By Brad Shannon
 

Board will recommend:  The state Clemency and pardons Board will listen to the sheriff deputy convicted of incest on Friday.
 

A former top Thurston County sheriff's deputy convicted of incest is seeking a pardon or some other help from Gov.  Mike Lowry.

Advocates for Paul Ingram, who's controversial case is discussed in several new books, will be given a hearing sometime after 9 a.m. Friday before the Clemency and Pardons Board.

Because of an outpouring of interest, the meeting has been moved to a larger room, Hearing Room 4, in the Cherberg Building, which is the Senate office building, according to Anne Fennessy, the governor's press secretary.

The board can reject Ingram's request, ask for more information or make a recommendation of anything from a partial to full pardon, according to Fennessy.  The five-member board's rulings are advisory only, although 18 clemency actions have been taken by Washington governors since 1986, Fennessy said.

But as one of some 22 cases before the pardons board, Ingram supporters may have little time to make a case.

Ingram, the former top civil sheriff's deputy and head of the Thurston County Republican Party, pleaded guilty to six counts of child rape in 1989 and is serving a 20-year prison term at Delaware State Prison.

He since has tried unsuccessfully to withdraw his guilty plea, claiming he was coerced into confessing to acts he did not commit.

But both the state Supreme Court and U.S. District Court have upheld the validity of Ingram's plea, which also underwent a five-day review in Thurston County Superior Court.

Gary Tabor, the county's chief criminal deputy prosecutor, says Ingram implicated himself in statements to police, long before investigators, a minister or psychologists got involved in the questioning.

However, victims of so-called "recovered memory" are rallying behind Ingram, creating a defense fund and trying to generate support for his cause.

The advocates suggest Ingram's memories of abuse were manufactured.

Among those advocates is Seattle-based Chuck Noah, a former Lewis County resident, who says he himself was falsely accused of abuse by his daughter after a therapist encouraged her to remember events that Noah claims were fictitious.

Ingram conviction heats up debate on recovered memories

By Brad Shannon

Who's the victim?  Some activists say memories of past sex abuse are often the result of poor therapy.
 

The Paul Ingram case lies at the center of a national debate over the value of so-called "recovered memories" of childhood sexual abuse.

Activists rallying behind Ingram, who was convicted of raping his daughters, say memories of long-forgotten sex abuse are actually the result of sloppy therapy or implanting, a phenomenon they call false memory syndrome.

Among the activists is Chuck Noah, a Seattle man who was accused of abuse by one of his own daughters, a charge Noah heatedly denies.  Noah believes Ingram similarly was the victim of false accusations.

But Thurston County Sheriff Gary Edwards and Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Gary Tabor have stood by investigator' handling of the case in which Ingram, a former top official in the sheriff's office, admitted his guilt and then tried to take back his guilty plea.

"Before there was any opportunity for anyone to brainwash him, he had already admitted (the abuse)," Tabor said Wednesday. "The brainwashing theory was only a theory."

Those advocating he brainwashing theory have had several chances to make their case, Tabor said, "but it has been found not to be credible by any number of courts."  Tabor noted that the Superior Court, Court of Appeals, state Supreme Court and U.S. District Court in Seattle all have let Ingram's plea stand.

Edwards said recently that Ingram had admitted molesting his daughters - even before Ingram was subjected to questioning that became the focus of critical books, magazine articles and television specials.

After being told the girls would need counseling, Ingram told Edwards:  "You better get some help for the boys (Ingram's sons), too."

But in Lawrence Wright's book, "Remembering Satan:  A Case of Recovered Memory and the Shattering of an American Family," Ingram is described as being encouraged by both police investigators and his pastor to recall events.

According to Wright's research of the Ingram case files, Ingram was told that in cases like this one, a suspect sometimes will find that he can remember better once he confesses.

A day or hours after certain questions would be asked concerning new allegations made by his daughters, Ingram would come back with detailed recollections that seemed to incorporate the previous day's questions.

Ingram also made hypothetical statements, describing how he would have done the abuse, if he were to have done it.

Ingram was arrested on the charges in 1989.  No physical evidence of sexual abuse or satanic activity was ever produced.

The most bizarre element in the Ingram case involved unproven allegations by Ingram's daughters that he and numerous other deputies engaged in satanic rituals that included the sacrifice of babies and sexual abuse.

Police dug up land around Ingram's home on Fir Tree Loop, but found no bones.

Two other men accused of sex abuse in the case were never brought to trial as the daughters' stories became entwined in stories of Satanism.

Charges against the men eventually were dropped, but Undersheriff Neil McClanahan, who led the investigations has refused to clear their names.

Richard Ofshe, a Berkeley sociologist who believes Ingram manufactured his memories of satanic abuse, has suggested the sheriff's office went on a modern-day witchhunt.