144 THE WITCH-HUNT NARRATIVE

a place to live. He stayed at the day-care home frequently until he got a job, and
thereafter several witnesses testified they saw his distinctive white Corvette
there frequently during the daytime.245
This case was not bom of an overanxious parent, as is often claimed about
day-care abuse cases. Rather, it began with persistent and unexplained symp
toms that caused a mother to take her daughter to the pediatrician in July and
August 1988, after her daughter complained that her lulu (vagina) hurt. The
medical evidence was strong, and there is no good reason to think this case was
an injustice.
The Kellers were convicted in 1992
of aggravated sexual assault of a
KELLERS
young girl who attended their home
Location Austin, TX
day-care business, Frans Day Care, in
Institution Fran's Day Care Travis County, Texas. The Kellers
Date 1991
were not charged with fantastic or in
credible crimes but were also charged
Lead Def. Daniel & Francis
with sexually abusing two boys; those
Keller
charges were dismissed after the
Kellers received forty-eight-year sen
tences in the first case. There was substantial evidence in the first case that went
far beyond the girls statement, including medical evidence of vaginal injury and
a detailed adult confession by a friend of the Kellers who participated in the
abuse on at least one occasion. Debbie Nathan does not provide any reason for
including the Kellers in the dedication page of her book, but it is apparent that
the Keller case became part of the witch-hunt narrative through a single article
in Texas Monthly entitled The Innocent and the Damned.246 Although that ar
ticle raises questions about claims made by some children months after the case
began, it does not impugn the basic evidence on which the Kellers were
convicted.
The case began on August 15,1991, when a mother picked up her three-year-
old daughter at the day care and the girl said that she did not like Danny. Her
m o th er inquired why and the girl reportedly said Danny had hurt her and
pulled dow n her panties and he pood and peed on her head.247 Later that day,
the girl cried w hen she urinated, screaming it hurts, it hurts. The girl was taken
to Brackenridge Hospital, where the emergency physician found medical evi
dence that was unusually strong for a sexual abuse case. Dr. Michael Mouw testi
fied that he observed a tear of the posterior fourchette and what appeared to
be lacerations o f the hymen at three and 9:00.248
The investigation against Daniel Keller quickly expanded to include other al
leged victims and perpetrators. Three other adults were indicted for sexually
abusing children at Frans Day Care: Douglas Perry, a friend of the Kellers, and
 Scrutinizing the Evidence of a National Witch-Hunt 14s

two other adults. Perry provided a written statement to investigators in July 7,

1992, describing a Friday afternoon in August 1991 when he was present at the
Kellers, along with the other adults. Perry described a beer party that resulted in
several adults sexually abusing a girl and a boy who were under the Kellers care.
According to Perry, Fran had a pen and was sticking it in and out of the little
girls vagina.249 This account was entirely consistent with the fresh injuries on
the girl who was taken to the emergency room after screaming in pain when she
went to the bathroom that evening. Perry identified the girl when shown a
videotape.
The investigation grew to include at least forty-two children who had at
tended Frans Day Care. Some number of those children eventually made claims
that were bizarre, and from my perspective impossible to believe. Some number
of parents came to describe the case in terms of ritual abuse. An article in the
local newspaper detailed those claims after the Kellers had been convicted.250
Five parents spoke to the newspaper; they represented a total of four children
and claimed that these children had, among other things, witnessed the murder
of a baby, taken airplane rides, and dug up graves. Apparently on the basis of
those statements and the fact that the Kellers were convicted, the case was con
sidered by some to be proof of satanic ritual abuse in a day-care setting.251 But
the outlandish claims were not part of the original criminal case against the
Kellers, and they apparently involved only a small number of the parents and
children who were interviewed in the case.
The trial highlighted some of the difficulties with child witnesses. A five-year-
old girl who testified alternately denied and admitted that anything bad
happened to her. The most incriminating statement that she made was not ad
missible evidence because the child whispered the statement to her sister and
the court reporter was not able to record it.252 But there was also the testimony
of the emergency room doctor and of the Kellers friend, Perry, who had re
canted his written confession by the time of trial; even Gary Cartwright, who
criticized many aspects of the case, called the confession hard to refute. Perry
eventually pleaded guilty to indecency with a child by contact, and charges
against the other two adults were dropped because the primary evidence against
them was the recanted confession.253 The Kellers were both convicted by jury.
They appealed, raising various objections, including the use of Perrys confes
sion. But they did not question the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain th e
convictions."254 They lost their appeal.
Given the number of adult participants described by Perry, one family later
brought a civil action seeking monetary damages for their failure to report th e
abuse. They alleged that Francis Keller had confided with Perrys wife w ith
regard to Daniel Keller's abusive habits towards children.255 There was also P er
rys statement about the adults present at the beer-and-sex party th at Friday
 146 THE WITCH-HUNT NARRATIVE

afternoon in August 1991. The civil case went all the way to the Texas Supreme
Court, which overruled an appellate decision that would have allowed the plain
tiffs a chance to prove their case. The Texas Supreme Court agreed that the plain
tiff s children are within the class of persons whom the child abuse reporting
statute was meant to protect, and they suffered the kind of injury that the Legis
lature intended to prevent. The court also agreed that the situation described
constituted a violation of the child-abuse reporting law, but disagreed that the
law created a private right of action for civil damages. It would take a stone heart
not to sympathize with the . . . family, the Austin American-Statesmen editorial
ized before concluding there were sound public policy reasons for not allowing
this kind of lawsuit.256
It would appear that those citing the Keller case as a wrongful conviction
have not actually read the Texas Monthly article. Cartwright does not proclaim
the Kellers innocent on all counts. Rather, he argues that parents have con
vinced themselves that the couple are guilty of much worse than sexual abuse.
Cartwright argues that what started as a simple accusationDanny hurt me'
became an avalanche of charges that overwhelm the senses. His story is a cau
tionary tale about the escalation of sexual abuse charges. But it is not a wrongful
conviction story. Cartwright acknowledges:

There is certainly evidence that the [name omitted] girl was sexually
abused the medical report, Doug Perrys statement, the child's own
allegations, which were unusually lurid and detailed for such a case.257

He cautions that it is important when investigating allegations like those against

the Kellers to distinguish between sexual abuse and the far more bizarre satanic
ritual abuse.258 The caution is appropriate for those who would list this case as
pro o f o f satanic ritual abuse in day-care centers. But it is also appropriate for
those, like Nathan, who include this case on a list of false convictions. The actual
conviction in this case was solid and did not involve any claims of satanic ritual
abuse. The Austin Chronicle-wrote a story about the case in March 2009, claiming
it was likely that the Kellers were innocent. The article claimed that Dr. Mouw
"wasn't sure if he would have come to the same conclusion today as he did in
1991.259 But his reported explanation that he knows more now about normal
variants in hymens than he did then does not make sense. First, Dr. Mouw
testified to m ore than a laceration of the hymen at three and 9:00, which is not
a norm al variant o f the hymen. Second, he also testified to a tear of the poste
rior fourchette. This has nothing to do with the hymen and would still be con
sidered an indication of abuse. The reporter states that Dr. M ouw was con
tacted for the story; there is no indication he had the medical report when
responding to their questions. Since his original testimony made it clear that he
 Scrutinizing the Evidence of a National Witch-Hunt 147

didn't have any independent recollection of the exam and would have to
review the record, there is no reason to think a conversation about the case eigh
teen years after the fact should be given any weight.
Robert Halsey is also listed at the
HALSEY front of Satan's Silence as someone
wrongly incarcerated, but the case
Location Lanesborough,
was not discussed in the book or in
MA
any of Nathans other writings.
Institution Lanesborough This case name also likely came di-
Elementary School recdy from Jonathan Harris's
Date 1992 Witch Hunt Information Center.
But Harris cited nothing more
Lead Def. Robert Halsey
than an innocuous article in the
Boston Globe to support his claim
that the case was a witch-hunt.260 A careful analysis of the trial transcript indi
cates there was overwhelming evidence of Halsey's guilt.
Robert Halsey, sixty, was a part-time bus driver in western Massachusetts in
1990, when he was given a route that covered a remote part of Lanesboro, where
he was a lifelong resident. The bus was actually a GM Suburban van, and the
route covered the homes of a handful of kindergartners who arrived at school
shortly after noon every day and left after 3:00 p.m. Sometimes, Alex and Wade
Watkins, five-year-old twins, were the only passengers in Halsey's van. He drove
this route for the entire 1990-91 school year, and part of the following year. In
February 1992, Halsey was transferred to a different route, but the circumstances
surrounding his transfer were kept quiet for almost a year.
The case began eleven months later, shortly after Alex and Wade Watkinss
father handed out cigars in celebration of a new birth in their family. W ith cigar
smoke permeating the house, the twins suddenly began talking about their
former bus driver, also an avid cigar smoker; Halsey smoked cigars on the bus,
and sometimes he used lit cigars to intimidate the children. The twins described
various forms of physical abuse on the bus, including restraints with rope and
duct tape, and abuse with a plastic baseball bat. They also described (in the
words of a child) being anally raped by Halsey in a wooded area next to a d eso
late road he often used as a shortcut. Mr. Watkins contacted the police im m edi
ately. This all happened over a weekend, and the boys each received a simple fo
rensic interview on Monday morning.
There were no repeat interviews, the boys disclosed significant details after
the most open-ended questions, and they were interviewed almost im m ediately
after disclosure. The session lasted forty-five minutes, during w hich tim e Alex
told a detailed story of physical and sexual abuse. He described, am ong o th e r
things, being taken off the bus, near the pond on Nobodys Road, and sexually