Victim finds voice, helps convict Chesapeake abuser

CHESAPEAKE

Sarah Esker found her voice.

It took awhile - more than a decade after the stepfather who adopted her stopped abusing her. She was afraid. But she said she was more afraid of not speaking up, more afraid someone else could become a victim.

So she told police in April that Brian R. Esker had physically and emotionally abused her starting when she was about 5, and sexually abused her from ages 7 to 14, according to a statement of evidence filed in court that Brian Esker signed.

In December, he pleaded guilty under an agreement to 25 felonies committed in Chesapeake, when Sarah was ages 10 to 14. They included aggravated sexual battery, penetrating her sexually with an object, and taking indecent liberties as a parent. On the penetration charges, he admitted only that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him.

On Friday, Circuit Judge Randall D. Smith sent Esker, a 50-year-old retired Marine gunnery sergeant, to prison for 40 years, with another 185 suspended years hanging over his head.

Smith noted there was little the court could do to make up for Sarah's pain, other than to send a message and encourage others in her situation to come forward.

The Virginian-Pilot normally doesn't name victims of sex crimes. Sarah, now 25, said she wanted to talk publicly for a number of reasons, including those other silent victims out there.

"I said, 'That's it - that's why I'm here,' " Sarah said later about the judge's comments.

Court documents graphically detail the abuse Sarah endured, the unwanted touching that occurred sometimes more than once a week. Sarah recently talked about the constant tension and fear - fear of the abuse and of what might happen if she told anyone.

"I immediately knew something wasn't right," she said. "I couldn't articulate it - maybe that was the problem....

"I asked him to stop a thousand times.... It was always no response or, 'You love me.' "

An argument between her parents in December 2000 left her mother on the ground, Sarah said. Scared, she and her younger brother hid in the attic and called 911. She didn't tell police about her abuse then, but Brian Esker never touched her again, she and the court document said.

Even so, she joined every school club she could think of to stay out of the house. She couldn't bring herself to date all through high school, she said.

Three days after graduating from a Colorado high school, she escaped the house, moving almost 2,000 miles back east to attend Old Dominion University.

But the secret didn't rest easy. She confided in a sympathetic boyfriend, who unsuccessfully tried to get her to report it.

Talking with her grandparents about what her wedding might be like caused her to burst into tears; her perceptive grandmother later eased the information out of her, and pushed her to tell her mother.

Her mother didn't immediately respond, but confronted her husband, who at first denied it, according to Sarah and the court document.

Sarah briefly attended counseling, but still feared reporting the abuse. Then she thought of her two young cousins. She warned her aunt not to leave them alone with her adoptive father.

"I realized if I'm saying that to her, what's he doing to someone else that I don't know about?" Sarah said. Soon after, she went to police.

She didn't breathe easy until Brian Esker was in custody and pleaded guilty to crimes punishable by hundreds of years in prison.

"I really got the magnitude of it," she said of that December hearing. "And this is ending. And he's really going to be punished for it."

Brian Esker declined an interview request from jail.

He told his wife that touching got out of hand, according to the court document. Later, he told police he didn't consider his actions molestation, that he was only trying to get closer to Sarah and guessed that her "innocence" is what excited him, according to the document.

On Friday, Esker and his aunt told the court Esker's late father similarly had physically abused him and 11 siblings, and sexually abused the aunt and his sisters.

Esker read a statement apologizing to the court, saying he was just trying to love his family and daughter, that he stopped touching her after gaining new religious faith, and he still loved Sarah and wished her happiness and a growing Christian faith.

"I make no excuses for my actions," he read. "I had a choice, and I chose poorly."

The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry's website reports child sexual abuse is alleged up to 80,000 times a year, "but the number of unreported instances is far greater, because the children are afraid to tell anyone what has happened, and the legal procedure for validating an episode is difficult."

Specific numbers aren't available, said Richard Livingston, an AACAP fellow in Arkansas.

"It's difficult to say a percentage, but we know it's common for it not to be reported for a long time," Livingston said in a phone interview.

Sarah Esker said she'd like to change that.

She's beginning therapy herself and believes talking about it will help.

"And maybe help someone else in the process," she said. "I may be further along than someone else."

Reporting her abuse returned her control over her life, she said.

"It's like a release," she said. "Even though I'm embarrassed, and I'm ashamed in some way... someone's going to know. He admitted to it. It wasn't just me."

Now she's exploring starting a nonprofit organization to help victims find their own voices.

"It makes my life feel purposeful, and it didn't just happen for no reason," she said.

"I can't prevent it, but I can definitely stop it."

Matthew Bowers, (757) 222-5221, matthew.bowers@pilotonline.com