SHERRY RICE: I believe it's essential that child sex assault cases, particularly on Indian reservations, are not only investigated but prosecuted to the full extent of the law, because if we successfully put someone in jail, they see it in the newspaper, they hear about it from their next-door neighbor.
KEVIN RIVERS: People will more likely be willing to talk to us and be willing to tell their story if they see that others have told their story and they see that there has been action taken. It's very imperative that people are able to see how this can not only help them, but help people that they know as well. I was assigned a case, and it involved a young girl who claimed that she was sexually abused. I found out that Mom was also a victim. And I felt like this is going to be much bigger.
SHERRY RICE: So Detective Rivers and I, we began investigating, starting with the current victim, and went from there.
KEVIN RIVERS: The case involved several different victims going back somewhere up to 30 years.
SHERRY RICE: Some of them had reported when they were children that they had been sexually abused by the same bad guy. Others, we were the first people that ever asked them what happened. So all the girls from the slumber party, I think we identified four or five possibilities.
KEVIN RIVERS: Right. It's hard to get a victim to open up to you. A couple in particular really just did not want anything to do with the investigation because, quite honestly, they've seen it happen before and they've seen nothing happen with the suspect.
SHERRY RICE: So this investigation took us months. Not only did we identify ten additional victims, but we had to make a timeline and a big chart to corroborate that it was possible who was where at what time.
KEVIN RIVERS: And once we talked with the suspect and did an interview, that's when we submitted the case for prosecution. He's serving 18 years in a federal penitentiary.
SHERRY RICE: I feel good about making it possible for people to recognize they were victimized, that it wasn't their fault, and to start them on the healing process.
KEVIN RIVERS: The work that me and Special Agent Rice conducted, hopefully, will be one of those cases where people actually see that there is justice out there for them.
