Willa Beth Ray

Sources

1. Kenneth Ray chapter 4 criminal investigation of Mormons involved in child sexual abuse, Mormon Alliance , January 1, 1995.

• 1. Kenneth Ray chapter 4 criminal investigation of Mormons involved in child sexual abuse

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  • Mormon Alliance

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  RICHARD KENNETH RAY, MESA, ARIZONA, 1976, 1984

  Richard Kenneth Ray, a lifelong Mormon, was molested at a Boy Scout camp when he was twelve. "Because of the church’s teachings against masturbation and premarital sex, he would always feel guilty about the one encounter when he was a victim. He never told anyone." He graduated from Mesa High school in the National Honor Society, served a two-year mission, and married his wife about three months after he met her upon his return. They had three daughters. "His wife said that she tolerated twenty unhappy years of marriage because of the church’s teachings against breaking up the family." During those twenty years, Ray later told the police, he sexually molested thirty-three children, three calves, and a dog "because of his guilt about masturbation and adultery."

  He began sexually abusing each daughter when she was about six, beginning with fondling, then kissing her genitals, and then moving on to oral and vaginal sex. One of his daughters began sleeping under her bed to get away from him. He also abused his nieces, his daughter’s baby sitters, his daughters’ friends, and his friends’ children.

  He confessed to two, possibly to three, Mormon bishops in 1976 that he had molested another relative. They did not notify the police. Throughout this entire span, Ray was very active in the Church and had constant callings.

  In 1984, his wife regularly babysat a two-year-old. "On one occasion, he manipulated his penis around the child’s mouth until she opened it so he could put his penis inside. Another time, he removed her clothing, placed his penis between her legs and rubbed it back and forth." The child’s mother became suspicious when the toddler began to "seek out [her] father’s penis." About the same time, stake president Alan Farnsworth received a telephone call from two Mormon bishops in Virginia who told Farnsworth that "Ray had molested his niece while he was on vacation." Farnsworth called Ray in. He confessed. Farnsworth persuaded him to go the police.

  Before Ray was sentenced, the court received a barrage of letters from LDS Church members and officials, some written on Church stationery, asking for leniency.

  All praised Ray as a hard worker, a good provider, a man who had even helped to bring about several adoptions.

  W. Dale Hall, an LDS high councilor at the time, wrote that Ray had been "a great influence for good" in the lives of hundreds of young people. "In view of the good things he has done throughout his life, I believe firmly that the sooner he is let back into society, the better for all it will be." …

  Ray was sentenced to fifty-eight years in prison. His wife received two years probation for having known at least part of his secret and not reporting it.

  One of Ray’s victims sued the Church for negligence, and after arguing in vain before the state Supreme Court that its bishops were protected by clergy confidentiality, the LDS Church paid an undisclosed settlement [in 1990]....

  Salt Lake City psychologist Lynn Johnson, who was treating the emotional damage done to one of Ray’s daughters, [commented]…: "If the father is exonerated or excused in the least degree, this will be a terrible blow to [his daughter] for the reason that she will not only be constantly fearful that he will confront and harm her, but more importantly, she will then feel a return of the inappropriate guilt. She will then feel that this awful thing has happened; and if her father is not to blame, then she must be."