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BAILEY CONTINUES ON PAGE 68 of
In the Shadow of the Cross:
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“Strange too, how there exists no statute of limitations on murder. Years passing mean nothing to a murder case. The victim can’t be there for the trial either. But I am here, and I can testify as to what, where, and how it happened. Isn’t that a leg up on a murder trial?”
I asked, Do you feel frustrated by survivors who won't go public or tell their stories to the media?
Almost every place Bailey speaks in the rural area near Syracuse pictured here (click to enlarge), he finds more victims of the prolific pedophile priest Thomas Neary. “One mother came up and said her son committed suicide about eight years ago, that he was he was an altar boy, in Skaneateles. Another guy is coming up from (a southern state). He says since reading the book, he realizes he has unfinished business. He’s a (professional) and this journey has interrupted his life but he has to come back. So he’s taking an indefinite period of time off work to come here and find out what happened to him.”Still none of them wants to come forward in the public with their stories and stand beside Bailey, which frustrates the author as well as myself.
“The more people that come forward, the more credible this becomes,” Bailey said.
He understands the fear of “coming out”
Sort of. Bailey says:
“Most of the new Neary victims are prominent people in the area here. They're still in a job or career, some are politicians or doctors or lawyers, and they don't want their name associated with being a survivor of this, and I have to admit if I wasn’t retired, I would probably feel the same way.”
BUT
“I think the more victims stay silent in the case of Neary and other perpetrators the more these guys are out there still abusing children,” Bailey said. “By not coming forward, they're, I don't know if I’d use the word enabling -
“But yeah-
“By not coming forward, they're pretty darn close to enabling their perpetrator and others like him to continue perpetrating.”
So the iceberg topples.
POLITICAL SATIRIST and Radio commentator BARRY CRIMMENS, pictured at right, says Neary tried to make him a victim but he didn't succeed because he was savvy from previous experiences. In his BLOG, July 2007, Crimmens wrote this about encountering Charles Bailey in Skaneateles, that he almost got assaulted by Neary. Crimmens says he fought off Neary.
“(Neary) knew he couldn't sexually abuse me. On two occasions, when he started to massage my shoulders, I literally hit him as hard as I could with an elbow and fled.
