Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

What Deanna couldn’t know when she invited a charismatic priest to her home for dinner was that her protective instincts wouldn’t be enough to save her precocious son. It starts with the fact that although Deanna grew up going to Catholic schools, she had never heard about abuse by priests. In fact, as a quiet student, she says that she always felt “inconsequential” in front of the priests and never had negative experiences with clergy.

But when Father Kelly came over to their house, she had reason to be suspicious. The man actually started playing footsie with her ten-year-old son, which raised her hackles instantly. He would not ever receive an invitation to their home again.

“I saw he was a creep, but we didn’t escalate it,” Deanna says, “It turns out that my husband’s parents were very tight with Father Kelly and they would have told us we were wrong.”

So, she kept the priest at arm’s length, preventing him from coming near her family outside of a church setting. It never occurred to her that Father Kelly would continue to woo her son in the sanctity of the church itself. When the call for new altar boys came at St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Calaveras County, Deanna let her son Trevor sign up. And her sweet boy stepped into a world neither of them ever saw coming.

In retrospect, she sees a clear line of demarcation in her son’s demeanor that started at that time. Trevor didn’t want to go to church anymore. He also started having problems with school, and his relationships suffered. He refused to trust anyone and withdrew from friends and family, retreating to his room.

“It was like he was two completely different children before and after his exposure to Father Kelly,” she says. “If he would have just told me, I would have stood up to protect him.”

But as any parent knows, this kind of changed behavior can occur when a child approaches adolescence and the angst of teenage years. And although Deanna knew something was wrong, she couldn’t get him to tell her. All he said was that something happened to him and he wouldn’t explain further, no matter how much Deanna pushed.

It wasn’t until Trevor attempted suicide at age 19 that Deanna learned the truth. Trevor had revealed to his sister that Kelly had sexually abused him for two years. But he’d asked her to keep quiet, and she’d kept his secret – until Trevor was clinging to life. She told their mother everything and in one fell swoop, Deanna could see her son’s transformation in a new light.

“The story rewinds, and it all makes sense,” she says. “I remember coming home from work and I would find Trevor hiding in a tree, waiting for us to return…hiding from the predator priest that was hurting him. The abuse that tormented my son led to his attempted suicide.”

With Trevor in the hospital, still unconscious, Deanna jumped online to find Father Kelly’s whereabouts, learning he was in a civil trial for abusing someone a bit older than Trevor. That galvanized the family. Although Trevor needed to focus on his own recovery, he was totally invested in helping this other victim of Father Kelly. 

Trevor testified at the trial, but not in open court. He was limited to speaking within the judge’s chambers, even having to sit alongside the perpetrator of his own horrors, while explaining what he would testify about. Fortunately, the jury found Father Kelly guilty. 

Then Trevor filed a lawsuit and another child came forward about his abuse. Soon, eight victims of Father Kelly sued altogether.  

But the pedophile fled to Ireland to avoid the civil trial. And even though he avoided facing his victims in court, Father Kelly didn’t escape altogether. The church reached a settlement with his victims, which turned out to be too little too late, as the saying goes. That’s because two weeks later, Trevor was dead. He had taken up extreme sports and was killed in a speed flying accident in 2016. 

“It was tragedy upon tragedy,” says Deanna.

Currently, Father Kelly is still at large. He’s been abroad for years now, and neither the California Attorney General nor the US Department of Justice will bring him back to face charges. They have said they were limited in what they can do for several reasons, none of which make any sense to Deanna.

In addition, a group of supporters has been raising funds and intervening in the effort to bring charges against Kelly. Certain of his innocence, the “Friends of Father Kelly” send money and letters trying to influence the case of a person whom they call a “martyr” because of the settlement against him.

But Deanna is certain that they all knew. “Father Kelly was in treatment for pedophilia before he came to their parish,” she says. “It’s like the Epstein files; it doesn’t make sense that all these people continue to cover it up, the abuse of children.”

For years, the cases against Father Kelly have languished. The Stockton District Attorney told Deanna that charges against Kelly would be dropped, because the victim – her son – was no longer alive. But she has stood her ground. Deanna continues to urge the Attorney General to take another look at the facts on the ground and not hide behind legal loopholes, statutes of limitations or other means of letting perpetrators off without penalty. She has testified repeatedly before the State Legislature on bills to reduce the Statute of Limitations for victims.  

“I am shocked that there are groups of people that still want to limit a victim’s ability to come forward,” Deanna says.

And yet, with all that has gone wrong in trying to gain justice for her son, Deanna is nonetheless grateful for many things. Her husband has been supportive, helping write bills to go before the state legislature and helping her to continue to keep moving forward, pursuing any and all avenues to help others and other children. And she has found SNAP to be a staunch supporter as well.

Deanna says she will keep the pressure on, keep striving to make headway in the state legislature, and keep hoping that she can be a part of getting justice for survivors.