Posting here since this a thread invites the consideration of the strongest RDI involvement. Guess I align with some other posters in thinking that the reason the R’s did not call for help for JB and subsequently launched the massive cover-up was to conceal sexual abuse. For me, the chronic sexual abuse is the strongest evidence of RDI involvement – since it’s doubtful the Rs would pursue such a huge public relations effort, plus obtain lawyers before JB’s autopsy had even been performed, if it was an intruder who’d been visiting JB in her home. Imo, the chronic sexual abuse seems to be at the crux of the crime and all that followed thereafter.
As a guide there’s a classification of incest from psychiatrictimes.com --
Maddock and Larson have categorized incest into the following:
• Affection-based: the incest provides closeness in a family otherwise lacking in nurture and affection. There is an emphasis on the specialness of the relationship, within which otherwise unavailable caring is given and received
. • Erotic-based: the family atmosphere is one of chaotic pansexuality, and it is not uncommon for many members to be involved. Its norm is the erotization of relationships. The term “polyincest” is often used to describe such multiple-perpetrator situations.
• Aggression-based: the incestuous acts involve the perpetrator’s sexualized anger. The perpetrator vents his or her frustration and conflicts on a vulnerable individual, and physical mistreatment is often involved.
• Rage-based: the perpetrator is hostile and may be overtly sadistic. There may be great danger to the victim.
It is not unusual for mixtures of these components to be encountered.
We’ll never know for sure who in the household sexually abused her, so much of my post must be taken as one feels fits individual theories: PR, JR or BR. But the first person I wish to discuss is BR.
There is too much scuttlebutt from former friends/AG employee(s) about the problems between JB and BR for me to ignore that there may have been SBP existing in the home; this is obviously what Kolar speculates and all but actually states. Granted, it’s hearsay but hearsay from people who knew the family. One may therefore make a presumptive leap that the parents knew there were issues. After the adult Rs allegedly speak to the kids up in Charlevoix, MI, summer of 1996, about their “games”, some of JB’s enuresis and encopresis begin to abate. However, JB’s toileting issues start up again a month before her death. I’ve asked myself what is wrong with PR or JR to not correct this situation. One poster (Ozazure) stated once that when a problem goes on and is not corrected, there is a tendency towards “learned helplessness.“ This helplessness may be a combination of ego, denial, insulating oneself, to try not to care much since it’s been to no avail, a little like what happens in homes of addiction, ‘til there’s a tragedy.
Well, likely BR needed specialized treatment he never received. But . . . Marilyn Van Derbur Atler lays it out very bluntly in her book about the abuse she suffered and what parents need to do to prevent abuse between siblings. For example, they did not take any steps to keep the two separated at night. The kids’ situation goes beyond the polite term sibling “experimentation”. It is abuse, when one child dominates the other, regardless of age. It’s abusive and exploitive. And the parents are responsible.
For purposes of this post, I’m not going to throw in PR’s possible sexual abuse of JB (or JAR’s), because I’ve no real info on it. I’ll leave that discussion to others.
JR, OTOH, was considered by Hodges, Walter Davis and our own SD as having crossed boundaries with his daughter – a point JR always denied vehemently and often. We will never know, since there isn’t any way to actually corroborate it. But what we might be able to consider is a takeaway from the family dynamics, what child protective services notes about the family of incest and the roles all of them play.
When it comes to JR there’s plenty of documented stories regarding his behavior with his two daughters – Beth and JB. He keeps a photo of Beth in his bathroom, a private sanctuary. He calls his firstborn daughter frequently, and she appears to be his favorite. More importantly, the year he lost his marriage and his mother died, it would be easy to understand that JR may have turned to his oldest daughter for support.
When a parent uses a child to serve the parent’s emotional needs and promotes a child to a special and close role, however, that child becomes a surrogate spouse. Unfortunately the child is trapped in a world dominated by the needs of a parent. (PR fits this kind of abuse, too.) This type of relationship, is what psychologists term “emotional incest”. And it can easily contribute to a triangulation between 2 spouses and a child.
Who can forget JR explaining how JB was the one to cheer him up after Beth’s death. The “spark plug” of the family. And during PR’s absence for cancer treatment, JR turns to JB for support. JB assumes PR’s seat in the jeep, the passenger side, instead of the rear where a child normally would or should sit.
While I’ve never comfortably landed on any theory as to who wacked JB in the head (leaning towards BR for several reasons, but know it could have been PR exhibiting reckless anger, or even JR in trying to manage the cover-up), my only conclusion: The 3 R’s exploited JB in each their own way. The family was tangibly harming JB on several levels. And then she was physically destroyed. Beautiful gift of a child never had a chance. All MHO.
