Child Abuse Story From Benjamine Marsh

by Benjamine Marsh
(Stafford, Virginia)

I was abused by George O. A. Lowe, the pastor my church, Mount Hope Baptist in Stafford, Virginia. During the summer, between my freshmen and sophomore years of high school, I stayed with Lowe's family when my mother and grandmother went out of town for a few weeks. It was during this time that I was having urinary and prostate problems, and Lowe had me expose myself to him in order to check it out. According to his confession, this was the first time he felt urges to do immoral acts upon me.

The fall of my sophomore year, Lowe began picking me up from my grandmother's house, taking me to his office at the church. This was for me to do homework and for him to talk to me. Before we would leave he would make me masturbate, saying that it was "medically good for me".

As my sophomore year progressed, I began to have difficulties at school. My grades slipped, and I was always feeling as if I was an outcast. I was not allowed to have a girlfriend, or even to talk on the phone to girls. This was Lowe's influence through guidance to my mom.

I was conflicted in what the reverend was having me do. I did not feel that masturbating was wrong because at this time I was under the impression that it was a medical treatment. However, I was sure that I did not want to be doing it with him watching me. Along with this conflict I suffered a loss. A girl I had met killed herself that winter.

Any doubts I had about what I was doing changed on March 10, 1984. On this snowy Saturday morning, Lowe took me to his office. I had gotten into a little fist fight with a guy at school the week before and word had gotten to him about it. We first talked about my role in the fight. He then talked about my mom sending me away. He said he could convince my mother not to. I later found out this was not true, but yet another manipulation.

Before departing his office he had me masturbate in front of him again. This is when it was no longer a medical treatment. He bent down and performed oral sex on me. I wanted him to stop but he did not. I felt that my body had betrayed me. I did not understand about the natural physical reactions a body goes through. It was as if a ton of weight had been placed on my shoulders.

When he dropped me off this time, he said to not tell anyone about what went on at the church with us. He made reference to a sign in his office that said: What is said here, Stays here when you leave here. I did not want to go back to his office anymore, but that is not how things worked out.

On March 13th, a close friend of mine was killed in a car accident. After that, whenever I seemed to be home, Lowe picked me up to 'talk' to me. I protested, telling my mom and grandma I did not want to go with him, but it was to no avail. Each time I was with him, I would hope that he would change, that he would stop doing this. But it went on and on and on.

No one figured out why I protested about not wanting to go with the reverend. My grades slipped even further, even though he was supposed to be helping me with homework. My only other recourse was to try to passively make myself unavailable to him.

I stayed after school as late as I could, some nights until 10, or 11 o'clock, helping with other school activities or projects or something. This did not raise any red flags either. Everyone at home just thought I liked being involved with everything. All these behaviors went on, and I felt I could not go to anyone and tell them what was wrong because I did not want to get sent away. I also did not want other kids at school to think I was an even bigger freak than I felt I was. I just did not understand why. I tried prayer, I tried reading the Bible. But, everything about god and religion seemed false to me, as I saw him on the pulpit every week, knowing what he was doing to me. I did know that God was not the one doing these gross acts to me, but it took years to grasp the fact that I had no control over the actions of the reverend.

I graduated from high school in 1986. I often think back to when I entered those halls as a freshman, the principal telling us that the next four years there would be the best days of our lives. Well, from my sophomore to senior year there were more than 20 acts committed against me by this sexual predator. Add that on top of all the growing pains every teen goes through, I want to know when those best days were supposed to have happened. I was robbed of more than my virtue. I was robbed of my self-esteem, innocence and the privileges of being a normal teenager and developing upon the thing I learned as a youth into the man I wanted to become.

In 1988 I went to the Chairman of the Deacon board at Lowe's church. At first he told me "to do nothing" until he got back with me. On Presidents Day 1988 he called me in to meet with him. He did not tell me that the reverend would be there, however. When I got to the church, he had me come into the reverend's office and they began reading Bible verses. Now I cannot remember what verses they read, but the point they came to was that Christians do not take Christians to court. I could not accept that. I did not feel the conduct of the reverend with reference to me demonstrated a Christian behavior.

For the next 20 years I tried on my own to deal with the issues of the abuse. I bounced back and forth across the country. I was thrown out of the Army. There were several attempts to harm myself, finally ending in a failed marriage, a meth-amphetamine addiction, and me in prison.

When I returned back to Virginia from prison in August of 2007, I made contact again with the Sheriff's office. They had me wear a wire, and go and talk with the reverend and get him to confess. He told me that he was surprised that I had so many problems over the years. He did not feel he had done anything wrong, that he was sorry and that he thought I was willing to participate back then. We met two more times. He said he wanted to help me through my issues and he spoke freely about the abuse. He talked enough that he was charged with 9 felonies. After a plea bargain, he pleaded guilty to 2 felony counts and was sentenced to prison for 5 years. He will serve at least 2 1/2 years.

It has taken me nearly twenty years to get to where I am today. After hearing my story, and knowing that George Lowe confessed to sexually abusing me, it may be easy to see all the signs that I was giving off in the 80's that something was very wrong. The signs that I was a victim of sexual abuse by a man who was supposed to be a helper in the community, someone whom I should have been able to trust and look up to, not someone whom I should fear and be haunted by his abuse.

It is not my intention to cast blame on anyone for not seeing that I was crying out for help. I understand why people may have found it difficult to believe that George Lowe could have been doing the things he did to me; however, this is my reality. I was a victim of sexual abuse, and the crimes did not go away on the days after he abused me. They remained with me every day of my life, and will continue to do so. Many times, he took advantage of me and committed unspeakable acts of sexual abuse against me.

Getting George Lowe out of the pulpit and into prison has been a great relief to me. His conviction has not eliminated all of the issues in my head, but it has helped me to finally get a foothold and begin to heal. I am encouraged that George Lowe will no longer have the ability to hurt anyone the way he hurt me, and that I may have saved someone from suffering the same abuse as I. I have a way to go before I am completely healed; however, I know that with the Lord's help and the help and support of friends and family, I am no longer a victim. I am a survivor.

To my visitors: I don't normally permit the inclusion of full names, either that of the story contributor, or that of the contributors' abuser. I have this policy in place in order to protect the privacy of the individuals who submit their stories, and yes, because of potential liability issues. I've made an exception in Ben Marsh's story, only because I was able to verify that one, there was a court case brought against this sexual predator; two, that in a plea bargain this predator pleaded guilty to some of the felony charges that he was facing; and three, than Ben has gone completely public with this already, using his full name.

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