Children drugged and forced to put on sex shows in Mineola, Texas

I hadn’t heard about this…which is strange, since my cousins are all from Mineola, and my uncle has an orthodontic practice there, but…check out this sickness:

Mineola, Texas is a typically small conservative U.S. town, filled with more than 30 churches. But what prosecutors say happened in that rural hamlet is anything but typical. In fact, it’s more like something out of a nightmare.

As the trial of Patrick Kelly (top left) begins this week at the local courthouse, it revives memories of a terrible taint the place with a population of just 5,100 may never live down. He’s accused of participating in a “show” that used drugs and the innocence of children to have them perform sexual acts in front of adults.

And these aren’t rumours. Prosecutors have already put two people away for life in the disturbing case, and now Kelly, one of six accused, will get his day in court.

The case began when investigators discovered something strange going on in the windowless rooms of the local daycare centre. Authorities say those behind the scheme would give five youngsters – including three siblings, ages 12, 10 and 7 – powerful Vicodin painkillers the kids knew as “silly pills” to drive down their inhibitions and resistance.

They would then be told to stage sex shows once a week for the 50-100 people who gathered inside the brightly coloured yellow building. Residents were aware there was a so-called “swingers” club in town, and looked on with a kind of live-and-let-live disgust.

But no one knew there were children involved.

Vomit. Julien Sharp at PHB adds:

This is heartbreaking. I have to wonder if the Phelps clan will be picketing there in this week’s Circuit-of-the-Unhinged. I wonder if any one of the countless people getting rich by running anti-gay organizations will take a moment from queer-bashing to lament on what has happened in Mineola.

(…)

Tomorrow, this horrible story will be “yesterday’s news” and yet the scars the children will bear are real – and wil last a lifetime, even with the best counseling to be had.

Why do the haters continue to make the wrong people out to be demons?

I just don’t know, Julien, I just don’t know.