Two Bucks County child abuse victims shared their stories to bring awareness to red flags tied to child abuse that people - inside or outside a family circle - can report if they witness. Appealing to the public, they encouraged people to take part in NOVA's “Darkness to Light,” training that aims to educate 5 percent of the adult population in Bucks County.

Like many victims of child abuse, Lyndlee Dull and Jessica Martine were too young to understand what was happening — the “body part” games with prizes, the baths, the gifts, the visits to their bedrooms.

Looking back, though, they wonder if adults around them could have seen the signs that children were not safe around now-convicted serial rapist William Thomas.

“This man didn’t have custody of his kids, yet there was a tire swing out back, a pool and young kids over his house, where he had Barbie dolls on shelves in all kinds of sex positions,” Martine recalled.

While it is this news organization's policy not to identify victims of sex abuse, both Martine and Dull are publicly sharing their experiences to inform the public and empower people in the community to take action against child sexual assault. They both back a county-wide program aimed at educating 5 percent of adults who live, work or worship in Bucks County. The Darkness to Light Stewards of Children program teaches adults to prevent, recognize and react to child sexual assault. It also sheds light on characteristics of a predator and statistics that show more than 90 percent of victims know their abuser.

Unlike "stranger danger" lessons of the past, this training reveals that 60 percent of children who are sexually abused are abused by people the family trusts; 30 percent are abused by family members.

“If 25,000 adults get trained in Bucks County, there is a greater likelihood that every child will have contact with at least one adult who has taken training," said Mandy Mundy, director of programs and services with Network of Victim Assistance (NOVA), which is the administrator of the program for Bucks County.

As of Jan. 26, NOVA has trained 1,383 people in Bucks. Across the country, 187,222 people have been trained in the program since 2017, she said. Elsewhere in Pennsylvania, the program is offered by organizations in Chester, Somerset, Cambria and York counties.

Based on early research on the national program, Mundy said that training 5 percent of a community's population is the “tipping point" needed to increase the chances that children will be surrounded by adults who know what to look for. Program materials cited a National Crime Victims Research Center study funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that linked the training to demonstrated "positive change in child protective behaviors."

Unfortunately, comprehensive studies to measure its effectiveness in reducing child sex assaults are lacking, according to national experts.

“We do know that people know more when they go through a program, but we don’t have good research on whether it changes people’s behavior,” said Yardley resident Janet Rosenzweig, executive director of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. “Ideally with Darkness to Light, adults will recognize signs of behaviors before they cross the line to becoming abusive.”



The Darkness to Light program and similar training models have shifted more training and responsibility to adults to identify and react to something that looks inappropriate, she said.

Rosenzweig said it’s a contrast to programs decades earlier that educated kids with “stranger danger” and “redlight-greenlight” lessons.

“They (program developers) recognize the reality that a child is no match for a skilled pedophile, and adults have to be aware of what’s inappropriate behavior and report it, whether it’s a teacher seeing a peer slip down a slippery slope or a 19-year-old sibling left alone with children,” said Rosenzweig, adding that APSAC is independent of "Darkness to Light" but consults with them and other child prevention programs nationwide.

She said that developmentally, most children are unable to “extricate themselves from a dangerous situation.”

“We need grown-up eyes and ears open to be aware when something is not right,” Rosenzweig said.

Martine said she wishes some adult in her community could have recognized signs that "something wasn't right" when she was being abused between the ages of 6 and 10. She hopes the training program will remind the general public that everyone in the community is critical in protecting children.

“Most people’s mindset is, ‘If it’s not my child, not my family, then it’s not my business. People are so concerned with the ‘mind your own business,’ but there is a way you can be mindful of things going on,” said Martine, who along with Dull hopes that people from all professions — whether they have kids or not — sign up for the training. Dull said, educated adults, she said, are in a much better position to protect children. "I didn't have that, and going forward, I hope other people will, and they'll get in front of it before it happens."

Signs overlooked

Both Martine and Dull were 6 when the abuse began.

Dull recalled disturbing signs that were overlooked when Thomas, a Falls handyman who was then her mother’s boyfriend, began “grooming” her. There were the subtle “touchings” at holiday gatherings, the rubbing of her shoulders and brushing of her leg. At 12, Dull was pressured by family to go to weddings and other “date-like” events with him — long after her mother ended the relationship.

“He inserted himself into our lives, gaining the family’s trust — all part of grooming," she said.

Darkness to Light defines "grooming" as a process by which an offender gradually draws a victim into a sexual relationship and maintains that relationship in secrecy. Examples are when a child is given special attention, outings and gifts. An offender might isolate the child from others, try to fill the child's unmet needs or treat the child as if he or she was older, and use secrecy, blame and threats to maintain control.

Prior to Thomas' February 2017 arrest, none of his victims, nor adults in their lives, had ever directly reported his assaults to police. Instead, the case against him was opened after a resident, who had hired Thomas to do home renovations, found pieces of plywood detailing the assaults, including names of child victims.

Upon investigating further, authorities discovered graphic drawings and writings, at least 1,000 images of naked children, and 500 to 1,000 pairs of girls' underwear in Thomas' home at Midway Village Trailer Park.

"When evidence is ahead of a child's readiness for disclosure, it's challenging, but in this case, he chronicled everything he did with victims," said Jennifer Schorn, the assistant district attorney on the case. "In some cases, sadly the child is not ready for disclosure because the grooming tactics are so effective. Shame is the biggest barrier for the child, and that is what the sex offender banks on. Children often feel like they have conspired to do something wrong and ask, 'How can I report on someone I got attention or gifts from?'"

For years, Dull and Martine suffered what they thought were nightmares of abuse.

It wasn't until police came to them following Thomas' arrest that they realized "the nightmares were memories,” said Martine, adding that the "disgusting details" of her interactions with him matched those images she carried for so long.

Both women testified against Thomas in trial, which ended in his conviction of raping at least six young girls. Most of his victims were children of parents who befriended Thomas as neighbors or customers. He was sentenced in 2017 to 60 to 120 years in state prison.

'Cannot speak for themselves'

“Child abuse is an epidemic; one in 10 children will be sexually abused by the time they are 18,” said Penny Ettinger, executive director of NOVA, which administers the Darkness to Light training and provides counseling and advocacy for victims of sexual assault and other serious crimes.

The statistics may be alarming, but they reflect communities nationwide and in Bucks County, she said. In 2017, Bucks County substantiated 19 cases of child sex abuse. Across the state, 3,431, or 48 percent of the 7,148 substantiated child abuse reports, were due to sexual abuse. In 2016, the most recent reporting period for U.S. Department of Health and Human Services maltreatment survey, child protective services substantiated 63,000 sexual abuse cases nationwide.

But Ettinger and law enforcers say that most victims of child abuse don't report it.



Schorn said children fear reporting abuse because they are often ashamed, scared and confused.

"Their bodies are confused; it feels good but they know it’s wrong, but they feel like they are complicit in it," she said. "The offender makes them believe they are in this together and it’s fun."

Another part of the county's Darkness to Light program is to reach all Bucks County second-graders with the tools they need to recognize and report if something is wrong. The success of the three-year program, she said, is really dependent upon people in the community stepping forward to become educated.

"Little people cannot speak for themselves," Ettinger said. "If we are going to prevent child abuse, we have to understand it."

Martine said it’s important that the public gain awareness of just how manipulative and cunning abusers can be. Martine now knows she was targeted because her mother needed help with child care.

“My mom had no idea; she was a single mother of three and she needed someone to watch the kids while she was at work, and he took advantage of that,” Martine said.

Last week, Martine and Dull met for the first time since testifying in court, and had a chance to talk about some commonalities in the abuse patterns and in the way they repressed memories and even doubted the reality of them at times.

Like Martine, Dull, now 34, remembers the day a police officer showed up at her door, unveiling evidence of more than a decade of abuse she suffered.

"Upon hearing his name, decades of history came flooding back and I had a sick, physical response that made me lose my breath," she said.

Dull had buried the pain, which cut deeper when she tried once to report it to family members.

“I remember telling them ways he would touch me, and unfortunately the response tended to be, ‘you must be confused,’ or ‘I don’t believe that.’ "

The training emphasizes that abuse most often stems from a family's friends and relatives and reinforces the importance of not responding negatively to a child. Predators target children who have difficulty communicating, often threatening them or another sibling if a child tells. Many children fear that talking of the abuse will hurt their parents and family, and some are too young to understand what's happening. When they do speak up and are not believed, they often "shut down," the training states. This happened to Dull.

The family’s unwavering trust in Thomas silenced her, but triggered decades of psychological harm. “It was a lonely, dark place to be,” Dull said.

At 15, during a camping trip, Dull discovered a letter written by Thomas to a younger girl.

“That’s how it came out,” said Dull, adding that her family just cut contact with Thomas but didn’t follow up with police. “He gained such trust in our family that even my own grandmother was in sorrow over the loss of him in our lives. That was crushing to me.”

Education is key

With a goal of educating 25,000 people from the general public, Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub admitted reaching so many people is a “daunting task."

“You have to convince people that these heinous acts can be perpetrated by adult to a child, and more often than not the perpetrators know their victims,” he said.

About Thomas, Weintraub said, "We can't undo the damage he's done; all we can do is lock that monster up for his natural life. We can try to prevent this from happening again.”

Recalling the pictures and faces of his victims, Martine and Dull both know there are other victims who did not come forward.

Martine said if she had one wish, it would be to give young children a voice.

"Please, listen to them."