David McGowan, August 2001

“Little girls have to learn that their fathers are off limits when it comes to gratification of sexual feelings”

Dr. Richard Gardner, another vocal member of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, explaining how children are to blame for their own molestation (The Toronto Star, February 4, 1996)

Just a few years after the conviction of Frank Fuster, another child exploitation case surfaced briefly in the state of Florida. On February 7, 1987, not long before the Larry King and Craig Spence operations were exposed, the Washington Post ran an interesting story that, at the time, did not seem to have any particular national significance. The article concerned a case of possible kidnapping and child abuse, and read in part as follows:

Authorities investigating the alleged abuse of six children found with two men in a Tallahassee, Fla., park discovered material yesterday in the Washington area that they say points to a 1960’s style commune called the Finders, described in a court document as a ‘cult’ that allegedly conducted ‘brainwashing’ and used children ‘in rituals.’

D.C. police, who searched a Northeast Washington warehouse linked to the group removed large plastic bags filled with color slides, photographs and photographic contact sheets. Some photos visible through a bag carried from the warehouse at 1307 Fourth St. NE were wallet-sized pictures of children, similar to school photos, and some were of naked children.

D.C. police sources said some of the items seized yesterday showed pictures of children engaged in what appeared to be ‘cult rituals.’ Officials of the U.S. Customs Service, called in to aid in the investigation, said that the material seized yesterday includes photos showing children involved in bloodletting ceremonies of animals and one photograph of a child in chains.

Customs officials said they were looking into whether a child pornography operation was being conducted… Their links to the D.C. area have led authorities into a far-reaching investigation that includes the Finders – a group of about 40 people that court documents allege is led by a man named Marion Pettie – and their various homes, including the duplex apartment building in Glover Park, the Northeast Washington warehouse and a 90 acre farm in rural Madison County, Va.

The children, identified in a court document only by the first names of Honeybee, John, Franklin, Bee Bee, Max and Mary, were described as ‘dirty, unkempt, hungry, disturbed and agitated.’ They had been living in the rear of the van for some time, the document said. Yesterday, police spokesman Hunt said one of the children, a 6 yr. old girl, ’showed signs of sexual abuse’ .

Five of the children were uncommunicative, according to police, and none seemed to recognize objects such as typewriters and staplers. However, the oldest was able to give investigators some information. She said that the two men ‘were their teachers,’ according to Hunt .

Before their arrests in the park, [the two adult caretakers] had told police that they were teachers from Washington ‘transporting these children to Mexico and a school for brilliant children,’ according to Hunt. When police asked the men where the children’s mothers were they said they were being weaned from their mothers.

It was nearly seven years before the press revisited the Finders case, with the follow-up provided by U.S. News and World Report. Most likely, the strange saga of the Finders would have disappeared forever if not for the rumors surrounding the case that just would not seem to go away. These rumors were addressed in the U.S. News report as follows:

One of the unresolved questions involves allegations that the Finders are somehow linked to the Central Intelligence Agency. Customs Service documents reveal that in 1987, when Customs agents sought to examine the evidence gathered by Washington, D.C. police, they were told that the Finders investigation ‘had become an internal matter.’

Posted by Nikhil Gupta