Summary
David Herget was a Mormon church member who lived in the Mountlake Terrace Ward of the Lynnwood, Washington stake, later renamed the Shoreline Stake.
He was released from community supervision on that conviction in August 2001, court records indicate. The suspect was registered as a Level 1 sex offender, considered the least likely to reoffend.
In 1993, Herget pleaded guilty in Washington to second-degree child rape.
Herget sought a special sentence for first-time sex offenders deemed likely to benefit from treatment. Without it, he faced up to nine years in prison.
The court received dozens of letters from LDS church members urging leniency for Herget. One was from a Seattle police detective who belonged to Herget’s congregation. Another was from the parents of the boy who would later unmask Herget as a serial child molester.
Herget was sentenced to seven years in prison, which was suspended after he served 180 days in jail, promised to undergo 36 months of treatment as an outpatient sex offender and registered as a sex offender.
Herget was made to register as a level-1 sex offender (considered the least likely to re-offend).
In 1993, Herget was excommunicated from the Mormon church. At that time, Herget’s stake president was Marcus Nash, who later became an LDS general authority and member of the church’s First Council of the Seventy.
Herget told Nash and two Mountlake Terrace Ward bishops – Ken Walters and Kim Jurretich [sic “Juretich”] – that he was repentant and rehabilitated, according to a 2013 exmormon.org forum poster named “Resipsa Loquitur.”
The poster said Herget “was encouraged by Stake President Marcus Nash, Bishop Ken Walters, Bishop Jim [sic “Kim”] Juretich, and another ward bishop, Kimball Olsen, to be the ward Santa Claus at the Mountlake Terrace Ward Christmas parties, during 2004 and 2005, to have all the young children sit on his lap.”
In 2002, Herget was rebaptized into the Mormon church, and in 2004, the church gave Herget back his priesthood authority, the forum poster said.
On July 1, 2005, Herget was arrested by the Mountlake Terrace Police on suspicion of 18 charges, including child rape and sexual exploitation of a child.
The victims were children of Mountlake Terrace Ward members, who didn’t know that Herget was a known sex offender and pedophile, the source told FLOODLIT.
At the time of his arrest, Herget was a Mormon church high priest.
Herget was booked on six counts of child rape, six counts of child molestation, three counts of sexual exploitation of a minor using photographs and live performances, and three counts of communicating with a minor for immoral purposes.
Herget was taken to the Snohomish County Jail, where he died by suicide early the next morning, while on suicide watch.
Facts
Alleged coverup- Criminal: Convicted, Jail, Prison, Registered sex offender, Suicide,
- Civil: No civil case,
- Positions: High priest,
- During crime: High priest,
- When accused: High priest,
- Crime: 1990s, 2000s, in Washington,
- Convicted: 1990s, 2000s,
- Crime scenes: Perpetrator's home,
- Victims: 8 victims, Multiple victims,
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Born: 1943
Died: 2005 - Mission: no
- Locations: Washington,
Sources
- Facing 18 sex charges, man dies,
- Jail probes death of suicidal inmate,
- Man jailed in child rape case found dead despite suicide watch,
- How a predator fooled everyone,
- Abuse and accountability [opinion],
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1. Facing 18 sex charges, man dies
EVERETT – A convicted sex offender who allegedly used the Mormon church he attended to lure boys, died Saturday while on suicide watch in the Snohomish County Jail, officials reported.
Correction officers responded around 4 a.m. to a single cell in the jail’s special custody unit, where David Herget, 62, of Mountlake Terrace had been held since Friday.
An officer was checking on Herget’s safety every 30 minutes, said Jim Harms, the jail’s public information officer.
Paramedics arrived about 30 minutes after an officer found Herget and unsuccessfully tried to resuscitate him, Harms said. The cause of Herget’s death is under investigation pending an autopsy by the Snohomish County medical examiner.
Herget was the first man to die in jail custody since 2003, Harms said. “It’s extremely unusual,” he said.
Herget’s family members declined to comment.
Mountlake Terrace police arrested Herget on Friday on suspicion of sex crimes involving boys he met at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Mountlake Terrace. Officers also searched his house Friday in the 5800 block of 225th Place SW.
“We did recover quite a bit of evidence,” Assistant Police Chief Pete Caw said.
Caw declined to comment on the items.
Herget faced 18 charges of sex crimes, including six counts of child rape, six counts of child molestation, three counts of sexual exploitation of minors, and communicating with a minor for immoral purposes, Harms said.
Herget was being held in lieu of up to $345,000 bail, Harms said.
Officials put Herget on suicide watch after family members expressed concerns about the possibility that he might harm himself, Harms said. At the time Herget was found, one officer had been designated to supervise 35 inmates in the unit.
“The basic thing is to observe them. That’s why they’re designated to a single cell,” Harms said, adding that officers also check belongings inmates bring into their cells.
It was not clear what Herget took into his cell. Each inmate can bring different items, depending on the circumstances, Harms said.
Herget was convicted in 1993 of child rape and child molestation, police reported. He served time in jail and had been registered as a level 1 sex offender – considered the least likely to reoffend – since 1997 with the Mountlake Terrace police.
Jeff Werner, who has lived for about 10 months next to Herget’s house, said he knew nothing about Herget’s record until police told him Friday.
“It scared me. I questioned my boys when they got home,” said Werner, 42.
His sons, 12 and 15, said Herget did them no harm, Werner said.
Herget, who lived with his wife, daughter and son, often brought boys to his home and let them mow the lawn and do yardwork, Werner said Saturday standing outside his house.
“I know he had boys out there,” he said.
One day, Werner saw Herget through his kitchen window take pictures of boys with a digital camera, with one boy taking off his shirt.
“If I had known (Herget’s background), I would’ve called the authorities,” Werner said.
Officials should inform neighbors of sex offenders, Werner said.
“I would’ve had a second thought, moving in,” he said.
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2. Jail probes death of suicidal inmate
Snohomish County Jail authorities are investigating how David Herget, a registered sex offender, died while on suicide watch at the jail early Saturday morning.
Jail authorities did not say that Herget, 62, killed himself, but more than one law-enforcement source said he did. The county medical examiner is expected to release the cause of death tomorrow.
Mountlake Terrace police arrested Herget on Friday on suspicion of 18 charges, including child rape and child molestation, involving three minors, and he was booked into the county jail later that day.
Authorities put him on suicide watch after a family member expressed concern Herget might harm himself and because of the nature of the allegations, said jail spokesman Jim Harms.
On suicide watch, Herget was in a single-occupancy cell in the jail’s Special Custody Unit and was observed every 30 minutes. The officer watching Herget also was guarding 32 others at the time, though not all were on suicide watch, Harms said.
Around 4 a.m. Saturday that officer called a medical emergency, and a nurse on duty performed emergency CPR on Herget.
The jail staff also called 911, but emergency-medical technicians could not save Herget, who died around 4:30 a.m., before he could be taken to a hospital, according to Harms.
A post-incident review is under way, and an internal investigation may be conducted, Harms said. The last time an inmate committed suicide while in the Snohomish County Jail custody was in 2003, Harms added.
Mountlake Terrace police arrested Herget after the three minors in the past week reported the alleged incidents, said Police Chief Scott Smith. He was booked on six counts of child rape, six counts of child molestation, three counts of sexual exploitation of a minor using photographs and live performances, and three counts of communicating with a minor for immoral purposes.
Herget allegedly met the youths at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Mountlake Terrace, where he was a member, police said. Smith said there are four other possible victims.
Herget was convicted in 1993 of second-degree child rape in another Mountlake Terrace case. He was sentenced to seven years in prison, which was suspended after he served 180 days in jail, promised to undergo 36 months of treatment as an outpatient sex offender and registered as a sex offender.
He was released from community supervision on that conviction in August 2001, court records indicate. The suspect was registered as a Level 1 sex offender, considered the least likely to reoffend.
Times Snohomish County Bureau reporter Peyton Whitely contributed to this report.
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3. Man jailed in child rape case found dead despite suicide watch
EVERETT – A sex offender who was on a suicide watch while being held for investigation of child rape and other offenses has been found dead at the Snohomish County Jail, officials reported.
David Herget, 62, of Mountlake Terrace, accused of luring boys at a church, was being checked every 30 minutes before being found dead at 4 a.m. Saturday in his cell in the special custody unit, jail spokesman Jim Harms said.
Herget was arrested Friday and placed on suicide watch after relatives expressed concern that he might try to harm himself, Harms said.
Relatives would not comment. Cause of death was under investigation pending an autopsy by the Snohomish County medical examiner.
Herget, convicted of child rape and child molestation in 1993, was the first man to die in the county jail since 2003, Harms said. He had been registered with Mountlake Terrace police as a level 1 sex offender, considered the least likely to reoffend, since 1997.
He was being held for investigation of six counts each of child rape and child molestation, three counts of sexual exploitation of minors and communicating with a minor for immoral purposes with bail set at $345,000, Harms said.
Authorities believe he lured boys he met while attending the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Mountlake Terrace, said Pete Caw, assistant police chief in the suburban north of Seattle.
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4. How a predator fooled everyone
To his last breath, David Herget manipulated others.
He had distorted his family’s love, pleading guilty a dozen years earlier to molesting a teenage female relative. On July 1, the convicted sex offender was back behind bars, this time accused of sexually abusing boys he met at church.
Herget, 62, of Mountlake Terrace carefully groomed the boys, plying them with pornography and cash, police discovered. He made sure they wouldn’t tell by threatening to kill himself should the secret ever be revealed.
It appears Herget made good on his threat.
On suicide watch at the Snohomish County Jail in Everett, Herget on July 2 wound a strip of bedsheet around his neck. Investigators believe he used a jail sandal to tighten the loop, strangling himself as he sat alone in his cell.
The next morning, Mountlake Terrace police delivered the news to the families of the boys he had molested.
The teen who had broken the silence wept tears of confusion and grief, his parents said.
“I’m looking at this boy and I’m thinking, ‘You should not have to deal with this garbage at such a young age,’” his mother said last week.
The boy’s parents spoke on the condition their names not be used. They hope that by sharing how a pedophile gained access to their son, other parents might be able to protect their children.
The couple readily acknowledged that they didn’t appreciate the danger Herget presented. They knew he had been convicted of a sex crime, but also saw him as a longtime member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Mountlake Terrace, where they have been active members for nearly two decades.
They were gulled by Herget’s willingness to help others, and the close ties that exist within that community of faith, the boy’s father said.
Dozens of others – including a state lawmaker – also stood by Herget, records show.
It’s sometimes difficult to recognize that a sex offender can outwardly be a nice person but also a pose a grave risk, said Lucy Berliner, director of the sexual assault program at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
The only safe approach is to “accurately and unflinchingly accept” that a sex offender can never be trusted to be alone with children, she said.
“If you let down your guard and allow a known sex offender to be alone with your children, you are experimenting with your child and essentially crossing your fingers and hoping your child won’t be the one,” Berliner said.
Herget was a self-employed computer expert and the father of four grown children. He was raised in Portland, Ore., one of six children in a devout Mormon family.
Herget’s family declined to speak with a reporter. Court papers and interviews confirm that it was through the Mormon church in Mountlake Terrace that he met the boys he molested.
The boy’s mother said she was never fond of Herget, who could at times be condescending and domineering. His wife, on the other hand, is as close as an older sister, she said.
It was out of love for Herget’s wife and children that he was welcome in their home. Out of love, they stood by Herget when he was convicted in 1993 of sexually abusing a girl, the boy’s parents said.
The boy’s mother said her heart went out to the girl Herget molested. The child first disclosed the molestation to her. The woman said she’d also been abused when she was young. Together, they went to a church leader.
Herget admitted the abuse, and police were summoned. His written confession describes the victim as “young, beguiling and lovely,” and his offense as a “dastardly deed.”
Even so, Herget dawdled in negotiating a guilty plea in the 1993 case, Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Paul Stern said. Herget was angry that authorities had barred him from contact with his own children, who then still lived at home.
“I could not comprehend that anyone would tear us apart as a family,” he wrote. “I am appalled that we would be cut off from each other. That type of thing only happened in Nazi Germany or in a godless communist Russia.”
Herget sought a special sentence for first-time sex offenders deemed likely to benefit from treatment. Without it, he faced up to nine years in prison.
The court received dozens of letters from church members urging leniency. One was written by a Seattle police detective who belonged to the congregation. Another came from the parents of the boy who would later unmask Herget as a serial molester.
“Mistakes need to be paid for, but once they are paid for, a normal life needs to be allowed,” the couple wrote.
State Sen. Paull Shin, D-Mukilteo, was then in his first term in the state House of Representatives. He knew Herget. On a state letterhead, he wrote prosecutors and a Snohomish County judge, requesting leniency.
“I feel that Mr. Herget is basically a kind and honest man,” Shin wrote.
Shin said he was new to the Legislature at the time and would not write such a letter today.
“David Herget’s wife and his children came to me in tears,” he said. “I was very moved by that.”
A prosecutor for nearly 24 years, Stern said it is common for people to seek mercy in sex cases.
“Lots of folks are very outspoken about what we should do with sex offenders, until the offender is someone they know,” he said.
Stern supported sentencing Herget to treatment. He matched the profile of someone research suggests would be the least likely to re-offend. The girl he molested also wanted Herget to get treatment. That, Stern said, carried more weight than all the letters from church members.
In treatment, Herget told how as a child he had been abused for years by a male relative, records show. The judge received glowing letters about his progress, including Herget’s reported recognition that his deviant urges could only be controlled but never extinguished.
Herget was removed from state supervision in summer 2001. He had to register as a sex offender, but had long since reunited with his family.
Excommunicated by a Mormon church tribunal after his conviction, Herget completed the process of penitence, counseling and introspection that allowed him to rejoin the church.
Officials with Herget’s church declined to discuss his case. Instead, they provided papers describing in general how the church tracks members who have been convicted of sexual abuse and bars them from work with children.
Herget got around that barrier after 2001 by privately offering assistance as an unofficial volunteer, or by simply being close to the families of his victims. He offered help on scouting projects and provided rides to sporting events, police discovered. Sons were sent to Herget, offering help with yardwork he could not complete because of health problems.
Mountlake Terrace Police Chief Scott Smith said detectives identified at least seven boys Herget abused over the years. One boy estimated that at least 1,400 acts of abuse occurred, starting in summer 2001.
Herget’s arrest came after three of the boys spoke with police. All related similar stories of how Herget began trying to molest them when they were young and overcame their reluctance over time, usually with pornography and money.
The abuse was uncovered when the parents of one boy checked the family computer and confirmed suspicions that their son had been visiting sex sites on the Internet.
A check of his e-mail showed frequent correspondence with Herget. The man encouraged the teen to lie to his parents, and talked of letting him do things he knew they would not allow, his father said.
That fit a troubling pattern, the boy’s mother said. Herget ignored limits, buying her children gifts and attempting to arrange trips without permission.
“It just seemed he was trying to overrule our parental authority,” she said.
Herget cried when the boy’s father told him to stay away.
Additional digging led to other e-mail accounts for the boy, all set up by Herget. Messages in those accounts showed Herget was providing pornography, and hinted at worse.
One of the messages read: “You are a good young man. Please forgive me if you can.”
The teen finally disclosed the abuse. Other children were being molested as well, he said, because Herget would sometimes involve multiple children in his acts of abuse.
Smith, the police chief, said Herget was able to manipulate people by using his church involvement.
“I’m sure their intentions were good, but I think the church – I don’t care if it is Mormon, Methodist, Catholic, I don’t care the denomination – they have a responsibility to protect their children,” Smith said.
The boy’s mother said she has learned how important it is to act on parental instinct. If it feels as if something is wrong, it likely is, she said.
“You’ve got to be the parent,” the boy’s father said.
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5. Abuse and accountability [opinion]
By Norton R. Nowlin
The trust of a child is a very delicate matter, creating a tremendous burden of responsibility for the adult caregiver. This burden is also an explicit duty, both moral and legal, to assure that the child’s trust is not misplaced by allowing a sexual predator to covertly abuse that boy or girl.
Of all the places you would not expect to find such people lurking, waiting for an opportunity to molest, is a Christian church where the words of Jesus are commonly enshrined, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, for such is the kingdom of heaven.”
But there are presently some religious denominations whose ecclesiastical policies inadvertently permit supposedly repentant pedophiles to repeat their dirty work under a shield of the priest-counseling privilege. Why these churches routinely protect their identity is incomprehensible.
These allegedly penitent sex offenders satisfy their cravings until their young victims finally cry abuse to their parents. In most cases, these confused pre-adolescents seriously believe they are the ones to blame and continue into adulthood laboring under a severe burden of guilt.
This is usually the first time that the shocked parents are made aware that a sex offender has been in their midst, that the culprit has been sitting in their congregation every Sunday acting as a humble and respected parishioner.
Even more egregious and startling is when the one officiating in the most sacred rites is the deceitful predator. Then, the church’s ecclesiastical leaders are pointedly asked by the parents whether they knew that the perpetrator was a sex offender.
With defensive tones, the bishops, archbishops and chief ministers cajole the victims — both the children and the parents — into believing that the offender, who typically was placed by the governing clergy in a respected position allowing him access to the children, repented of his sins and went through a period of penance that absolved him of all wrongdoing.
The victims are encouraged to undergo church-sponsored counseling and to forgive the sinner and try to forget, especially about any thoughts of holding the church legally accountable for damages inflicted on the children.
The most recent incident of sexual molestation emanating from inside a religious denomination occurred in Mountlake Terrace, where there is presently the highest density of Level II and Level III sex offenders within the entire state of Washington.
David Henry Herget, a Mormon high priest and convicted Level I sex offender — a person whom I knew — was arrested July 1 on suspicion of 18 charges, including child rape and sexual exploitation of a child. He died early the next day while on suicide watch at Snohomish County Jail.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a very questionable policy of shielding its lay clergy who previously have committed sexual child molestation but supposedly have repented of their crimes. It is a policy that should be promptly amended.
Herget was excommunicated from the Mormon Church in 1993 after a conviction for child rape, but subsequently was re-ordained to his priesthood office in 2004. During the interim, Herget’s status as a convicted sex offender was mostly unknown to the rank-and-file Mormon congregation in Mountlake Terrace, which allowed him the opportunity to mingle with, and gain the confidence of, the local Mormon children.
For most of a decade, the Catholic Church has been unsuccessful in using the priest-counseling privilege as a valid defense in the numerous lawsuits alleging abuse by the Catholic clergy. This futile attempt at ecclesiastical privilege, in order to protect the church from liability, has also been tried by attorneys representing the LDS Church in more than 30 sexual-abuse lawsuits across the country.
Perhaps it is high time that the Mormons, and all other churches that routinely protect the identity of sex offenders, take a long hard look at their disclosure policies and whom they regularly ordain as priests.
Norton R. Nowlin is a paralegal and freelance writer residing in Mountlake Terrace. He has been an elder in the Mormon Church since 1972.
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