In Memory of Daniel A. Sexton

In Memory of Daniel A. Sexton

October 8 1951 - 1994 

 

If you have a photograph of Daniel A. Sexton that can be used on this page, please forward it to The Awareness Center.

Honoring Hank Estrada

Honoring Hank Estrada

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Forces of secrecy strong in incest

Forces of secrecy strong in incest

By Ed Will

Denver Post - May 11, 1991

While incest takes place behind a curtain of secrecy woven by the offending parent, fears held by the child and the other parent can keep the curtain drawn for years.

One family's curtain was ripped down this week when former Miss America Marilyn Van Derbur Atler told how her father sexually abused her for 13 years, beginning when she was 5 years old.

Atler said yesterday that she isn't sure whether she would have been able to reveal the crippling secret if her father, millionaire Denver socialite Francis Van Derbur, were still alive.

That shows the strength of the fears and of the abuser, even 35 years after the attacks have ended and seven years after his death. And the fears hold the answers to such questions as why didn't she seek help as a child, why didn't her mom know or, if she did, why didn't she stop it.

Even if one parent peeks behind the curtain, fear can keep him or her from doing anything about it, experts say. Sometimes, it's the fear of dealing with sexual abuse in their own childhoods. For others, it is financial dependence on the spouse. Some spouses have intense desires to keep their families together - at any cost.

A total of 1,877 sexual abuse cases was reported during 1990 in Denver. At least 60 percent of the cases involved incest and only a very few were reported from within the family, said Detective Sgt. Robert Padilla of the police department's family crisis unit.

"Denial plays a large part. They don't believe the father has done it. It's hard for them to believe that he could have done it to his own kid. And if they do believe the kid, they don't want it known. Incest, you know, is a terrible thing to be labeled with."

Atler placed that label on her father, she said, as a way of showing other victims of childhood incest that the curtain can be pulled back, that healing can take place and that the abuse wasn't their fault.

Atler has not said whether others in the family knew. Her mother, Gwendolyn "Boots" Van Derbur, has supported Atler's public disclosure but has not taken part in the discussion. And Marilyn has declined to answer questions about her mother and sisters.

Much of the secrecy results from threats by the abuser against the child: "If you tell your mom, she won't believe you and she'll stop loving you. ... If you tell, they will come and take you away. ... If you tell, they will put me in jail."

Those threats, coupled with the child's unconditional love, can keep victims from ever telling.

"It's a very serious thing to tell and it destroys the family, and everybody wants to preserve their family because they don't trust that it can be better," said Kiely Forrestal of the Denver Department of Social Services. "You hold on to what you've got. There is no question that it puts the whole family into tremendous trauma."

Many of the threats may come true. The child may be removed from the home; the father may go to jail. The mother may become angry with the child.

The mother plays a major role in how the legal system reacts after an allegation is made, Forrestal said. If the mother is the accuser, she is allowed to keep the child in the home if she can assure social workers she can and will protect the child.

If the allegations come from outside the family, the child normally is held overnight in a shelter, because at home, the victim faces enormous pressure to change the story. The child may go home with the mother the next day, be placed with another relative or put in a foster home.

Critics say taking the children from their homes victimizes them again. Forrestal agreed but noted, "If you sent them home, they will continue to be molested. Then, they have no hope because they tried to trust someone and were betrayed. And they never, never will tell again."

Ten years ago, the common belief was most mothers knew of the incest but ignored it to protect there own security, said Dr. Richard Krugman, director of Kempe National Center for Prevention and Treatment of ChildAbuse and Neglect.

That no longer is the assumption. The abuse may take place while the non-involved parent is asleep or out of the home. Sexual abusers usually have a pattern of behavior that begins long before the actual sexual act. The pattern can include drugs or alcohol to occupy the other parent.

"Oftentimes in these families," said Dan Sexton of Child Help USA in Los Angeles, "the non-abusing parents also have been victims as children and are unable or unwilling to look at their own issues, so they choose to block out what's going on. They are not consciously ignoring it."

Forrestal told of a case of six sisters being abused by their father, but none of them shared the experience until the youngest one reported him for molesting her daughter.

The family's curtain remained drawn until the abuse of the youngest sister's child caused her to remember her own abuse.

Youth Groups Fear Specter of Sexual Abuse

Youth Groups Fear Specter of Sexual Abuse

By Barbara Baird

Los Angeles Times - September 28, 1988

Shirley Rudolph relishes her unofficial title as the Lawndale Little League's mother-in-residence.

Often a crestfallen youngster will crawl up on her lap for consolation after a difficult game, or an exuberant teen-ager will throw his arms around her to help celebrate a big win.

Rudolph, a Lawndale recreation commissioner, and her husband, Lawndale Councilman Larry Rudolph, have been Little League volunteers since 1969, when the first of their three sons joined. Now, to their delight, they have a 6-year-old grandson in the league.

Rudolph enjoys her maternal role and prides herself in the open communication she maintains with boys and girls in the league.

But in recent years, Rudolph said, she has become more cautious about giving youngsters a reassuring hug or a peck on the cheek.

Because of the McMartin Preschool child molestation case, now in its second year of trial, South Bay parents are well aware of the specter of child sexual abuse, Rudolph said.

Little League Manager Accused

Their fears were reinforced, she said, when a Lawndale Little League team manager was accused in July of molesting four players by pulling down their pants and spanking them on repeated occasions. William Anthony Boguille, 23, pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor charges of sexual battery. None of the incidents were so egregious or sustained as to warrant the original felony charges, the prosecutor said. A first-time offender, Boguille was sentenced to perform community service, serve three years' probation and undergo psychological counseling. The terms of his probation prohibit him from coaching youth sports or contacting children under 15 without another adult present.

In the aftermath of this case, Rudolph said, "My No. 1 priority is the safety of the players. I am going to do everything in my power to ensure the safety of the kids."

The Lawndale Parks, Recreation and Social Services Commission on Tuesday will discuss whether the city should establish a policy requiring groups like the Little League that use city parks to screen volunteers, she said. The Little League board will also be seeking ways to weed out potential molesters as it prepares for January sign-ups.

Although Rudolph applauds current vigilance against child sexual abuse, she said that sometimes innocent expressions of affection can fall under suspicion.

"I am one of the people most involved with the kids in the league," said Rudolph, who recently was elected league president. "Even though I have my own kids, and people have known me for years, I can't completely be myself with the kids. I don't know whether to give them a hug or a kiss on the cheek. Sometimes I just freeze."

Rudolph's discomfiture reflects the uncertainty local youth organizations are confronting as they try to eliminate potential molesters from such All-American organizations as the Little League, Scouts and the YMCA.

Lawndale Little League officials said that although this is the first case of its kind in the organization's 31-year history, the arrest and sentencing of Boguille prompted a redoubling of efforts to detect potential molesters.

"We screen applicants closely," said Jim Watson, last year's league president. "It's not like we take anybody off the street."

He said that the league contacted Boguille's references and they checked out "A-OK. . . . There was nothing in his background to indicate there would be a problem." Officials from the Sheriff's Department confirmed that Boguille had no prior police record.

The Lawndale case illustrates one of the most intractable problems youth organizations face in identifying potential molesters: for a number of reasons, including the reluctance of young victims to report abuse, many child molesters and victims do not come to the attention of police or child protection agencies, authorities said.

"Unfortunately, most pedophiles do not have a prior record, so there is no way of detecting and identifying these people until the police become involved after the fact," said Detective Gary Lyon, a nine-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department's Sexually Exploited Child Unit.

Molesters go undetected because children often are afraid to report molestation, believing that "somehow it's their fault. . . . They feel guilty and they just don't talk about it," Lyon said.

Lyon's conclusions are supported by an authoritative nationwide poll on child sexual abuse conducted by the Los Angeles Times in 1985. (See related story, this page.)

"Unfortunately," said Dr. Roland Summit, a Harbor-UCLA Medical Center psychiatrist and sexual abuse expert, "most of those identified (accused) as molesters are never booked; most of those who are booked are dismissed without charges. And any charges are often negotiated down so that they are not recognizable as a sexual crime. The effective child molester will be active all his life without attracting accusations. Only the inept losers get caught."

According to an FBI study published by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in Washington, pedophiles seek out youth organizations as a place to meet children.

"Pedophiles are frequently `nice guys' in the neighborhood who like to entertain the children after school or take them on day or weekend trips," said the FBI's Kenneth V. Lanning in his report, "Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis." Pedophiles often take jobs dealing with children and "may often become a Scout leader, Big Brother, foster parent (or) Little League coach," he said in his 58-page report.

"Some pedophiles can watch a group of children for a brief period of time and then select a potential target," Lanning said. "More often than not, the selected child turns out to be from a broken home or the victim of emotional or physical neglect. This skill is developed through practice and experience."

Only the most disturbed or desperate molesters target children who are strangers, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Ken Freeman, who specialized for six years in prosecuting child sexual abuse cases.

More typically, he said, molesters present a likable appearance that wins the confidence of the child and parents alike.

Detective Lyon said child molesters are often "the people you'd be least likely to suspect.

`A Very Nice Person'

"Every pedophile I have come across is `a very nice person.' These individuals are good citizens, all except for their problem with kids. Their stock in trade is being a nice guy. They have to endear themselves to children, and more importantly to parents of the children, so parents will entrust their children to them," said Lyon.

Rather than forcing their attentions on a child, molesters often engage in a "seduction" period during which they befriend youngsters and shower them with attention and gifts, according to the FBI report. "If you understand the courtship process, it should not be difficult to understand why some child victims develop positive feelings for the offender," Lanning said in the report.

Dan Sexton, director of a national child abuse hot line sponsored by the nonprofit Childhelp USA, which operates a residential center in Beaumont for sexually abused children, said molesters often do not believe they are hurting children.

"Pedophiles do not go out looking to hurt kids, they go out to make friends," he said. They frequently target children of a specific sex and age range, he said.

Research shows that most child molesters were sexually abused as children, Lanning said in the FBI report. Other hints that someone could be a pedophile are premature separation from the military, frequent and unexpected moves, being over 25 and never married, living alone or with parents, a lack of peer and dating relationships and an excessive interest in children, the report said.

One of the most reliable indicators that a person is a molester, according to the FBI, is possession of a collection of child pornography or erotica.

"Child pornography . . . is the single most valuable piece of evidence of sexual abuse that any investigator can have," the report said. "The effects on a jury of viewing seized child pornography is devastating to the defendant's case."

While a combination of traits might make investigators suspicious, by no means does that prove a person is a molester, law enforcement officials say. There is no test or method that is 100% reliable in detecting molesters, they say, cautioning that youth organizations might have a false sense of security from testing or screening applicants.

Screening Methods Vary

Approaches among local youth organizations range from minimal screening to an intensive three-month selection process devised by Big Brothers of Greater Los Angeles. A spot sampling showed the following approaches:

"We don't screen anybody as such," said Dominic Iapello of the Long Beach Council, Boy Scouts of America. The organization is concerned that fingerprinting and criminal checks represent an invasion of the applicant's privacy, he said.

About 90% of the Boy Scouts' adult volunteers are parents of boys in the program, he said. The group does, however, check with the national organization to detect possible problems of a newcomer to the area.

The American Youth Soccer Organization screens volunteers informally at the local level, according to Tim Thompson, national executive director of Hawthorne-based organization.

Officials would become concerned "if a coach becomes overly social with the children," seeking social contact outside the games and practices, he said. "Ninety-nine out of 100 volunteers after the game are going to want to go home and turn on a Lakers game," Thompson said.

Soccer officials want to avoid jumping to conclusions because child molestation charges are so damaging, he said. A false accusation by a distraught child could ruin a person's reputation, he said.

Because the Hawthorne YMCA offers day-care programs, which must be licensed by the state Department of Social Services, the Y must submit fingerprints of all employees and volunteers for a criminal records check by the state Department of Justice.

In addition, said executive director Quin Gustason, the Y relies on "a lot of networking and closeness" among workers to detect signs of possible abuse.

Unlike other youth organizations, in which adults and children interact for the most part in public places under the scrutiny of other adults and children, Big Brothers of Greater Los Angeles specializes in developing personal, mostly private relationships between boys from single-parent families and men who are to serve as positive male role models.

With at least five Los Angeles-area Big Brothers convicted of molestation-related charges since 1982, the organization has developed a three-month intensive screening process that has won the admiration of law enforcement officials.

"They may screen people out who would be OK, but it's better to err on the side of caution," said Deputy Dist. Atty. Freeman

Nancy Dufford, spokeswoman for Big Brothers of Greater Los Angeles, said: "We are pretty confident that our interview techniques and process can weed out a person who might not be appropriate for any reason," including possible intent to molest.

The screening process includes fingerprinting and a check of state and federal criminal records, plus a check of military discharge records and references-including the applicant's employer and wife or girlfriend, Dufford said.

Applicants then undergo a three- to four-hour intensive interview covering their family background, social habits and sexual history, she said. Interviewers are looking for "a series of things that don't fit," such as a person who has failed to develop adult relationships or spends most of his time with children, she said.

If there are any doubts about the applicant, he must undergo further scrutiny, Dufford said. Only about 10% of applicants are accepted.

The Big Brothers program also approaches the problem from the youngsters' perspective, teaching boys how to identify and report molestation. "We want the kids to be knowledgeable about `good touch' versus `bad touch,' " Dufford said, using phrases coined to help children distinguish an affectionate touch from molestation.

Advice for Parents

A primary responsibility for preventing abuse rests with parents, said Childhelp's Sexton, who conducts clinical training in sex abuse prevention nationwide. Parents should "not be paranoid, just more careful," he said, advising parents to regularly set aside time when children know they can discuss their problems and feelings.

Children who may not be able to tell their parents they have been abused provide behavioral clues, such as sleeplessness, loss of appetite, acting up, doing poorly in school or suddenly not wanting to be around a certain person, he said.

Authorities cautioned against going to extremes in response to the problem of child sexual abuse. There are dangers both in denying that the problem exists and, at the other extreme, of overreacting to harmless demonstrations of affection, they said.

Child sexual abuse is such an unthinkable crime that some adults may refuse to heed the behavioral signs, experts said.

Denial gives people the "psychological comfort" of believing that children are rarely victimized, although research findings would show otherwise, said psychiatrist Summit, who participated in a Los Angeles County task force formed in response to the McMartin case.

Summit, in the committee's voluminous 1984 report to the County Board of Supervisors, said that denial of the problem allows adults to "be more secure in the serene assurance that young children are safe in trusted environments." Society has engaged in "a vast conspiracy of silence" about child sexual abuse, he said in the report and reiterated in an interview last week.

The psychological defenses of victims themselves may help perpetuate the silence, Summit wrote, adding that victims "commonly grow up with no memory of the experience. The victim often remembers the perpetrator only in an idealized, blameless image. The most persistent, savage abuse may create in the victim the most loyal, slave-like identification with the aggressor."

Effect on Adults

Other experts said that one of the unfortunate side-effects of recent nationwide publicity on child abuse is that some adults have become hesitant to touch children because they fear being accused of molestation.

"Recent allegations of sexual abuse of preschool and school-aged children have set off a multitude of responses," said Dr. Michael Durfee, a child psychiatrist who is coordinator of the child abuse prevention program for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.

"Many, perhaps most, reactions will ultimately prove useful. The one clear short-term loss is an increased anxiety about touching and intimacy in any form. . . . Not touching a child is more than a hazard for general growth and development. Removing touch, removing intimacy, generates children who are only more susceptible to molestation."

It is up to parents to provide a loving, supportive, open environment at home so children learn from the earliest age about normal, healthy intimacy, Durfee said.

And one of the most foolproof ideas for preventing child sexual abuse is used by Lawndale Little League parent Daniel Lara. "Parents should get more involved instead of just dropping their kids off and leaving them with the coaches," he said. "At least that would lower the chances of something happening.

Professionals tread a fine line when Touching Children

Professionals tread a fine line when Touching Children

By Jean Heller

St. Petersburg Times - July 31, 1988

Edmond John Hartmann says he will never forget the moment in March of 1987 when the sheriff's deputy in New Port Richey told him why he had been ordered to come to the station.

``She says to me, `You're charged with child molesting. Do you want a lawyer?' `` Hartmann recalled. ``I said, `No, I'm innocent.' She read me my rights and locked me up. I spent two months in jail.``

Last Tuesday, 16 months after the ordeal began for the 61-year-old Pasco County school bus driver, it ended. After two alleged young victims testified that, in fact, Hartmann had never assaulted them, Circuit Judge Edward H. Bergstrom dismissed the case saying the lack of evidence made him think he'd just walked through the looking glass into Alice's Wonderland.

Hartmann says he is unsure if he will return to his bus. If he does, he says, it will be with a different attitude:

``It used to be when kids got on the bus with runny noses, I'd wipe them. If their shoes were unlaced, I'd tie them. Now? Hell, no. No way. Never. I can't do it any more. It's not that I don't want to. I don't dare.``

The National Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse estimates that incidents of reported abuse and molestation of children are up 2,000 percent in the last decade, according to the current issue of Parenting magazine.

Most of the reported cases originate in private homes, but more and more of them involve schools, day-care centers, youth organizations and support groups.

The staggering increase in cases and the irreversible damage they can inflict has caused a wide-ranging group of child-care professionals to alter their work habits, attitudes and daily routines. Many of them say they now approach their jobs with one eye on the needs of their kids and the other eye on the lawbooks.

Some counselors, for instance, are prevented from riding in a car with a member of the opposite sex unless another adult is present.

Teachers are protecting themselves against possible abuse charges by joining unions that will help pay legal expenses. And youth groups fear that the number of men willing to work with children is in rapid decline.

``One of the problems all this has created is that teachers, bus drivers, anyone who has contact with children, knows (abuse charges) could happen to them,`` said Tom Weightman, superintendent of Pasco County public schools, the system in which bus driver Edmond Hartmann worked.

``For education to be successful, pupils have to know that their teachers care about them, but the little hugs or pats on the shoulder which are meant innocently can be misconstrued and turned into serious trouble,`` said Weightman, whose school system endured another celebrated case two years ago in which a teacher spent eight months clearing himself of charges that he fondled two 10-year-old pupils.

``We find teachers thinking twice before they touch, however innocently,`` he said.

Even if cleared, a teacher or other child-care professional faces a ruined career from the mere allegation of child abuse.

``That innocent teacher will live the rest of his life with a comma after his name, as in: `Teacher John Doe, who was once accused and later cleared of child molestation,' `` said Dr. Gus Sakkis, retired superintendent of Pinellas County schools.

The repercussions of false allegations perhaps were underscored by the case of Douglas Tarrant.

An assistant superintendent of the Pinellas County School District, Tarrant committed suicide earlier this month after a 15-year-old girl accused him of lewd and lascivious behavior. Family members said the accusation had deepened his depression over failing health.

Tarrant died two days after the girl changed her story, but no one told him. Sensitized

The litany of accusations, convictions and exonerations has sensitized the so-called children's caretaker industry - teachers, counselors and support groups - and the children in their care.

David Voss, director of communications for state Education Commissioner Betty Castor, says that such sensitivity might victimize some innocent adults, but he insists that false accusations might be an unavoidable part of dealing with the problem of child abuse.

``Being aware of the abuse possibilities, being aware of the need to be watchful for real abuse and wary of actions which could bring false accusations, is part of teacher training and teacher in-service training,`` Voss said.

``On the other side, parents take their kids to classes that sensitize them about improper touches and how to report them. That training could lead a child who is angry with a teacher to lie about an incident or to misinterpret an innocent gesture for something sinister. But false reporting is a consequence we simply have to pay in order to get greater reporting of incidents that are true.``

Many experts worry that caretakers' growing concern with their legal position is hurting their job performances. Moreover, they wonder if discouraging false or mistaken allegations also might discourage youngsters from reporting genuine cases of abuse.

Sakkis, the retired Pinellas superintendent, says teacher awareness of child abuse has grown dramatically in the eight years since he retired. He said such sensitivity could affect a teacher's judgment.

``At any given moment, a teacher might avoid hugging a child he might otherwise have hugged, and that might be the child who really needed it at that moment,`` he said.

Bill Hayes, president and co-founder of the Clearwater-based Chi Chi Rodriguez Foundation for troubled youths, agrees.

``All children, up to the age of about 10, are incapable of dealing in academia and logic,`` Hayes said. ``They can deal only in love. And if we don't deal in love back to them, there's a group of kids not getting what it takes to make school successful.

The Rodriguez Foundation deals with youngsters through a golf program.

``We create a camaraderie between a child and an adult,`` Hayes said. ``It's not `we' and `they.' It's a partnership.``

Hayes acknowledged that he and his staff are vulnerable to charges of abuse and molestation, but he said it does not affect the way they react to students.

``Some people are very conscious of the law and avoid getting involved with children on a personal basis these days,`` he said. ``We don't. We take the risk.``

Not everyone is willing to take the risk. Some counselors have adopted special rules.

``Members of our staff can't drive with students of the opposite sex without another adult present, and we try to have a lot of adults and a lot of kids around in all situations,`` said Scott Bruner, director of St. Petersburg's Youth for Christ program.

But some situations call for different measures.

``Sometimes you have a kid, let's say he's in an incest situation at home, who might take one adult into his confidence and open up, but would never talk to a room full of adults,`` Bruner said. ``In those cases, sometimes you have to take a chance. There are times when you just have to put your arm around a kid's shoulders and tell him you appreciate him. You just have to take care not to go any further.``

Fixing the problem

Despite a growing concern with these issues among individual children's caretakers, there is little or no coordinated national effort to resolve the situation.

Dan Sexton, director of the Los Angeles-based Childhelp U.S.A., the only national hotline for abused children, said he ``does not doubt for a minute`` statistics showing incidents of reported child abuse are up 2,000 percent in the last 10 years.

``This hotline started in 1982, and that year we recorded 8,600 calls,`` Sexton said. ``Last year, we had 150,000. But while the reports of abuse are up dramatically, funding for programs to deal with abuse is only up 20 percent.``

And little new financing is expected in the near future.

With the Reagan administration winding down, the U.S. Department of Education's acknowledged expert on child abuse issues left Washington several weeks ago to become dean of the School of Education at Boston University.

Peter Greer, former deputy undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Education, says the level of the problem today is far outpacing the search for solutions.

``Principals are being told more and more by superintendents to bring these matters up at the first staff meeting each year, and they wind up advising their teachers, `Don't touch, don't hug,' `` said Greer, superintendent of the school system in Portland, Maine, when it implemented one of the toughest child abuse reporting laws in the country.

``I think it affects secondary school teachers more than elementary teachers,`` Greer said. ``Elementary teachers naturally touch and hug, and that's the way it's always going to be. When you talk about secondary schools, I question whether it's proper to kiss and hug students of that age, anyway. But I would never tell a teacher who does it innocently and naturally to stop. I would simply tell him to be cautious.`` A decline in volunteers

One effect of the rising number of abuse reports is the apparent downturn in the number of men volunteering for youth support work.

``We have had, both nationally and locally, a gradual decline in the numbers of men coming into our program,`` said Thomas Esslinger, director of the Big Brother and Big Sister programs in Largo. ``I think that's due to a variety of things, but the proliferation of abuse charges is one of the concerns, definitely.``

Barbara Knowles, director of the Pinellas County Licensing Board for day-care centers, fears that the threat of abuse charges ``will deter additional quality men from coming into loving contact with children who need such contact from women and men, alike.``

In fact, some children's caretakers, particularly teachers, have begun arming themselves against possible abuse charges by joining unions that will help pay the cost of their legal defenses.

But even the unions don't pretend to have all the answers.

``When we go to convention, we have speakers who tell us how important it is to hug kids, to hold hands, touch them and teach them how much you care,`` said Sam Rosales, executive director of Classroom Teachers Association of Tampa, which helps pay legal expenses.

``That speaker is generally followed by an attorney warning teachers to watch it, not to touch because they're inviting a lawsuit,`` he said. ``We know we're sending out mixed signals, but they're both correct, and it's very frustrating.``

Hayes, of the Chi Chi Rodriguez Foundation, summed up that frustration:

``What kids need is to know that someone cares, but in this day and age of one-parent families or two-parent families with both parents working, of classroom computers, school busing and lunchrooms that look like the Department of Motor Vehicles offices, life for our children is more and more impersonal.

``And the one potential chink in that impersonality - our teachers - are trying to do their jobs with chalk in one hand and lawbooks in the other. It hasn't worked, it isn't working, and it never will work.``

'Dear Mr. Jesus' Rocks The Recording World (Song about child abuse)

'Dear Mr. Jesus' Rocks The Recording World

By Paul Weingarten

Chicago Tribune - December 20, 1987

All bangs and brown eyes, the little girl is perched in front of the microphone at KHYI-FM. It is just past 7 a.m. and Sharon Batts, a guest on the local rock radio station, seems somewhat bewildered about her unexpected rise to stardom.

"I didn't know it would ever come to anything this big," she says breathlessly.

It does seem unlikely. Sharon Batts, 9, has a huge hit record on a subject that is not normally associated with the music charts.

"Dear Mr. Jesus,

I just had to write to you

Something really scared me

When I saw it on the news

A story about a little girl

Beaten black and blue

Jesus, thought I'd take this right to you."

The song, "Dear Mr. Jesus," a child's lament about child abuse, has touched an emotional chord across the nation this holiday season, stirring an unprecedented torrent of requests on radio stations and a spurt of calls to many child abuse hot lines.

In the process it has become the rarest of record-industry species: a Christian ballad on Billboard Magazine's Hot 100.

"It's a miracle," says Jan Batts, Sharon's mother and the director of PowerVision, the tiny Christian record-label that produced the song.

"God orchestrated this whole thing obviously. Why would this happen to some group in Dallas-Ft. Worth, with no working capital, no hotshot producer, no influence, no power, nothing that makes a hit record? How else on Earth can it be?"

"I've been in the business over 10 years, and I don't think I've ever seen a record affect people like this," says Chuck Beck, assistant program director at KHYI, which logged 6,329 play requests in nine days.

"We had the era of Michael Jackson, and the disco phase, and all of that, but as far as just one song, coming out of left field, this is bigger than anything I've ever witnessed."

The left field in this case is Grapevine, a Dallas suburb and headquarters for the nonprofit Gospel Workshop for Children Inc., a nondenominational evangelical Christian ministry founded by Jan Batts in 1982 "to reach the unchurched child," she says.

The only prerequisite for joining, she says, is that "you must believe the Bible is the word of God."

The workshop sponsors a 21-member children's choir, PowerSource, which included Sharon singing "Dear Mr. Jesus" as part of an album, "Shelter from the Storm," recorded in 1985. The album flopped until a disk jockey at WRBQ- FM in Tampa, Fla., discovered it just before Thanksgiving this year.

"Dear Mr. Jesus" suddenly became a crossover hit. The station was fielding 1,000 requests a day, the typical combined total for all record requests, recalls program director Randy Kabrich.

Within days the song captured New York, where it was aired as a tribute to 6-year-old Lisa Steinberg, whose adoptive father, a lawyer, has been accused of beating her to death.

The song first played on the day she was buried.

"All hell broke loose when we played it," says Steve Kingston, operations manager for WHTZ in New York, where the song continues to generate 3,000 requests a day. "People were pulling their cars over and crying."

Hundreds of other radio stations across the spectrum-Top 40 to country- and-western to religious, even heavy metal-have hopped on the bandwagon within the past two weeks.

"People call and say thank you for playing the record," marvels Chicago's WBBM-FM program director Buddy Scott. "And that's never happened here before."

"It gets more requests in 90 minutes than most hits bring in a week," says Kim Freeman, radio editor of Billboard magazine, where the song debuted on the Hot 100 Singles Chart at No. 82 last week.

The song hit the charts on air-play alone, not sales, since PowerVision's entire inventory of the album-a relatively paltry 35,000 copies-was exhausted weeks ago. The company, which never issued a single of the song, currently is deluged with 5,000 orders a day.

Several major record labels have approached Batts-at least one offering to sign Sharon to an exclusive singing contract. But so far Jan is undecided, preferring to consult a higher authority for guidance.

"I'm praying," she says. "If God made this happen, then He will also take care of how many sales we will have. We're not listening to people in the industry. They told me I was out of my mind to ever think anyone in the secular market would play 'Dear Mr. Jesus.' But we don't play by their rules.

"God is not into numbers like people are. If He stops orders tomorrow, that's fine. The people in the the industry have a real hard time relating to that, as you might expect."

Sharon, a third-grader in suburban Bedford, now has a full schedule of personal appearances.

She recently sang at a child-abuse benefit in Houston, and has appeared on several network television talk shows.

Much of the money Sharon earns from guest shots goes to child-abuse charities. Several national record chains also are planning promotions of the record, including the donation of some of the proceeds.

Of her new celebrity, she says, "It's getting kind of old sometimes." Her classmates teasingly call her a "media darling," and they warble the song mockingly.

At KCSC-FM, a country-western station in Ft. Worth, the receptionists are swamped with calls, many inquiring not only where they can buy the song but also about counseling for abusers or past victims. Many stations regularly run child abuse hotline numbers after the song.

Childhelp's National Child Abuse Hotline in Los Angeles experienced a 30 percent increase in calls in the past two weeks, says director Dan Sexton.

"The song has triggered sadness and frustration and repressed feelings, particularly for adult survivors," Sexton said.

Many radio stations have refused to play the song because they say it is too depressing.

"You can't listen to that without getting a tear in your eye," says Tom Watson, program director of KVIL-FM in Dallas. "But it is really a downer, and I'm not sure that this song is the right vehicle to address child abuse."

There is no doubt at KSCS-FM, which recently received a letter from a Dallas woman.

"The day I raised my 4-year-old daughter a foot off the floor taking off her new shirt covered in paint, I realized that the cycle of abuse was continuing for another generation," she wrote.

"I will never be the same after hearing 'Dear Mr. Jesus.' The cycle stops with this letter. There will be no fear in my daughter's eyes when she looks at me. I can't begin to tell you how much this miracle from God means to me. Surely I have been blessed."

CAPTION:

PHOTO: Photo for The Tribune by Rob Schumacher/AP. Sharon Batts, whose recording 'Dear Mr. Jesus' has become a popular hit, signs autographs last week in Mesa, Ariz. The 9-year-old's mother calls her success a "miracle."

PHOTO: Photo for The Tribune by Rob Schumacher/AP. Child singer Sharon Batts is helping raise the consciousness of a nation with her song about child abuse.