MARTY—There is a feel to the old place that still haunts her.

Even with construction crews working the earth and birds chirping noisily in the trees above, she can feel the silence.

Behind the silence, sadness and horror.

Louise Charbonneau Aamot rested her fist on the church windowsill as her eyes welled with tears. Its gray steeple cutting into the sky, the church towered over the grounds of the old St. Paul's Indian Mission boarding school..

The school, tucked away in a woodsy expanse of the Yankton Reservation, is where her childhood was destroyed.

Aamot is not silent.

Even after her lawsuit was felled in 2010 when South Dakota lawmakers passed a last-minute bill to tweak the state’s statute of limitations, taking away the ability of abuse victims older than 40 to pursue legal action against institutions responsible for their trauma, Aamot continues to share her story.

She does wonder, though, if anyone is willing to listen.

“I’m going to fight until my dying day,” she said. “I’m going to fight so this doesn’t happen again.”

Aamot and other Native American abuse victims are still without answers after recent attempts at transparency by South Dakota’s Catholic authorities.

In line with dioceses around the country, the Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls in March named 11 priests accused of committing child sex abuse between 1950 and 1992.

But there was no mention of Catholic educators accused by dozens of former students of perpetrating horrific acts of physical and sexual abuse during the course of decades at the Catholic Church’s network of reservation boarding schools.

There was no mention of the men who haunt Aamot’s memory.

Sioux Falls diocese officials declined to discuss any allegations of problems at the Catholic-run mission schools.

Chancellor Matt Althoff said he encourages victims to reach out to the diocese for help.

"I welcome them to come forward,” Althoff said. "They can be assured confidentiality, they can be assured they will be offered assistance."

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What the diocese did and didn't do

During the course of several lawsuits filed between 2004 and 2010, the diocese maintained it was not responsible for what happened at the Catholic-run schools such as St. Paul’s, St. Joseph’s or the Tekakwitha Orphanage in Sisseton.

This included the lawsuit filed by Aamot and eight of her sisters against church authorities in Sioux Falls.

But, Aamot’s lawsuit and others involving abuse claims from dozens of victims hit a roadblock when South Dakota lawmakers passed and then-Gov. Mike Rounds signed a last-minute law change in 2010 that altered the statute of limitations, greatly restricting the ability of any victim age 40 or older to file civil lawsuits against those responsible for their abuse.

Unable to pursue legal claims against the diocese or other Catholic institutions in the state, victims return each year to Pierre hoping to undo the 2010 law.

Instead of finding solace in the Sioux Falls diocese’s admissions this month, they found only disappointment and frustration. Their abusers remained unacknowledged by the state’s Catholic leaders.

Michelle Dauphinais Echols, an attorney who does advocacy work for some of the South Dakota victims, isn’t sure why there is still a lack of accountability from the church for what happened to those boarding school students.

She oversees the advocacy group 9littlegirls, named after Aamot and her sisters.

“We continually are left out of this picture,” Echols said. “Even now, as names are being released on a national scale, once again, we’re being left out.”

Those named by Sioux Falls church leaders were only those who worked in parishes, including a few who taught at O’Gorman High School in Sioux Falls and had already been named in civil and criminal cases.

Even then, the information released by the Sioux Falls diocese wasn’t as thorough as similar releases from dioceses in Rapid City and across the country. There were no assignment records included for any of the 11 named priests.

The release from the diocese also left out any names of religious order clergy, even though the diocese has admitted to having records of abuse allegations against those priests.

It was the religious orders, such as the Benedictines, that were responsible for operating the Native American schools.

In a 2003 column for the Bishop’s Bulletin, the diocese's newsletter, former Sioux Falls Bishop Robert J. Carlson said a review of diocese records showed there were five religious order priests accused of abuse going back to 1950.

He didn't name the priests.

The diocese has continued to decline to name any religious order priests accused of abuse, or provide more information about the priests they did name.

The list of names provided by the diocese, and the letter from Sioux Falls Bishop Paul J. Swain, are addressed to the victims, Althoff said.

"They know where the abuse happened," Althoff said.

Aamot and her sisters are still waiting to be heard.

“I want people to know what happened to their grandparents,” Aamot said.

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Memories of abuse still haunt

St. Therese Hall is vacant and locked to the public. Windows on the second and third floors are warped and broken.

The metal grates on the first floor are still there, mostly intact.

This is where her abuse happened, Aamot said.

St. Therese was the girl’s dormitory, with classrooms on the second floor, a playroom on the first floor and sleeping quarters on the third floor.

“When you come back to the bed, somebody was in it,” Aamot said.

She was molested until the fourth grade, when her period started, Aamot said.

The priest she said abused her, Father Francis Suttmiller, was named by several victims who attended St. Paul's.

Suttmiller’s name and others came to light during a series of lawsuits filed by more than 100 former students of South Dakota’s Catholic-run boarding schools.

Those suits — filed against the federal government, the Sioux Falls diocese and different religious orders tasked with operating the schools — came with disturbing allegations against a number of priests, nuns and other school employees.

Child sexual abuse is a common thread joining the various boarding schools that the Catholic Church operated in South Dakota, an additional wound on the souls of the Native American children who were already neglected, dehumanized and used as a marketing tool in solicitations.

In the lawsuits filed against the Sioux Falls diocese, horrid accounts of sex abuse are numerous and cover a decades-long span, from as early as the 1940s until the church began handing the schools over to the tribes in the 1970s:

Tekakwitha Indian Mission

At Tekakwitha Indian Mission on the Lake Traverse reservation, former students said they were regularly the target of sexual abuse by numerous different nuns and priests, including the school’s top officials.

More than 20 former students filed a civil against the Sioux Falls diocese and other Catholic institutions in 2010, also suing the state of South Dakota and the various religious orders responsible for staffing the school and orphanage.

Tekakwitha victims who sued the diocese in 2010 named several as abusers, including Father John Pohlen, Brother Henry Busman, Father Gregory Cholewa, Father Edward Hess and Father James Vincent Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald was later accused of abusing a teenage boy while working at a church in Minnesota.

Even though Fitzgerald answered to his religious order, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a Minnesota jury determined both the Oblates and the Diocese of Duluth were responsible and awarded the victim $8.1 million in damages.

The Oblates also helped operate the Tekakwitha mission school and orphanage.

Death records exist for Pohlen, Fitzgerald and Hess.

Cholewa did not respond to a request for comment.

No records were found for Busman, and a representative for the Oblates' U.S. headquarters in Washington D.C. did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Pohlen, who headed Tekakwitha, was accused by multiple victims of forcing them to perform oral sex. Pohlen also sold the orphanage’s young children to households, where they were again abused, according to court records.

Dennis Isaac Seely was taken away from his parents and grew up in the Tekakwitha orphanage before he was sent to an Iowa family in exchange for a $10 donation, he said.

“I was known as cheap Indian labor,” Seely said.

In a 1952 letter, Pohlen offered the Seely family “a little boy of six years or older or a little girl what ever you prefer.”

Seely was not involved in any lawsuit filed against the diocese or Tekakwitha, but has helped with advocacy work by 9littlegirls. Seely experienced the same physical and sexual abuse as a child at Tekakwitha before he was put on a bus to Iowa, Seely said.

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St. Joseph’s Indian School

Native American victims who attended St. Joseph’s Indian School on the Lower Brule reservation said they were raped and sexually abused by multiple members of the clergy during their time at the school.

Nearly a dozen former St. Joseph’s students sued the Sioux Falls diocese and other religious orders and individuals associated with the school, filing a number of lawsuits from 2009 to 2010.

They named several at the school as abusers, including Father William Pitcavage, Father Thomas Lind and Brother Matthew Miles.

Another victim who didn’t include the Sioux Falls diocese as a defendant in his civil lawsuit also accused John Donadio, a counselor in children’s dorm, of sexual abuse.

Death records exist for Pitcavage.

Lind, Donadio and Miles did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

The school is run by a Wisconsin-based religious order, the Priests of the Sacred Heart. The order responded to an interview request with an emailed statement.

"The religious order takes all allegations of abuse very seriously and fully cooperates with authorities in regard to such allegations," spokeswoman Mary Gorski said in the email. "We support the efforts of St. Joseph’s Indian School in ensuring a safe environment for its children."

Miles, who was accused of raping a former St. Joseph's student during a two-year period, admitted during a 2008 deposition that he had been convicted of sodomizing young boys in Washington, D.C., after leaving the South Dakota school and spent years in a 12-step program.

St. Paul's Indian Mission School

As for St. Paul's school on the Yankton reservation, dozens of former students sued the Sioux Falls diocese for atrocities they say happened on the school’s grounds and in the church.

Barbara Charbonneau-Dahlen, who attended St. Paul with her sisters in the mid-'50s from sixth grade until her freshman year, remembers Suttmiller forcing her to perform oral sex in the basement of the church.

“He would lift me up and set me in the coffins,” Charbonneau-Dahlen said. “It would always be, ‘if you ever tell, I’ll put you in here.’”

In addition to Suttmiller, former St. Paul students said they were abused by nuns — Sister Mary Frances Poitra, Sister Eleta Marie and Sister John Marie — and school workers Moe Shevelin and Benny Lee, according to court documents.

The school was run by Benedictine priests of Blue Cloud Abbey, which was located in Marvin until it closed in 2012.

Father Denis Quinkert, the last abbot of Blue Cloud, declined to comment for this story.

Through a representative at St. Meinrad Archabbey, where he is currently assigned, Quinkert said death records exist for all but Sister John Marie.

Sister John Marie's legal name is Vina Randall, according to old church records. She could not be reached for comment.

Benny Lee, a staff member at the school, was one of her abusers, Aamot said. She remembers him carrying around a big ring of keys.

“We’d hear keys at night,” she said.

The 2010 law and the response from victims

With the 2010 law, South Dakota legislators and Rounds limited the legal recourse for victims of abuse that occurred at the schools during the period of time when they were operated by the church.

It was written by Steven R. Smith, a defense attorney.

Smith was representing the Priests of the Sacred Heart in several ongoing abuse cases when he brought the bill to the Legislature and had it introduced.

He painted the attorneys of the victims as out-of-state opportunists, describing South Dakota's old statute of limitations as a "useful tool for groups of lawyers out of California."

"They're willing to actually listen to what these folks are saying and in the course of that they're hurting institutions like the school itself," Smith said. "The cost of defense of these cases is enormous."

Smith's proposal, now state law, is simple but effective in protecting Catholic institutions like the one he was representing in court from paying out damages to victims:

No abuse victim age 40 or older can recover damages for their abuse, except from “the person who perpetrated the actual act of sexual abuse,” according to state statute.

The Charbonneau sisters were days away from going to court when Rounds signed the bill. They and a number of other victims had cases pending against the Sioux Falls diocese and the religious orders that operated the schools when Rounds signed the measure in March 2010.

Even after their lawsuit failed, victims who attended those schools run by the Catholic Church have continued to push for the right to seek some sort of legal action against the institutions they say were responsible for the years of abuse.

Echols has represented the victims and the 9littlegirls nonprofit in Pierre in recent years, repeatedly going back with legislation designed to open the door again to civil lawsuits.

“They came to me and explained to me what happened in the state Supreme Court and talked to me about drafting legislation that would amend the statute,” Echols said. “We kind of created a strategy that would allow them to kind of re-open their claim as well as help other Native survivors pursue their claim.”

'God is telling me to protect the children of South Dakota'

The legislative push itself has left the victims feeling frustrated and exposed.

The sisters go, hoping lawmakers will allow them the right to seek justice in a court of law. Each year, they expose their demons to a committee of decision-makers. Each year, they are shown the door.

This year's bill was carried by Rep. Tamara St. John, R-Sisseton. It would have opened up a two-year window for adults 40 or older to sue institutions they believe are responsible for their abuse.

The Charbonneau sisters and other people who said they were victims of abuse aren't seeking justice from South Dakota lawmakers, they only want the ability to pursue justice themselves in a court of law, St. John said.

"All that they're wanting is the opportunity to allow a judge to decide,” St. John said.

Aamot left the Catholic Church. A deep Christian faith remains.

She goes to Pierre. She shares her stories with media outlets. She revisits the old school grounds, though stops short of entering the chapel at St. Paul's Catholic Church where her sister Barbara said she was abused.

It re-opens wounds, but Aamot feels like she is on a mission from God.

“I know now in my heart that God is telling me to protect the children of South Dakota, to do something so that this doesn’t happen again,” Aamot said. “We need to stand up and say, 'no more.'”

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