Female Child Sexual Offenders: Does Tonya Craft Fit The Profile?

    

  Does Tonya Craft Fit The Profile?

   Except for the very beginning, when I was asked to take a look at this case, I have deliberately not read the various news reports and blogs in an effort to remain completely objective. I've written my posts in an effort to dispel myths & put out accurate info, based on considerable studies & stats. After doing my research, and knowing what I knew from my own training, etc. I then compared it to Tonya Craft.

    The thing about child sexual abuse is that one can never really be sure. That's just the way it is. However, I go by facts & research and those are pretty consistent. Although we do see an upswing on the number of female chiild sex offenders, the patterns still remain pretty much the same.

 IMO, except for her divorces, Tonya doesn't appear to fit any kind of known pattern. Nothing, nada, zip. The person I immediately focused on was the one child who was accused of coercing the other children into inappropriate, age-related, sex play. Usually, if a child is coercing, or pressuring, other children, that child has usually been sexually abused. If that's the case, then you look to who might have abused him/her.

     It's almost always one of the parents first, and of those two, it's usually the father, stepfather, Mom's boyfriend, or a brother. Those are the primary abusers. The other suspects, such a G-fathers, etc. are secondary, to a much lesser degree. The female offenders come after that.

    Studies have consistently shown that really only about 5% of all child sexual abuse is committed by a female offender. Out of that 5%, most abuse is either directed at a son, by the mother, which is extremely rare; or both parents, or a parent along with a step-parent together, are abusing both children. However, we do have to consider how underreported female sexual abuse is. Even so, it's still considered to be very rare.

As far as extrafamilial abuse, it's even more rare than female offenders committing intrafamilial abuse. And out of that, adolescent babysitters top the list. The next are teachers abusing young adolescent males. The descriptions & characteristics of abuse, supposedly perpetrated by Tonya, as described by the children, is basically unheard of - at least as far as I could find in my research, which was extensive. And believe me, I looked high & low. I couldn't find anything anywhere close to what she's been accused of.

    The children saying she threatened to kill their parent was a huge red flag to me immediately. Male offenders are usually the ones who will threatened to kill, not females. Even then, most male child sexual offenders do not commit physical violence. Not out of any sense of a conscience, but, rather, to ensure that the abuse continues.

   The step-mother taking showers with children is another huge red flag. Actually, an adult who exposes themselves to children, and takes baths or showers with them, when they're old enough to do it themselves, especially for months on end, is considered to be child sexual abuse, according to experts. That situation bothers me a great deal.

  The whole kitchen thing is very bizarre. Abuse is not usually carried out that way. The goal of abusers is secrecy, in order to control the children & continue the abuse. They usually won't risk being discovered. Was her husband there at the time? 

      If it happened during sleepovers, I would have to assume he was there, at least some of the time, as well as the other kids. Occuring during parties?  Maybe a male offender, but highly doubtful, unless he could get the child alone somewhere, but usually not a female offender.

   And if that child was molested once in the kitchen, do we honestly think she's going to keep going back there, without someone else being with her? No, most children would avoid it. Most children will avoid going into any place at all where they've been abused (extrafamilial). And six times???? That just doesn't make any sense.

It's very important to look at the usual behavioral patterns of offenders. Offenders don't want to risk being caught. So, the story, as written, isn't logical. Neither is the bath scene "abuse", as described. While female offenders will typically abuse during bath times, it's usually to their own child.  Lone female sex offenders, who are the moms, will usually target their sons. Not always, but usually. Yet, apparently there was no abuse of her son?

Anyway, why would she take it upon herself to give someone else's kids baths? If I were the parent of one of those children, I would have been immediately demanding an explanation. Again, it doesn't make any sense. The thing about accusations, even about criminal behavior, is that they're usually logical.

   So, are the children lying then? I seriously doubt it. False accusations of child sexual abuse is pretty much a myth. Children rarely ever lie about this type of abuse. They do, however, feel a great deal of pain, which may cause them to block out parts, or become confused.

   Most of the time, though, they will deny any abuse. The famous Sweden study has shown that, even with the abuse proven, children will still deny it happened, due to extreme fear and shame. They usually won't falsely accuse a person of sexual abuse unless, at times, they're terrified of the real abuser. It's been known that they will in that type of situation.

   In my opinion, Tonya's behavior in contacting DSS implies innocence. If she were the abuser, why would she risk the kids telling on her? From all that's been accused of her, she might as well have taken an ad out in the paper, announcing what she supposedly was doing! It doesn't make sense.

  

Comments

[kbp]

Thank you for your informative opinion here.

I love seeing a mind open to considering ALL the facts they can when reviewing topics.

[Buster D. Stress]

Add to this whole scenario the fact that Tonya Craft took her daughter, one of the accusers, to be examined by a pediatrician for possible sexual abuse. That doctor found no signs of abuse. That DOCTOR's examination was overlooked during the investigation by the police, ignored by the prosecutors building the case, and deemed inadmissable by the judge during the trial. Yet, the findings of a person only partially-trained in examination, who doesn't even have a bachelor's degree in anything, was deemed by the police, DA, and judge as being "expert witness" testimony.

There are cases of prosecuting someone because the best evidence is interpreted to say "they done it." And then there are cases like this when the clear evidence shows the person did not do it, and yet they go ahead with a malicious prosecution.

I do have to say one thing though. Children do lie about sex. I know I did when I was a child and was found out to be doing things. In this case here, when two girls were touching each other, both girls claimed the other initiated the touching. Children are NOT innocent about everything. Anyone who thinks they are has forgotten about their own childhood. Still, in this case here, it's about more than just lieing. It's about implanted memory that started as a lie and over time became to believed as the real memory, due to the handling of the investigations. What started out as a transferral of guilt turned into a genuine memory; they just wanted to get out of being punnished for touching each other and ended up believing that they were coerced into doing it by someone else.

[kbp]

Buster,

Just for us to be fair and open minded here; the problem with the SANE exams by Sharon Anderson were not the result of her lacking a "bachelor's degree". I say this in defense of all other SANE nurses that fall into that category, not to defend Sharon Anderson. The problems produced by her result from WHY she inaccurately reported accuser #1's condition to be "ABNORMAL".

[Rhiannon]

I think it might be helpful to use more up to date research, studies and stats. If you look at http://www.female-offenders.com/resources.html you will see that more current research is showing that female sex offenders are more common that once thought. Depending on the situation and type of sexual abuse we are talking about, female offenders can be almost as common as male offenders (for instance with educators).

Of course this in no way means this person did or did not do something. But if data is going to be used I would hope we would look at the current data.

[Karen A Duncan]

In the final outcome it is important that no innocent person be found guilty of child sexual abuse and that no guilty person be acquitted. There is seldom any physical evidence of child sexual abuse except in the most extreme, violent cases that are reported within a short period of time after their occurrence. There is certainly no one profile of a sex offender, male or female, but there is a greater propensity in society to discount sexual crimes committed by females. I do agree that the website needs to updated with current information and research about women and child sexual abuse, mothers in particular. From the scarcity of information (we only have the media reports to go by!) reported I find that the entire case should have been better investigated before it ever went to prosecution (if it should have at all) and that the action of the Judge in not excusing himself from the trial biased the entire case -- and perhaps even the jury--to acquit her and for the public to champion her innocence. That said, none of us are really going to know what happened in this case.

[Forensics Talk]

Karen thanks for your comment. Extensive research has been done for these articles on child sexual assault including the most recent research, such as the famous McCann study.

Yes, the studies are showing that the number of convicted female offenders is on the rise, not just in the U.S., but in countries like Australia, and that this type of abuse by female offenders is currently still far underreported, as is pointed out in my post above.

However, even with the higher numbers, child sexual abuse committed by female offenders is still far less than that committed by male child sex offenders.

Now, if the current under reported status should change, perhaps the numbers and profiles may change too.

[Forensics Talk]

Rhiannon, thanks for your comment. PLease read my post again as well as my reply to the comment above.

[Forensics Talk]

Buster, thanks for your comment and thanks for not tearing SANE nurses down because of no advanced degree.

We've all read about the photos. Photos are often a subject of disagreement by experts. We don't usually go by the photos and, often, they aren't even allowed by the judge to be used in court. What's important to me are the diagrams.

I'd like to see the required diagrams Sharon Anderson would have documented on. They would tell me a great deal.

However, I have yet to read any mention of them. Were they not brought up in court? I find that hard to believe.