E-Mail This Article to a Friend The trials of Bernard Baran (continued)
	Being gay in Western Massachusetts WHEN BERNARD BARAN hit adolescence, he had all but resigned himself to a world of hurt. The teenager’s social pain came not from the pedophilia for which he was later charged and imprisoned, but from his sexual attraction to other men. Being young and openly gay in Western Massachusetts in the early 1980s made Baran a perfect candidate for the position of community pariah. "It was torture," says Baran, speaking from prison, of his days in junior high. "Every single day it was something — kids picking on you, calling you ‘fag,’ stealing your book bag or your lunch, friends turning on you, beating you up." Obviously Baran was not the only gay teenager forced to fight off jeers and attacks, but his refusal to use ambiguity or deceit to make life easier certainly didn’t help. He knew he stood out, and he was unwilling to bend just to fit in. Admittedly, he relished a flashier sense of style than his classmates. He donned higher-end brand-name clothes, and matching jeans and denim vests. He even wore Jordache shorts cut so close to the crotch that he knew sidewalk taunts would be unavoidable. Baran’s blatant sexuality was unusual for the times. For gay men and lesbians, the Reagan years were marked by customary harassment, anti-sodomy laws, and rumors that they were responsible for a strange new disease creeping across the land. Most homosexuals knew better than to broadcast their orientation. "Most of my gay friends at work were almost without exception closeted during the day, and ‘gay’ starting Friday night," says William Conley about the time he spent working for the Springfield branch of the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company. He is now a lobbyist for the Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus. "Monday morning came along, and we put on our corporate clothes and went back to the straight business world." In that world, gay men did not display pictures of their partners on their desks and would speak only in vague terms about their lives — many going so far as to switch to feminine pronouns when talking about weekend dates. Conley was trying to phase such concealment out of his own life, when a media encounter in the late 1980s rendered his endeavor pointless. Under the shadow of national hostility, Conley gradually became more public as an advocate for gay rights. In Georgia, a gay man had been arrested and tried under a statewide anti-sodomy law. By 1986, the case — Bowers v. Hardwick — had found its way to the Supreme Court, where a 5-4 ruling upheld the law preventing a man from having sex with another man in the privacy of his bedroom. The rising hysteria over AIDS, which in many minds was inextricably linked to homosexuality, had become an enormous roadblock to the nascent gay-rights movement. As the late Randy Shilts pointed out in his seminal work And the Band Played On, the United States was the only nation in the world where AIDS was considered a "gay plague." While Conley acknowledged that the Bowers decision had little effect on the daily life of homosexuals in Western Massachusetts, he willingly devoted years before and after the ruling to promoting gay-rights legislation on Beacon Hill. His involvement led to an interview for what he thought would be a small piece on his and others’ advocacy work in the local newspaper. That Sunday, the article appeared under a banner headline in the Springfield Union. Conley had been inadvertently outed. "The next day walking into work, I remember feeling much different than the Friday before," he said. "It was scary as hell." While nervous about the consequences around the water cooler, he says that the relief of no longer having to watch his words superceded his anxiety. His co-workers’ reactions turned out to be predictable: some met him with silence and avoidance, while others offered support and congratulations. "In some ways Western Massachusetts — compared to the rest of this state — is actually more progressive toward gay folks," says Conley. "Neighbors in Western Massachusetts are more likely to know each other for a longer period of time [than those in Boston], and there’s more of an acceptance factor for people when they know each other as neighbors.... They get to know [their gay neighbors], and they get to realize that there’s not a problem there." Perhaps Baran simply hasn’t spent enough time outside of prison to see that. "It was horrifying for a young teenage boy to admit he’s homosexual," he says, "but if you don’t speak up, people will always have this power over you to make you feel bad about yourself." — Richard Rainey and Lindsay Taub

By contrast, Tom’s gonorrhea was an unmistakable sign of sexual abuse. Prosecutor Ford suggested that Baran was more likely to get gonorrhea because of his "lifestyle." But while the evidence verified that Tom was sexually abused, it did not necessarily point to Baran. Baran told authorities that he had contracted a sexually transmitted disease in his early teens, but that it had been treated and cured. He tested negative for gonorrhea at Berkshire Medical Center on the day of his second arrest.

In fact, evidence suggests someone else molested Tom. Shortly after the allegations surfaced, DSS removed Tom and his brother Keith from the Hill home, placing them in foster care. Sarah and Joe Hill had already separated. Then, on January 17, 1985, just days before Baran’s trial, Tom told his foster mother that he had been abused by his mother’s current boyfriend. (The name of the boyfriend was cited in official reports and documents.) She immediately filed a report with DSS.

Four days later, on the first day of Baran’s trial, social worker William Baughen substantiated the allegations against the boyfriend. As in any case of child rape, he requested that the case be referred to the district attorney.

But the case was not referred to the DA by DSS regional director Federico Brid for more than a week. On the same day the jury announced Baran’s verdict, Brid wrote, "Please find a DA referral on behalf of Tom Hill ... whom we believe to have been sexually abused by ... [the] mother’s boyfriend. As you may recall, Tom was one of the children involved in the [day-care] series of referrals."

The Phoenix could not locate Brid for comment.

The memo was not stamped "received" by the DA’s Office until five days after Baran’s sentencing. The trial was officially over. Ford never shared this information with the defense, according to Baran’s new attorneys. In a recent phone call, Ford declined to comment.

The boyfriend was never charged. Attempts to reach him were unsuccessful.

In most cases of child rape, "The DA’s Office would know that very day," said Baughen in a recent interview. "The social worker would have the child tell the story with officials present." In his 23 years as a social worker, Baughen said, he had never heard of it taking that long for the DA to find out about a possible child rape. "It would be hard to guess how something like that would happen," he said.

Not providing such information to Baran’s defense attorneys highlights another problem with the case: the prosecution did not give potentially exculpatory evidence to the defense. For example, there was evidence to suggest that four-year-old David Stowe was influenced by his mother’s state of mind. Darlene Stowe suffered from a psychiatric problem similar to an extreme form of hypochondria, according to her doctor. Her syndrome was "a coping mechanism to suppress anger and hostility," wrote Dr. Roy Meals, a Los Angeles surgeon, in a letter to Stowe’s insurance company discouraging an operation to correct an injury that resulted from her mental condition.

It was possible that Stowe transferred her emotional distress to her son. Just days before Baran’s trial began, Dr. Barry Simmons of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in Boston, wrote a letter to a Pittsfield colleague about Stowe’s disorder. In it he stated, "The concern, of course, is that if one robs a patient of a physical disability that they used to cover an underlying emotional problem, they will only [find an outlet] elsewhere."

While a mother’s psychological problems would not necessarily lead her to induce her child to make a false charge of sexual abuse, Baran’s lawyer did not have this information about the mother of one of his client’s accusers. Consequently, it was never presented to the jury.

Second thoughts

In the years following Baran’s conviction, two of the victims’ families filed civil charges against the day-care center, and settled for an undisclosed amount, in 1995. Meanwhile, at least two of the children and one of the adult accusers have made statements that undermine their original allegations.

Kathy Cooper recanted to her therapist, Audrey Ringer, shortly after the trial ended. "Audrey stated that it came out in the session that Bernie Baran did not rape Kathy at [the day-care center] last year," according to a therapy-progress report written by Ringer’s supervisor, M.L. Hamilton, dated October 1, 1985, found in court records. "Kathy indicated that her mother led her to believe that if she didn’t say the right words that they wouldn’t get a lot of money."

Audrey Ringer refused to comment.

While her memory of the case is vague, Kathy’s grandmother, Helen Cooper, said in a recent interview that during the questioning of Kathy, the girl’s mother "was hollering and telling her, ‘Remember what happened! Remember! You can remember!’"

"I guess she told her what happened," Helen Cooper continued. "To tell you the truth, [Kathy] wasn’t trying to say anything at all. She was playing with her foot.... I don’t even think she knew what was going on." Nevertheless, Helen Cooper says she believes Baran is guilty.

Kathy Cooper could not be reached for comment. Her mother died several years ago.

Tom Hill also reportedly changed his story. As a teenager, he attended a "youth at risk" special-education class at Monument Mountain High School, in Great Barrington. Coincidentally, Richard Anderson, once a close friend of Baran’s, taught the class. Anderson and Baran had not been in touch for several years.

In a signed affidavit, Anderson said that he asked his students to write about how to make a living. Unable to read or write, Tom presented his assignment orally. Anderson wrote, "Tom bragged that his mom got money because he ... had a gay teacher in day care. He said it was easy. All he had to do was say that the teacher did something to him to get the money even though nothing happened. He said the person who really abused him was his father."

It was not until Tom Hill said the name "Baran" that Anderson realized who the teenager was talking about. He never confronted Hill but did contact the DA, although nothing came of the information, according to Anderson’s affidavit.

Repeated attempts to reach Tom Hill were unsuccessful. His brother Keith, with whom he lives, said Tom would not be available. "If this is about his childhood, he’s not going to talk about it," Keith Hill said.