House of Secrets (6 page)

Exactly what, as he drove to the school on this cold afternoon in February, 1992, he could only guess. She was sitting in a counselor’s office, wearing a black and white sweater, jeans, and a pair of white tennis shoes. “I’m pregnant,” Machelle Sexton said. “And they’re trying to kill the baby.” Wayne Welsh wanted to know more. It was her boyfriend’s baby, she said. The day before, her younger brother James, nearly 16, saw her kissing her boyfriend and told her dad. Her father backhanded her under the right eye, she claimed. She showed him a scratch left by his ring. “Then he tried to kick me in the stomach,”

she said. “James did.” Her sister Sherri forced herself between them, she reported, screaming, “Get out, you child killer.” Welsh wondered why Sherri would call James that. “Sherri was pregnant a year ago, too,” Machelle said. “Dad didn’t want her to deliver the baby.”

Machelle said James kicked Sherri in the stomach. She miscarried the next day. It didn’t take much effort to count. If Sherri was indeed pregnant, that meant at least four babies conceived by Sexton daughters out of wedlock in the past four years, in a house where dating was rarely allowed. When she finished, Welsh found himself in a familiar situation. Machelle Sexton was a long way from meeting the statutory guidelines of neglect, dependency, or abuse. More importantly, Machelle was well into her 18th year. She was now a legal adult, beyond the jurisdiction of child protection by the DHS. “But I can’t go home now,” she said. Legally, he couldn’t help her. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t do her a favor, from one adult to another.

Maybe if Machelle Sexton did leave home, he thought, she would begin talking about the other minor children, something that fell within the definition of the child protection laws. Welsh offered to drive Machelle Sexton to the Canton

Y.W.C.A.

They had a program for young women in crisis, he explained. She could stay there until the organization located a family willing to give her shelter. That afternoon, school officials contacted the house on Caroline Street to inform Machelle’s parents. She’d left with a worker for the Department of Human Services, Ed Sexton was told. She would not be coming home from school. That afternoon, Machelle Sexton and Wayne Welsh showed up at the Jackson Township Police Department, Welsh suggesting on the ride over to the Y.W.C.A that she make a police report of her father’s assault. “But I don’t want to get anyone in trouble,”

she said. Welsh told her she didn’t have to press charges, but it was in her best interest to document the assault. Sgt. Barry Lyons, a road patrol supervisor and 10-year veteran, met them in the small lobby. He escorted the teenager to the department conference room where he could question her about the basic details he needed to make a report. It was not the first time a Jackson officer would write the Sexton name and address on department paperwork. Department contacts with the family dated back to when a handful of township cops worked out of a Stark County Sheriff’s substation in the mid-1970s. Now the depax uent was housed in a modern one-story office building on Fulton Road. Nearly 30 police and a dozen auxiliary officers covered Jackson’s 36 square miles. The department had grown with the population. In the 1980s, residential and commercial development earned Jackson the title of the second fastest growing suburb in America. It stood at 28,000 residents now, with another 125,000

visitors and employees populating the crowded Belden Village mall and commercial district each day. Belden generated reams of paperwork from retail-related petty crime. Some of the reports on the Sexton family appeared equally inconsequential. But among the older Jackson cops, there were few veterans who didn’t have a story about the family who lived in the house on Caroline Street.

Nearly 30 incidents and reports were in department files, many of them generated in the 1980s as the older Sexton boys hit their teenage years. The two oldest, Patrick and Eddie, Jr., had been investigated for alleged neighborhood theft and threatening or striking siblings or classmates. Ed Sexton had filed runaway reports on Patrick, Eddie Jr., and the third oldest, William, all of them returning home shortly after they left. The Sexton family often appeared to be on the receiving end of trouble In 1982 and 1987 there had been major fires at the house on Caroline, the latter causing $32,000 in damages. Ed Sexton reported numerous burglaries and vandalism of his house. Somebody stole a Coleman dome tent from the front yard in 1990. Somebody dumped a chemical into his pond in 1991. In July of 1991, Sexton filed a report that his house had been broken into while he was on vacation. He detailed more than $20,000 in stolen items. He presented a three-page itemized list to police and his insurance company, serial numbers, cost and place of purchase noted. Among the listed items were VCRs, stereos, dozens of video tapes, and a $2,700 entertainment center. He also listed four large brass eagles valued up to $300 and a “Certificate of Recognition” from the U. S. Congress for Vietnam service. He placed no value on that item, noting “can’t replace.” Ed Sexton seemed well-versed in the law. Police suspected Sexton’s theft reports, and his fires, were fabrications for insurance money. But they lacked evidence to bring a fraud case. Recalled one veteran, “The man was a pro. He had an answer for every question, an explanation for every inconsistency. And he knew every aspect of the legal system as well.” There were other police calls. In early 1991, Sexton reported a nephew staying with the family was kidnapped from his home by the nephew’s brothers at gunpoint. A brief investigation revealed the 45year-old nephew was retarded. Ed Sexton had applied to become his guardian and receive the nephew’s Social Security benefit. The nephew reported he had no desire to be at the house on Caroline. He claimed his uncle beat him. His brothers had rescued him from the house, he said. The incident that most Jackson cops talked about was one Sgt.

Barry Lyons worked on himself. He was in the detective bureau then.

He lived in the Sextons’ general neighborhood. The case involved a retired neighbor named Walter Dundee, his wife, and their retarded daughter, Kathleen. Early on, the family seemed to get along well with the Sextons. Until she died of cancer, Dundee’s wife often dropped in on Estella Mae Sexton to visit and sip coffee. Then, what appeared at first to be a disagreement erupted into a feud. Sgt. Lyons and another Jackson detective, a 25-year veteran named Larry Aventino, soon were making regular visits to Caroline Street. At its peak, Aventino was seeing Walter Dundee nearly every day. A bit of neighborly advice from Ed Sexton preceded the conflict, Aventino recalled Dundee saying.

It all started when Sexton told Dundee that his retarded daughter was eligible for Social Security disability. Sexton suggested Dundee contact his lawyer, and his advice proved to be absolutely sound. Not only did Kathleen Dundee began receiving regular SSI checks, the government gave her a handsome retroactive settlement for all the years she didn’t collect. Then, as Dundee’s own health began to fail, Sexton had another suggestion. He told Dundee, why not let him be his legal guardian. He could get him the best benefits and find top rate doctors to treat his stomach cancer. Sexton offered to handle all his financial affairs. “That became the whole crux of the thing from day one,” Aventino later recalled. “He set himself up to take care of the Dundee family, and when Walter Dundee refused, he began to terrorize them.” Some of the incidents were documented in police files from 1990.

But Aventino and Lyons recalled that a good many more were not, as Dundee became fearful and reluctant to make official complaints.

Sexton boys climbed the back fence and beat on Dundee’s doors, the police said. Dundee suspected them of breaking windows and vandalizing a prized tomato garden he’d nurtured for years. He suspected them of stealing tools out of his garage, then trying to light it on fire.

Sexton also struck back with police. Once he filed a complaint, claiming Dundee had hit his son Charles with a car. “He became terrified to even leave his house,” Aventino would later recall.

“They’d break a window, then next time break two windows because he’d called the police. They’d pull out one tomato plant. He’d call the police. The next time they’d take the whole garden out. And it was clear old man Sexton was orchestrating it. Sexton would knock on the window, making sure Dundee saw him running the show.” When Aventino inspected some of the early damage, he also saw Sexton peering out of his back windows. He was holding a black Bible to his chest. Whenhe came out, he showed Aventino a minister’s card. Aventino explained his business there. “I don’t want trouble,” Sexton said. “I’m a man of God.”

“I’d like to talk to your kids,” Aventino said. “Not without an attorney present,” Sexton responded. “Then maybe you ought to get one.”

“Oh, no,” Sexton said. “But I will say a prayer for the man.” Later, Aventino entered the Sexton house after one of the family’s burglary reports. Everything was filthy. The carpeting looked as if it had never been cleaned. Upstairs, the cop saw dirty sheets with what appeared to be unwashed menstrual bloodstains. He saw crusty towels that looked as if they’d hung on bathroom racks for months. Aventino later recalled that he made phone calls to the county health department and child protection services. “They complained they were short on money and manpower,” he said. “And nothing got done.” Sexton, according to Dundee’s frequent conversations with Aventino, continued to use the carrot and the stick, even as it became clear the cancer would take his life. “It was simple,” Aventino recalled. “If he let Sexton become his guardian, all of his neighbor problems would stop.

“

Lyons also remembered the first time he was in the house. He found Ed Sexton sitting at the kitchen table, slumped in a wheelchair, but talking about taking a trip to Florida. He showed Lyons a line on his hand. He and one of his children were the only two people on earth with the mark, he said. This oddity had earned him a multimillion-dollar promotional deal with Burger King, Sexton continued. He was going to Florida to visit the franchise’s national headquarters in Miami, he said. “I figured, this guy is wacked,” Lyons would later recall. In the spring of 1990, Lyons had police business in the neighborhood again. One day at a local coffee shop, Aventino heard from neighborhood paperboys that Sexton’s oldest son Patrick, then 22, was making moves on the retarded Kathleen Dundee. Soon came another complaint from her father. Walter Dundee said the day after he deposited S 13,000 in his daughter’s account, Patrick Sexton went with his daughter to the bank. She withdrew $2,000. Now the money was missing. Lyons investigated, first talking to Kathleen. She was a portly, short woman with cat-eye glasses. She had the intelligence of a third grader and the gullibility and innocence that went with that age. Kathleen said she’d given the money to Patrick Sexton because he did favors for her, such as taking her to her doctor visits. Patrick promised to take her to Florida, she said. Lyons called the bank, furious with the bank manager at first. The manager said Kathleen Dundee was authorized to withdraw money. His hands were tied, no matter what kind of suspicious people she might be with. Lyons didn’t find Patrick Sexton at home. He’d gone to Florida to stay with an uncle. Lyons called him there. Patrick said he felt sorry for Kathleen. She would buy him gifts sometimes because he was nice to her. But he hadn’t taken the $2,000, he claimed. He did admit he’d asked her to go to Florida for a visit. “You ever come back to Ohio I’m going to hunt you down,” Lyons told him. “I will have a warrant here and I will arrest you on The Stark County prosecutor’s office disagreed. Because of Kathleen Dundee’s mental state, she couldn’t say exactly how much money she gave Patrick Sexton, and her authority to withdraw money at the bank, the assistant prosecutor said it would be impossible to try the case. The warrant was denied. Now, two years later, Sgt. Barry Lyons had another Sexton to interview, but this was the first time he’d had any dealings with a Machelle Sexton told him how she’d been suck by her father. She told Lyons the same circumstance she’d revealed to Wayne Welsh. She listed her counselor, Ruth Killion, as a potential witness. Lyons filled out four pages, a standard form.

“So, do you want to press charges?” the sergeant asked. “No, I don’t want to do that,” Machelle Sexton said. The next morning, Wayne Welsh picked up Machelle Sexton at the Y.W.C.A in downtown Canton.

Accompanied by Sgt.“Barry Lyons, all three went to the house on Caroline Street. Machelle needed to pick up her clothes. Lyons went inside first to talk to Ed Sexton, then motioned Welsh and Machelle to come inside. Ed Sexton was waiting in the living room. It was Welsh’s first face-to-face encounter with the man. Welsh glanced around the living room. The home appeared relatively clean and orderly, certainly nothing like the hellholes Welsh had seen through the years. More than two dozen portraits of Sexton children lined the shelves in the living room. Sexton looked well-groomed, the goatee around his chin smartly trimmed. He said that there must be some kind of misunderstanding. He appeared to be an exceptionally gentle man, his voice soft, his southern drawl refined, not harsh and twangy like many of the southerners who’d migrated from West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee over the years. Ed Sexton turned to Machelle, saying in a calm voice, “Now, Machelle, now tell the truth. Did I hit you?”

“You don’t have to answer that, Machelle,” Welsh said. And she didn’t have to tell him where she was going or where she was staying, either, he’d tell her later. Wayne Welsh had already detected that smell. As Valentine’s Day approached, the announced date of Joey and Pixie’s wedding, only Danny, Joel Good’s younger brother, displayed any excitement. Joel had promised Danny he would be his best man. Every day, Danny waited for his brother to call with the details, the exact place and time, where the reception would be held. The rest of the family waited for the invitations they were promised, but nothing came in the mail. Velva, or Teresa, or their parents hardly saw Joel in late January and early February, but they assumed the wedding was still scheduled. Velva’s daughter Jeannie had gone with Joey to Canton Center Mall to help him pick out a wedding ring. They picked out a simple, inexpensive gold band. During one rare visit, Joey said he and Pixie were looking at an apartment in the same building he used to live in, near Velva’s “You sure you want to do this?” Velva said. “I love her,” Joey said. Velva and Teresa learned that they weren’t the only ones advising Joey against the marriage. He said his fellow workers were trying to talk him out of it, too. They pointed out to him the last thing he needed at his age was an instant family. Then Joey was laid off and certainly was in no position to marry, Velva and Teresa reasoned. Valentine’s Day came and went with no word. Danny sat around all day, still waiting for a call. Joey showed up alone at Teresa’s a few days later. They sat at the kitchen table. She could tell something was on his mind. He announced they were married.