alisha Owen and Paul Bonacci. The Senate Franklin committee went out of existence on January 9, 1991. On June 21, 1991, Alisha Owen was found guilty, and Douglas County prosecutors dropped the charges against Paul Bonacci. As far as the Nebraska political establishment was concerned, the door on the Franklin case was slammed shut for good. 

Thousands of Nebraska citizens are concerned that what Gary Caradori uncovered not go with him to the grave. The story of the Franklin Credit Union investigation is intertwined with the systematic cover-up that investigation confronted, from the time of the first cries for help from children six years ago. 

CHAPTER 2 

 LARRY KING, A MAN WELL

KNOWN TO CHILDREN 

The first alarm went off on June 10, 1985, when the Washington County, Nebraska, Sheriffs Department contacted a Nebraska Department of Social Services (D.S.S) social worker handling the case of Sean*, Sally* and Steve McArthur*. The children were living in foster care with Jarrett and Barbara Webb of Fort Calhoun. 

The social worker wrote up the call: 

The Sheriffs department phoned today and stated they have the McArthur children in their custody and they had picked them up from the Webb home due to child abuse complaint. Sean had welts and scratches over parts of his back which he said the Webb's had beat him with a railroad iron and belt. They also had picked up the Webb's' son Joey*, age 16. Joey also complained of being beaten by his parents. . . . Sean said the Webb's have been beating [them] for quite some time and this is not the first time this has happened to them. They were afraid to say anything the other times.... 

Jarrett Webb worked for the Omaha Public Power District and was a board member of the Franklin Community Federal Credit Union, headed by Lawrence E. King, Jr. His wife, Barbara, is Larry King's cousin. 

Foster child Sean McArthur and adopted son Joey Patterson* Webb were removed from the Webb's custody that month. Other of their foster and adopted children,there were as many as nine in the house at one time,tried to make their break,sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs. In August, Joey's sister Kimberly Patterson* Webb (age 14) and another brother, Michael*, ran away, but were returned to the Webb's. In November, Nelly Patterson* Webb, 16, fled to the home of her grandmother, Ruby Patterson*. 

The Fremont office of D.S.S reported on the reasons, in a document dated December 18, 1985: 

Our office and a Deputy interviewed Kimberly [who had obtained permission to visit Nelly at their grandmother's] and Nelly separately and together. Both girls stated numerous times that they refuse to go back to the Webbs. . .. Both girls have stated they have received "whippings" and "beatings" from both Barbara and Jarrett at different times. These started in 1978, approximately eight months after they moved into the Webb home. The girls said they were hit with objects: an extension cord, a belt, a "black thing," (rubber hose) and a "railroad prop" (a narrow piece of heavy black rubber approximately two feet long with several holes in each end). Before they were struck, they were made to remove their clothing. They were mainly struck on the back or on the behind, but occasionally on the head or face. 

Social workers removed Nelly, whose full name was Cornelia M. Patterson* Webb, from the Webb home and placed her with foster parents Ron and Kathleen Sorenson in Blair, Nebraska. Soon after this move, she was interviewed at the Washington County Sheriff's Office by State Patrol Investigator Jane F. Tooley. Tooley found out that the abuse was not limited to beatings. 

Tooley wrote in her report, dated January 30, 1986: 

She stated that she had been sexually abused. . .. Nelly stated that when she was approximately nine or ten years of age, that Jarrett Webb kissed her for a long time and that she pulled away because she couldn't breathe and it was nasty. She stated that he was french kissing her and she stated that he was slobbering in her mouth.... Nelly stated again that when she was approximately nine or ten years old that on one occasion Jarrett Webb made her take a nap with him in his bed and she stated "he played with all my body parts" ... he touched her vagina and that he put his finger inside her vagina.... Nelly stated that when she was 10 and 11 years old, at night time when everyone was in bed, Jarrett Webb called her into his room a couple of times. When she didn't come into the room he then told her to come in or he would whip her. ... She stated that Jarrett Webb pulled the sheet down and pulled her on top of him. . . . She stated that she could feel his hair against her leg and knew that he didn't have any underwear on. 

When Nelly was 15, she told Tooley, Jarrett Webb punished her by ordering her to undress and lie on the bed, and then beating her with a rubber strap. Next, he made her lie on her back, put her legs in the air, and "he pressed himself between her legs," and "started 'humping her' .... He started beating her again with the strap.... He then started sucking on her breasts. . .. Nelly stated that she started crying and that Webb left." 

When, in February of 1986, the Department of Social Services requested immediate and emergency removal of Kendra* and Michael Webb from the Webb home, it listed eight separate concerns, among them: 

2) Repeated allegations of physical abuse told to our Department by six children during separate interviews: a) of being struck for long periods of time while naked, by various objects, including a belt, rubber hose, and the "railroad prop"; b) denial of meals in the home 

3) Sexual abuse of Nelly by Jarrett (supported by a polygraph test given to Nelly 1-30-86) 

4) The intense concern by the children out of the Webb home for the physical and emotional well-being of the children remaining in the home

.......

D.S.S memos show that the Webb's aggressively sought to terminate their status as adoptive parents of Nelly and Kimberly, starting immediately after Nelly's flight in November 1985. Under D.S.S rules, this would cut short an investigation into the mistreatment of the girls. 

Reversing an adoption was not a routine procedure. "Regarding a relinquishment [of adopted children], the Department does not accept one easily," noted one D.S.S social worker in her log of the Patterson Webb case. The Webb's insisted on it. Social workers recorded that in January 1986, Barbara Webb "was crying and carrying on," inquired about "allegations" the girls were making, and wanted "to get relinquishment over with." 

Negotiations on behalf of the Webb's were conducted by attorney Gary Randall, whose brother Casey Randall was in the orbit of Larry King's Franklin Credit Union; Nelly and Kimberly referred to Casey as "Larry's maid." Gary Randall arranged the relinquishment with the help of the very official who would have handled a criminal prosecution of the Webb's for child abuse, had there been one at that time-Washington County prosecutor Patrick Tripp. 

In June 1986, in the face of a pattern of gross abuse of children by the Webb's, the state suspended their foster care license. Prosecutor Patrick Tripp again came to the rescue, deciding not to file sexual abuse charges or any other charges against Jarrett or Barbara Webb. 

Instead of investigating her reports about the Webb's involvement in pornography and child prostitution, Tripp called Nelly Webb a liar-lie detector tests notwithstanding. 

Tripp's attitude was recorded by Julie Walters, a youth care worker called on to interview Nelly and Kimberly Patterson Webb in March 1986, because they had described abuse of boys residing at Boys Town, the large orphanage west of Omaha, where Walters was employed. In Walters' fifty-page report on the child abuse described to her by the girls, Tripp figures as an adversary of the children: 

When presented with Jane Tooley's investigation, Pat Tripp, the Washington County prosecutor, said he didn't believe Nelly and wanted her to take a polygraph test. At his request, Nelly was given four polygraph tests administered by a state trooper at the State Patrol office on Center St. in Omaha.The state trooper, after Nelly's testing was completed, told Kathleen Sorenson he tried to "break Nelly down" but he was convinced she was telling the truth. He also told Nelly that she "passed" and that he believed her. Although the polygraph tests showed Nelly was not deceptive, Atty. Pat Tripp maintained he still didn't believe what Nelly said. He said Nelly had fantasized those stories to the point that she believed they were true.

Tripp's line, that child victims in Nebraska just invent abuses, and that therefore their complaints need not be seriously investigated, would be heard from one law enforcement agency after another, throughout the Franklin case, down to the perjury conviction of victim-witness Alisha Owen. 

For Pat Tripp, there was a personal element in this case. He was a "good friend," according to foster parents cited in a September 1989 report by legislative Franklin committee investigator Karen Ormiston, of two individuals named by Nelly and Kimberly Webb as involved with the Webb's-Fort Calhoun Superintendent of Schools Deward Finch and Fort Calhoun High School principal Kent Miller. 

Between late 1985 and June 1986, thanks to Tripp, the Webb's escaped both a D.S.S investigation and possible criminal prosecution. Shortly after his refusal to file criminal charges in this case, Tripp quit as Washington County attorney. Today he is a prominent lawyer in Omaha.

......

Well-known as they were, Deward Finch and Kent Miller were small fry compared to another name that appeared in Walters' report, the same person for whom Nelly and Kimberly said Casey Randall was the "maid"-Larry King. Walters wrote: 

While the Webb's were away, the kids snooped through the house. They found: 

1. pornographic video tapes in a bag under the Webb's bed (which the kids played on the VCR while Webb's were gone)-one tape specifically showing teenagers involved in sexual activity. Nelly and Kimberly knew from eavesdropping that Larry King supplied the Webb's with the video tapes; 

2. pornographic magazines in the basement. Once when Sean was suspected of snooping around in the magazines he was not allowed to eat anything at the Webb's house for one week; 

3. box of a lot of "romantic" novels in Mrs. Webb's closet (i.e., mothers having sex with their sons); 

4. stacks of 8" x 10" (approx.) "photo" envelopes marked "DO NOT BEND" in Mrs. Webb's closet ... ; 

5. photos of naked white women in Webb's bedroom dresser drawer. 

Walters' report also conveys the Webbs' pricey lifestyle and the involvement of more people, including Larry King, in their activities: 

Although at the 3/7/86 hearing, Mr. Webb stated that he earns $32,000/year, the Webb's home is furnished quite expensively ($2,000 paintings, crystal, silver, several V.C.R's, TVs, etc.). Also, Mrs. Webb wears a four carat diamond ring, a full-length fur coat, all custom-made dresses, expensive accessories. When they throw a party it includes caterers and limousines.... 

Larry [King] attends meetings/parties at the Omaha Girls' Club ... about every other week. He sometimes invited Joey Webb or Nelly by calling the Webb's and telling them to have one of the kids ready in so many minutes. Nelly said they had no choice about attending these functions. She said she attended only once about 2 years ago (age 14) but Joey attended regularly from the time he was in seventh grade (approx. age 12-13) until he left the Webb's home (age 16). When Nelly attended she and Larry King went alone in his limo. Other times, Mrs. King and Mr. and Mrs. Webb also attended. 

Nelly described these functions as lasting about 45 minutes. She said she attended one held on a Fri. evening about 7:00 p.m. There were about ten to fifteen older men present and about twenty-five young teenage girls there. The girls all signed a brown notebook Larry King had. Nelly has appeared very frightened and teared up when asked about [document illegible].... 

Larry King either called or sent invitations to Nelly, Kimberly and Joey to attend parties at his home which are held about every other week. This began about two years ago. Again, Nelly said the kids had no choice about whether or not they would attend. They were driven over to King's with Mr. and Mrs. Webb.... 

Nelly and Kimberly said they talked with boys at those parties who said they were from Boys' Town.... From [Boys' Town] year book photos, after examining '83, '84 & '85 yearbooks, Kimberly said [four boys] had all attended some of Larry's parties during the summers of '84 and '85. Nelly was afraid to mention any names but earlier had mentioned a "Brent" (whose picture she didn't find in the yearbooks), who told her he had left Boys' Town in '84. Brent was "flown to another city somewhere" in Larry's private plane to "work for someone else" after he and Larry had a disagreement. ... 

At the parties there are usually about thirty adults present, male & females, more white than black guests because according to Larry "blacks get ignorant when they drink and tighter with their money and whites spend more money when they're drunk." Also present were some prostitutes (ages unknown but not teenagers) and [illegible] ages 16-22, and Nelly and Kimberly-about twenty kids total. If a man was interested in a young lady he held out a folded $50 or $100 bill in front of them and whispered something in their ear. Then they went upstairs or to some other area of the house. Nelly and Kimberly said the prostitutes told them they gave half of the money they got to Larry King. Larry also gave some of the boys at these parties new cars. The sexual activity was not always behind closed doors or confined to the upstairs rooms, and sometimes involved more than two people. Couples engaged in sexual activity were same-sex as well as opposite sex.... The money Joey told Nelly and Kimberly he made "working for Larry" the Webb's took from him supposedly to keep for him.... 

The girls talked about Larry King's power to command underage youth to do his bidding: 

Larry claims to donate money to Boys' Town and be on the Board of Directors at Girls Club. Nelly said Larry has gotten Boys' Town boys and other boys to his home by asking them to do some yard work. If Larry asks the young man to do something and he refuses, Larry might hit him. Nelly said Larry "has a bad temper." Larry also tells the young men they'll get hurt.

......

Julie Walters' write-up contains the most explosive account by the Patterson Webb girls, which marked the pornography and prostitution network they were caught up in as a scandal of national scope. What they told was so awful, that it screamed for immediate investigation. In the course of attempts by law enforcement personnel and, later on, news media to belittle the children's testimony, however, this particular item from Nelly's account would serve the opposite purpose: How can anything she says be believed, the line went, if she says this? The passage in Julie Walters' handwritten report reads as follows: 

Nelly also accompanied Mr. and Mrs. King and [their son] Prince on trips to Chicago, N.Y. and Washington, D.C., beginning when she was 15 years old. She missed twenty two days of school almost totally due to these trips. Nelly was taken along on the pretense of being Prince's babysitter. Last year she met V.P. George Bush and saw him again at one of the parties Larry gave while on a Washington, D.C. trip. At some of the parties there are just men (as was the case at the party George Bush attended)-older men and younger men in their early twenties. Nelly said she has seen sodomy committed at those parties. At other parties during Larry's trips, Larry had local prostitutes (in their 20's & 30's) there to entertain his male guests.... 

At these parties, Nelly said every guest had a bodyguard and she saw some of the men wearing guns. All guests had to produce a card which was run through a machine to verify the guest was, in fact, who they said they were. And then each guest was frisked down before entering the party.

This was not the last time that the name of George Bush would surface in the Franklin affair.

....... 

After the Patterson Webb girls raised Larry King's name, Julie Walters asked some discreet questions about King of Boys Town employees, and of some people in the north Omaha community. Walters summarized what she was told: 

"If you mess with him, you'll get your legs broken." 

"On the outside he has all the appearances of an upstanding citizen; but underneath he's very dirty." 

"Omaha has a very large underworld and he's a very powerful man nationally. Maybe he doesn't have all the connections personally but he knows the people who do.... [King] used to be very active in Big Brothers and took more than an appropriate interest in the young men." 

Walters also recorded information on Fort Calhoun school officials Deward Finch and Kent Miller, whose "good friend" Washington Country prosecutor Pat Tripp was. Finch would later be named by two other victim-witnesses as an associate of Larry King. 

Walters wrote: 

Kimberly overheard Mrs. Webb tell someone on the phone, "I got him [Finch] all the way. I caught him several times down there with black girls." Nelly saw Mr. Finch leave the Webb home once as she returned home from school and Kimberly saw him leave the Webb house several times during daytime hours. Kimberly's first period class at school is a study hall which is located across the hall from the school's office. She said Mr. Finch would regularly call the Webb's and say, "It's time for another meeting." Mr. Finch would interrupt whatever he was doing when the Webb's arrived to meet with them, meeting in the school office sometimes for several hours. At some meetings, Kent Miller, principal of Ft. Calhoun H.S., was also present. Mrs. Webb almost always carried a large Gucci bag (almost the size of a shopping bag) with her into these meetings. Kimberly said Mrs. Webb carried some photo envelopes (from Mrs. Webb's closet) with her at least once into these meetings, telling Kimberly she was going to show Mr. Miller pictures from their trip. 

 .......

The Walters report was turned over to law enforcement agencies by March 1986. The D.S.S logs were also accessible. 

Law enforcement officials failed to pursue the many clues and leads provided in these eyewitness accounts by children living with the Webb's, which might have taken them into a clean out of child prostitution, pornography, and interstate transportation of child prostitutes from Boys Town. While they stalled, the trail grew cold. County Prosecutor Patrick Tripp called Nelly Patterson Webb a liar after she passed four lie detector tests. Nobody was indicted. Jarrett and Barbara Webb went free. And Larry King was invited back to sing the Star Spangled Banner at the Republican National Convention in 1988, as he had done in 1984. 

CHAPTER 3 

PORNOGRAPHY AND 

RITUAL MURDER 

On May 5, 1988, Margo Georgiu* and her daughter Brenda Parker*, 17, filed a complaint against an Omaha photographer, Rusty Nelson, which the Omaha Police Department (O.P.D) logged under "possible child pornography." 

According to police records, Nelson approached Brenda at a store where she was a cashier, and told her he was "doing some photographic work for the Easter Seals Campaign." He left her his business card, which read "Rusty Nelson the Camera Man, Creative Photography." When Brenda telephoned, Nelson said he needed to take pictures of redheads like her for a "European portfolio," and that she would pose wearing swimsuits and lingerie. Brenda asked if she could bring her mother to the photography session, to which Nelson agreed. 

Officer Earl Carmean interviewed Parker and Georgiu on May 9, about what they had seen five days earlier, during the five hour session with Nelson at his studio in the Twin Towers. Carmean recorded: 

NELSON took several photographs of PARKER in various types of clothing, although no swimsuits or lingerie [sic] were worn. Brenda stated that NELSON repeatedly made references to PARKER in her birthday suit and making her breasts look bigger. Nelson never specifically asked PARKER to pose nude or semi-nude but did try to get her to show as much skin as possible and also try to make PARKER show as much cleavage as possible. Repeatedly, NELSON tried to persuade PARKER to model in lingerie [sic] as well as a form of clothing known as "teddies." PARKER indicated she refused to do this.

During the course of the photographic session, PARKER'S mother MARGO GEORGIU looked at several photographs which were scattered about the apartment and apparently taken by NELSON. Margo GEORGIU stated that she observed several photographs of nude females ranging in age in her estimation from 20 years old to as young as possibly twelve. Several of the females in the photographs showed frontal nudity. 

Suspicious about the Creative Photography set-up, Margo Georgiu phoned around to various modeling agencies and schools in Omaha, to which Nelson had claimed he supplied pictures. No one there had heard of him, with the exception of a man at one agency, who called Nelson a pervert and warned Georgiu to keep her daughter away from him. That's when she called the police. 

Officer Carmean reported: 

Brenda PARKER indicated that she suspected NELSON to be a homosexual. PARKER identified NELSON as being a white male approximately 25 years old, 5'9", 140 pounds with dish water blond hair and a small blond mustache. He was casually dressed and appeared quite a feminine [sic]. 

During there [sic] conversation, PARKER stated that NELSON said that he does work at Max which is a gay bar located in Downtown Omaha and he further stated that he frequents gay bars. 

PARKER stated that NELSON continually offered various foods and drink to both PARKER and her mother. NELSON placed a very large bowl of strawberries on a table offering them to Brenda and her mother. They were also offered to drink some champagne. 

During the conversation, NELSON stated that he was self-employed but made a couple of references to "the boss" keeping the place well-stocked and that the boss let him stay there rent free. It is unknown who the boss is. 

.......

The officer sent to investigate Nelson's digs quickly established that "the boss" was Larry King.

On Wednesday, 25 May 88, Reporting Officer MICHAEL HOCH went to The TWIN TOWERS, 2900 Farnam Street, and spoke with the Owner/Operator of The TWIN TOWER complex. ... [He] indicated that a party by the name of RUSTY NELSON, who is occupying Apt. #3-B (which was leased to LARRY KING), has since moved out of the apartment complex. 

Nelson had suddenly vacated on May 14, nine days after Georgiu and her daughter filed their complaint. 

In the same building, Larry King also paid the rent on a luxury penthouse. Officer Hoch reported: 

Since KING has rented the apartment [in August 1987], [the manager] believed that he has possibly put $50,000.00 into the apartment in such things as decorating, drapes, and furnishings. [He] went on to state that he had bought a couch from one of the furniture dealers in Omaha that would not fit in the elevator as it was being transported to KING'S apartment. And, as a result of this, a crane was rented for the amount of $1,200.00 to have the couch lifted to the apartment from the outside. [He] also stated that the apartment was very elegantly furnished; and the $50,000.00 outlay would not include (what he described as) original paintings, along with what is believed to be possibly a solid silver chair. [He] also stated ... that he knows that KING drives at least five different vehicles: Three of the vehicles being Mercedes-Benz'es, one being a Cadillac Alante, and the other being some type of sports car.... 

[He] also stated that he believes that KING owns properties in Washington, D.C. ....[He] went on to state that KING has a habit of throwing names around, and it is believed he is very influential in the Republican party. [He] also indicated that he does not understand how KING has as much money as he does to spend. KING does not actually live at the Penthouse apartment in The TWIN TOWERS, but uses the apartment for parties and occasionally stays at the apartment. 

[He] stated that he had talked to a realtor ... who indicated that KING apparently attempted to purchase a residence approximately five years ago and, at that time, had trouble coming up with a down payment for the house. It seemed strange to [him] that in five years KING has come into as much money as he spends. 

At a neighboring complex, the Orpheum Tower, Officer Hoch learned that tenant Larry King sublet an apartment to a young man who was a disc jockey at the Max bar. King had told the building manager that he was renting the apartment as a place to stay when he worked late, so that he didn't have to travel out to his suburban home. 

Hoch asked the Orpheum manager 

if she knew any particulars or had heard any type of information about LARRY KING, as it seemed very strange that he would rent an apartment in the ORPHEUM TOWER and is presently renting an apartment at The TWIN TOWERS. [She] indicated that she did not know any specifics about LARRY KING; however she stated that she has heard rumors that he is a very heavy drug dealer, and that she has heard this from more than one individual. ... [She] stated that she has also heard that LARRY KING is a homosexual and has a preference of young men or boys.

.......

The O.P.D dropped its probe of Rusty Nelson, his apparent pornography operation, and his "boss." But on June 28, 1988, Officer Carmean was dispatched to interview a different girl, whose terrible story pointed to the same clique. 

She was fifteen-year-old Loretta Smith*, who lived with her mother and brother in Omaha. At the time Carmean talked to her, Loretta was hospitalized at Richard Young Hospital, where she had told a therapist, in the words of Carmean's report, about "incidents in which she has been photographed nude or partially nude as well as instances of devil worship." 

Carmean wrote that Loretta was "rather articulate for a 15 year old and spoke and acted rather maturely for her years." Excerpts from Carmean's report provide the outline of her story: 

SMITH initiated the conversation by indicating that approximately five or six years ago when she was nine years old she went to a party with some friends much older than her. There, she met a white male ... who coaxed her into modeling for him.... [He] offered to take SMITH home if SMITH would pose for some pictures.... Initially, the unidentified white male took photographs of her with a Polaroid camera, of her fully clothed, although finally, she agreed to pose for one completely nude photograph taken by this white male.... 

SMITH then spoke of occasions when she went to the North Omaha Girls Club on Lake Street, with friends of hers whom she identified as NELLY and KIMBERLY WEBB. There, she discovered that they were also "modeling".... SMITH stated that those field trips consisted of the girls being taken to a photographic studio where pictures were taken of them either nude or partially clad.... SMITH also stated that she has not spoken to or knows the whereabouts of either NELLY or KIMBERLY WEBB, not having seen them for approximately three years.... 

She stated that a number of adults, whom she referred to as leaders from the North Omaha Girls Club, both male and female, were engaged in the photography of nude children. She also indicated that a number of prominent individuals were involved, including doctors and lawyers although she indicated they used code names and that she could provide no real names for these individuals. 

SMITH also indicated that the adult leaders who took these photographs used threats against her and others to get them to participate in these photographic sessions. She stated that she had been told on occasion that her entire family would be killed as well as her if she refused to participate in these activities. 

Loretta told Officer Carmean that she "began participating in what she termed devil worship with other juveniles and adults. She stated that she was approximately 12 or 11 years old when she started attending these rituals," which sometimes included nude photography. Those participating "were given something to drink which she stated, tasted like apple juice but which she thought contained some kind of a drug.... " 

SMITH indicated that NELLY and KIMBERLY WEBB, had also reported these activities to Police in the past but that nothing had been done. She stated that the WEBB girls had told the superintendent of Fort Calhoun Schools whom she identified as a Mr. FINCH, and stated that it had been reported to him first but the girls felt that since nothing was done that he must have been involved also. 

In a report dated June 30, 1988, Carmean put down more of what he had learned from Loretta: 

During the course of Reporting Officer's interview with LORETTA ISABEL SMITH concerning child pornography activity, as well as devil worship, she mentioned the name of LARRY KING as being a participant and supporter in these activities. Asked how she knew this, SMITH stated that she is a friend of ... the daughter of GARY WEST. (WEST is reportedly the manager for MAX'S, a predominantly homosexual bar located south of CENTRAL STATION at 1415 Jackson Street). 

SMITH stated that she has been to the WEST residence several times, and that GARY WEST is a homosexual, as well as an alcoholic. She stated that when he does become intoxicated, he talks about his certain activities with LARRY KING, and indicated that he is into the use of controlled substances (i.e. cocaine) for personal use, as well as for sale, and that he owes LARRY KING a lot of money for this.... 

With regard to Larry King, she stated that she knows that he supports devil worship activities.... She further indicated that KING owns a house on Wirt Street, the exact location of which she did not know, but that KING holds various drug and sex parties there. 

SMITH initially told Reporting Officer that she had been to the Wirt house on one occasion, in which she saw three or four teenage males engaged in oral copulation. ... It became apparent, when SMITH began talking about KING and WEST with a lack of specificity, that she didn't wish to go into much detail with Reporting Officer, at this time. Reporting Officer told her to consider recalling as much information as possible, and that she and Reporting Officer would talk again at a later date. 

On July 5, Loretta did telephone Officer Carmean and gave him the address and phone number of King's house on Wirt Street. Carmean drove by the house and called the number. The phone was answered "King Company." At the house, Carmean wrote in his log, he "observed on a gray awning ... the name KING in black script lettering." 

........

During 1988, as Loretta Smith grew to trust the doctors, nurses, and other personnel at Richard Young Hospital, she revealed more detail about what she and the other children had been subjected to. Her case file is summarized in a report for the Legislature's Franklin committee (by Jerry Lowe, 1989), which gives the dates on which Loretta talked to hospital staff: 

Loretta ... provided additional information of her previous involvement in cult activity which included the witnessing of homicides of several young children and which also included references to Larry King and others involved in the cult activities. 

August 19, 1988.The hospital notes indicated that Loretta was asked to give a chronological account of involvement in what is described as a devil worship cult and that Loretta agreed to do this. Loretta indicated that she didn't really know what was happening and that she became involved very gradually. She indicated that when she was approximately nine years old she was going to the Girl's Club in Omaha and that a guy named Ray would take her and four or five other girls at the Girl's Club on outings.... He took them to a building that according to Loretta looked abandoned and asked the girls if they wanted to go in which they all agreed to do. Loretta indicated they sat and talked for a while and then Ray provided a joint and all of the individuals got high. She indicated this activity continued for about three or four weeks and then Ray took them to a party. 

Loretta indicated that at the party there were about ten men all in their mid-thirties and that initially they sat around and talked with the girls about their problems. Loretta indi­cated that all the people got wasted and that the men at the party made them sleep around and that the girls did not have a choice of who they slept with.... 

Loretta stayed away from the Girls Club after this for a few days, but 

then in order to get out of the house she did begin going to the parties again and they lasted for another six months .... [O]n one occasion she threatened to tell her mother that the men were having sex with her and that they knew she was only nine but the men indicated that they would kill anyone who told about the activities .... 

The men started taking the girls to what the men described as power meetings. Loretta advised she was ten years old. She indicated that candles and other weird stuff were at the power meetings. According to Loretta, one of the individuals on one occasion told the girls that the room was going to spin for a while and it did and she realized later that it was drugs that the men had given them. 

Loretta advised that about eight months later she was put through her first test. Her and the other girls were taken to a building in Omaha where ... she was locked in a room with a little girl which she described as a Caucasian infant. At about midnight, Loretta indicated that the men came into the room, took the little girl away from her and told her that she could achieve power by killing something that she really loved. Loretta described that they then cut the little girl's head off, stuck it on the wall and made her sit in front of it. Loretta indicated later she had to take the head off the wall and that the men held her down while they cut the eyes out of the little girl's head. They then left Loretta and the girl in the room, locking the door. ... [S]he was left in the locked room with the little girl for twenty-four hours and during this time she could hear another one of the girls screaming [She could hear the men whipping and beating the girl. Shortly after this the men came into the room and told Loretta that she had passed the test and then drove her a couple blocks from her house and let her out. ... 

Loretta indicated the next time that she saw the men she had gone to a friend's house who was having a party and the men showed up. Loretta identified two of the men as Larry King and a Mr. Finch who Loretta indicated was a school principal. Additionally she identified parties as Ace, King Horse, Jerry Lucifer and Mike.... 

After one such party, Loretta said, another girl called O.P.D and 

reported that she was raped and tried to press charges .... Other girls covered up the rape for the men. Loretta indicated that she again threatened to tell about the activities and the men said they would kill her or her mother. ... 

At [another] meeting Loretta indicated devil worshiping was practiced and that another small boy was sacrificed. Loretta and the other girls were in the other room and she could hear the little boy screaming .... She then indicated the child was fried and eaten by the girls. Loretta indicated she refused to take part in this so that the men beat her for two days. 

At additional meetings Loretta indicated the men told her and the other girls that they must sacrifice for power and described three incidents where further sacrifices took place. The first a one-year old white female had her head taken off by a saw, the second a four-year old white male was hung on the wall and darts thrown at him and the third an Indian female, three or four years old, had several parts of her body cut off after which it was ground and poured on the girls and they also were made to drink the remains of the child.... 

August 21, 1988. Loretta indicated the third, fourth and fifth sacrifices took place during the spring of 1985 when she was eleven and that the parties that were at these sacrifices were Mr. Finch, King Horses, and the big guy she referred to earlier. Between the sacrifices she indicated that the girls were tested to see if they would keep quiet and how much control that the men had over them.... 

Loretta indicated that the men would try to scare the girls by having them watch as animals were mutilated and also the men would threaten them by saying that instead of killing them that they would just cut off parts of bodies and torture the girls and make them suffer. 

Asked to provide details relative to the first sacrifice of the infant girl, Loretta indicated that at first she didn't cry and after this the men cut the eyes out of the girl. Loretta indicated that she freaked out, was screaming and hitting the walls.... [She said] the cult members were wearing what she described as clothes which had upside-down crosses on them and that the leader always wore a long black cape with gold rings shaped like a skeleton head.... 

Loretta ... went into the Immanuel Hospital for the first time in November of 1985 and also was in Immanuel in January of 1986 and March of 1986. Then her mother put her in the court system so that she could ultimately get her into Uta Halee, [a school and residence for troubled girls].

....... 

To the expert eye of Foster Care Review Board Executive Director Carol Stitt, when she received the reports from Loretta's caseworkers, the girl's testimony appeared highly credible. Stitt explained before the state Legislature's Executive Board, on December 19, 1988, "One of the things that you want to keep in mind, as horrifying as this is when you review it, this girl is very concrete about who was present at these homicides, what was happening, dates, she gave a lot of specific information and in working with children one of the ways you know this is not a global fantasy is the more details they give you." 

The information given to hospital staff and to the Omaha police by Loretta Smith overlapped and corroborated what was already in the hands of authorities from the children from the Webb household, and from Margo Georgiu and her daughter. From three separate cases, involving pornography, child abuse, and ritual murder, children's testimony and other evidence converged on Larry King. 

to be continued...

COVER-UP PHASE THE POLICE