News 4 Jax, Florida, USA: 2 February 2012
http://www.news4jax.com/news/Child-sex-offender-reveals-lessons-every...
[ http://tinyurl.com/864ao8g ]

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Harvey Lee Duncan, now 62 years old, wrote us a
letter from prison asking us to interview him because he says he wants
to help parents better protect their children from predators. While a
lot of what Duncan said was very difficult to listen to, it's
important for parents to hear to help understand what's going on
inside the mind of a sexual predator in the hopes of saving children
from sexual abuse.

Duncan says he molested five girls in 1995 in Mandarin and Riverside.
He says he started doing inappropriate things with young girls very
shortly after he got married. He says first, he molested two family
members. Next, he says it was three young sisters who were also
friends of the family.

Duncan says his wife had no idea what he was doing and that earning
the children's trust was easy. "If they believe that you will listen
to them and talk to them they start asking you questions and
eventually they start bringing up questions about the body and sex
that they are afraid to talk to their parents and others about. That's
really how it got started."

Duncan goes on to say young girls are emotionally needy. He says
parents make a big mistake not being open with them about their bodies
and about sex - something he says predators take advantage of.

Duncan pleaded guilty in 2002 to lewd assault on a child, sexual
battery of a child under 12 years old and sexual performance by a
child. His arrest report says he tried to have sex with one of them.

He says the girls' parents never suspected him.

Asked if the parents of the girls that he molested in Riverside found
it odd that he was spending time with them, he said: "No, they seemed
to like it. They let them stay over at our house sometimes. When we
went to visit, when we went home, the kids would want to come with
us."

To protect children who are the victim of abuse, their identities are
blacked out of police reports, so we don't have any way of knowing
what their parents thought of Duncan at the time. We can only assume
they didn't consider him a threat, perhaps because Duncan was married
to the same woman for 30 years, they had a son and Duncan had a job.
He worked as an electrician.

Asked how he was able to manipulate these children into not telling
their parents about what was happening to them, Duncan said: "To tell
you the truth, I never said one time don't say anything about it. I
actually stressed being honest... I always told them to tell the
truth, many times."

The secret was kept for nearly two years. What Duncan told us next
will sound like twisted rationalizing by a perverted mind. We want you
to know what he told us because it illustrates how effective
pedophiles can be at manipulating children. Duncan suggests the girls
liked what was happening to them.

"I told them as long as I hear good reports from your parents that you
are doing well at home and well at school, then I would let them
participate in what we were doing."

That seemed shocking, to use the abuse as a reward.

"That's just the way I did things," Duncan said. "I'm not saying it's
right, wrong or otherwise. I'm just saying that's the way it had
worked."

Duncan says something else parents need to know about predators. When
he was molesting girls, he says he could not stop.

"The fear of losing the social contact with people, who I could
associate with, of losing that contact, is what prevented me from
doing something... I basically became one with them, not them with me,
but me with them," says Duncan.

Duncan says he was picked on in school and isolated himself as a
child, so he says he never felt like he could fit in with people his
own age.

Things parents can take-away from this disturbing look into the mind
of a sexual predator:

* If your child is going over to a neighbor's house, ask who else will
be home and what do you know about them?
* Will your child ever be left alone with that person?
* Don't assume your child is safe from a predator just because he or
she is with another sibling. Duncan says he molested the sisters when
they were all together.

We talked with a local attorney who prosecutes child sex abuse cases
and he says it's usually a relative, a family friend or a neighbor who
commits this kind of crime. Rarely is it a complete stranger.

Duncan remains behind bars at the Union Correctional Facility in
Raiford. He has served 10 years of his 25-year sentence.