Homeschooling’s 

Invisible Children

Child of Todd and Lisa Mortensen

Todd Mortensen is alleged to have sexually abused a 12 year old girl placed in his home. The girl was in the process of being adopted by another family, but when this family began to struggle with caring for her they made private arrangements to place her with the Mortensens. Todd and Lisa Mortensen homeschooled […]

Esther Combs

Esther Combs, originally named Elsa Garcia, was taken from Baptist Children’s Home in Valparaiso, Indiana, by Joseph and Evangeline Combs at 4 months old in 1978. Esther was never actually adopted, although she grew up believing that she had been. Joseph, a Baptist minister, sexually abused Esther and Evangeline beat her with a baseball bat […]

Child of Stephen Douglas James

The sexual abuse suffered at the hands of her adoptive father, Stephen Douglas James, began when she was 11, the girl reported, but she did not initially tell anyone of the abuse because she was afraid that her father would hurt her or her brothers. She finally told her adoptive mother, who confronted James about […]

2 Children of Earnest and Windie Perry

Windie Perry and her adult adopted daughter, Elizabeth, 20, sexually abused and tortured two adopted girls, aged 11 and 13. They were accused of imprisoning the girls in a dog kennel, tying them to cots, depriving them of food for days at a time, beating them with bats and hammers, torturing them with staple guns, […]

6 Children of Patrick McMullen

Patrick McMullen raped his daughters, beat his wife and sons, and isolated his family in a converted nightclub with an eight-foot double fence from 1995 to 2001. Patrick, who was active in the John Birch Society, covered the windows with dark cloth and held his family hostage, confining them in what media described as a […]

Rachel L., Jonathan L., and Mary Grace L.

At age 14, Rachel contacted police saying she had run away from home. When questioned by the Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS), she said her father beat her with a stick, hanger, or shoe, that she suffered from depression but was not allowed to get help, and that she had been sexually abused […]

3 Children in North Pole, Alaska

Kenneth Rarick sexually molested three children in North Pole, Alaska, while living with their family as a live-in homeschool teacher from 1997 to 1998. During this time Rarick also taught at a nearby private school run by a charismatic church. Rarick was already a known sex offender after sexually molesting a boy in 1982, but […]

Child of Andrew and Carolyn Mayer

Andrew and Carolyn Mayer sent two of their children off to church alone one Sunday so that they could be alone with their 16 year old daughter. Carolyn watched as Andrew, the girl’s stepfather, raped the girl and successfully impregnated her. Carolyn, a mother of three, was unable to conceive and the couple devised a […]

2 Children of David and Glenda Kinghorn

David and Glenda Kinghorn had 2 biological children and four adopted children, and took in as many as 8 additional children from disrupted adoptions. David was charged and convicted of raping one of these children, a girl aged 13. There were also allegations that the Kinghorns punched a 10 year old boy, Sasha Bignell (one […]

3 Children of Kenneth H. Brandt

Kenneth H. Brandt pleaded guilty to raping his three sons, ages 9 to 12; two were adopted and the other was in the process of being adopted. Brandt also pleaded guilty to prostituting one of the boys, aged 10, out to two other men. Not long before the sexual abuse was discovered, Brandt had removed […]