Man, mutilated in sexual attack as boy, dies in motorcycle wreck
Anne W.
A life too short, but lived in full
The world knew him only as ‘The Little Tacoma Boy.’
PAUL SAND; The News Tribune
Published: June 22nd, 2005 05:46 AM
Ryan Hade was on a bike ride in the Fern Hill neighborhood near his
home on May 20, 1989, when Earl Shriner abducted him, raped him,
stabbed him, cut off his penis and left him for dead.
The horror of the attack spurred nationwide media coverage, an
outpouring of community support for Hade and greater focus on sex
offenders. Through it all, his family kept his name from being
publicly revealed.
In the years since the attack, Hade lived every day like there
wouldn’t be another, his family and friends said this week.
“He survived something that was extreme and consequently he lived his
life extreme,” said his mother, Helen Harlow, who became a children’s
rights crusader after helping start the Tennis Shoe Brigade. “You
cheat death once, you figure you can cheat it just about any time you
want.”
Chris Kunkel met Hade two years ago and considered him his best
friend.
“He always talked how life was short, you’ve got to make every day
count,” Kunkel said. “That’s really what he did, make every day
count.”
Hade didn’t discuss the details of the attack much because he couldn’t
remember them and because the family did not talk about it, said his
grandmother, Betty Foote of University Place.
“It’s like he just put it out of his mind. He just felt comfortable
with that fellow put away,” Foote said of Shriner, 55, who is serving
a 131-year sentence for the attack.
Hade, in counseling until he was 13, didn’t know the exact date of the
attack, but he knew the season, Harlow said. Until two or three years
ago, he became “irritable and edgy” and physically ill each year near
the anniversary, she said.
But most days Hade was one of the guys.
He liked to skateboard, snowboard and sky dive. He had wanted to get a
pilot’s license, and got a flying lesson from a cousin on a recent
visit to Illinois. He recently bought a 1979 Trans-Am, which he called
a “chick magnet,” and was going to fix up, his mother said. He also
talked about going back to school to study business.
In the past, school had been a struggle when Hade was a child.
Hindered by dyslexia and attention deficit disorder, Hade made his way
through Fern Hill Elementary School.
He wasn’t singled out by classmates because of the attack, Foote said,
but that quickly changed when he started Baker Middle School. Students
began to ask him whether he was the boy who’d had his penis cut off,
she said.
Hade left Baker for New Horizon School in Renton where he could get
more attention for his learning disabilities.
He completed the ninth grade while living with his father, Lowell
Hade, in Roseburg, Ore., and moved back to Tacoma after the school
year.
He eventually entered Bates Technical College to learn upholstery work
and graduated in 2001.
Hade left home when he was 18 and became interested in real estate
investing, both to make money and because he didn’t like being a
tenant, Harlow said. He bought, fixed up and sold a home in Tacoma and
one in Spanaway.
Foote said he did it without help from a trust fund, which at one
point reached nearly $1 million. Hade supported himself with a monthly
stipend from the fund, and by doing upholstery jobs and fixing and
selling houses, Harlow said.
He was living in a mobile home on seven acres in Roy, but was looking
for a duplex in Tacoma for himself and his grandmother, Foote said. He
wanted her to live in a single-story home because her knees can’t
handle climbing the stairs in her current home, she said.
Kunkel, who met Hade through a mutual friend at Bates, said Hade
taught him how to snowboard. He also loaned Kunkel money and let him
live virtually rent-free in an extra trailer on the Roy property until
he found work.
“He did more for me than anyone in my life,” Kunkel said. “He just
encouraged me every day to stay off drugs and go to work.”
As a teenager, Hade had developed his musical skills, despite having
no training and not knowing how to read music, Harlow said.
He wrote, recorded the music and was the DJ in the hip-hop group
LikeMinds. He used drum machines and keyboards to create the music,
and spent hours scouring record shops for old recordings to sample,
Harlow said.
Kunkel said Hade had ridden his motorcycle only a few times before the
fatal crash on June 9. He wasn’t familiar with the road, and he didn’t
have much experience riding at night, Kunkel said.
About 9:40 p.m. and about five miles from home, Hade and a pickup
truck collided at 123rd Avenue Southeast and Morris Road Southeast,
the Washington State Patrol said.
The fatal wreck made the newspapers, but only as short accounts.
Hade’s name went unrecognized by most.
With Harlow’s blessing, Kunkel retrieved Hade’s yellow Suzuki
motorcycle from an impound lot in Yelm on Monday. He plans to rebuild
it to honor his friend.
“He was willing to help anyone if he felt they honestly were trying,”
Kunkel said. “He worked every day to make sure his life had meaning.”
Ryan Hade’s family are making plans for a public memorial service for
him.
Paul Sand: 253-597-8660
paul.sand;@thenewstribune.com
http://www.thenewstribune.com/front/topphoto/story/4965733p-4539341c.html
--
Anne W.
indigoace at goodsol period com
http://www.goodsol.com/cats/
Anne W.
One little boy’s story moved hearts worldwide
MICHAEL GILBERT; The News Tribune
Published: June 22nd, 2005 05:46 AM
Tacoma has had more than its share of high-profile crime stories.
Brame. The Trang Dai massacre. The Ash Street shootout. The Janovich
racketeering scandal.
All were sensational, but none had the long-term impact of the May 20,
1989, attack on “The Little Tacoma Boy.”
“It literally changed the way we look at sex predators and treat them
as a society,” said Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg, who was
county prosecutor when 7-year-old Ryan Hade was abducted, raped,
stabbed and mutilated in a wooded area near his home in Fern Hill.
Less than a year later, Hade’s attacker – Earl Shriner, jailed many
times before for sickening, predatory sex crimes – would be convicted
and sentenced to 131 years in prison.
And lawmakers would enact the Community Protection Act of 1990, the
nation’s first law to lengthen terms for sex offenders, allow
indefinite confinement for high-risk offenders even after they served
their sentences and require police to notify communities of sex
offenders living in their midst. Many states followed Washington’s
lead.
“I don’t think there’s anything in my 35 years of practicing law that
compare with it in terms of changes in the law that came out of it,”
Ladenburg said.
The case also led to a massive outpouring of community support and
sympathy for the young victim, who was killed in a motorcycle accident
June 9. A Tacoma police detective set up a trust fund on behalf of the
boy that eventually grew to more than $920,000.
Detective Stan Mowre, now retired, spent hours with other officers and
their wives and girlfriends in a bank office, opening letters and
sorting checks.
“The U.S. Post Office was accepting cards, letters, and packages
addressed to ‘Little Boy, U.S.A. Tacoma’ from anywhere and everywhere
around the globe,” Mowre said Tuesday.
Gifts included a signed pair of cuff links from Frank Sinatra and an
autographed copy of “High Hopes.” The story was picked up across the
country and around the world. Donations poured in from soldiers after
it was published in Stars & Stripes.
“I wish everyone, I mean everyone that helped, could hear how special
they were and what great pride they should have in themselves for
being a part of helping the Little Boy,” Mowre said. “I am so proud of
Ryan for becoming a good young man and living life to its fullest.”
The trust was the subject of controversy in the years afterward. By
the early 1990s, Hade’s mother, Helen Harlow, and the trustees –
Mowre, attorney Monte Hester and pediatrician Dr. James Schneller –
bitterly disagreed over how the money should be spent.
Harlow sued. A legal guardian appointed to investigate on behalf of
Hade agreed that the money should be spent more liberally to benefit
the boy’s recovery, education and life experiences. Mowre, Hester and
Schneller resigned as trustees, and the fund was placed under the
management of KeyBank.
The trust was worth a reported $920,000 on Sept. 30, 1997, according
to Pierce County Superior Court records.
More recent records weren’t available Tuesday and the KeyBank trustee
wasn’t available to respond to questions.
The trust documents say the balance would be Hade’s free and clear
when he turned 35.
If he died before then, the documents provided for the money to be
given to his children. If he had no children, it would pass to the
Greater Tacoma Community Foundation.
KeyBank recently notified the foundation that it would be receiving a
donation from the trust, but provided no additional information, said
Francie Carr, the foundation’s financial officer.
Harlow declined to discuss the trust, other than to say her son
received a monthly stipend.
In the past she and her supporters have complained that coverage of
the dispute over the trust made her look as though she cared too much
about the money.
But people who worked with her at the time said she was a sincere
advocate for change.
“Olympia, especially, listened because of the things that Helen Harlow
did,” said Eileen O’Brien, who heads the victim-witness advocacy
program in the Pierce County prosecutor’s office. “The whole country
listened.”
Safe Streets director Priscilla Lisicich said the anti-crime community
organization was formed in 1988 to fight drug crimes and gangs. The
Little Boy case took the group in an additional direction.
“People in the community really rose up against this vicious attack,”
she said. “It really became the community focus, particular for people
involved in Safe Streets in that part of town. Then it grew to be
community wide.
“I feel like that whole experience really awakened us to take more
responsibility for protecting our children and our families.”
Lisicich, like others, expressed her sympathy to Harlow and the rest
of Hade’s family.
“In a bittersweet way, this is a moment for reflection for us in the
community,” she said. “It was a horrendous event, yet we can all be
proud of what we did in response to that. Public laws were changed,
the park was cleaned up, a trust was established to support this young
man in his life.
“Sometimes we feel like we don’t care about each other, but we really
do. People rise to the occasion.”
Michael Gilbert: 253-597-8921
mike.gilbert;@thenewstribune.com
http://www.thenewstribune.com/front/topphoto/story/4965733p-4539425c.html
tiny dancer
"Anne W." <indi...@seesignature.com> wrote in message
news:42bd04cc....@news.prodigy.net...
> From the [Tacoma WA] News Tribune--
>
> A life too short, but lived in full
Thanks for posting Anne, how sad. I seem to remember this case.
td
Bo Raxo
Rather eerie parallel to Steven Stayner's demise.
Wild Monkshood
Anne W. wrote:
> From the [Tacoma WA] News Tribune--
>
> A life too short, but lived in full
> The world knew him only as ‘The Little Tacoma Boy.’
>
> PAUL SAND; The News Tribune
> Published: June 22nd, 2005 05:46 AM
>
> Ryan Hade was on a bike ride in the Fern Hill neighborhood near his
> home on May 20, 1989, when Earl Shriner abducted him, raped him,
> stabbed him, cut off his penis and left him for dead.
<snippers>
Just like the rapist that cut off the girls arms, I wonder why the perp
felt the need to mutilate the child. If hoping that he victim would die
and not be a witness, it seems that other methods would have been used.
Must be just another perversion.
As a child, I would never go to the bathroom at any theater because of
the story of the boy who had his penis cut off while in one. Possibly an
urban legend, but if so, one that taught me bladder control.
Wild Monkshood
>
>