Lee Jones

Michael Roop, a key state witness, was the first to accuse Mr. Jones of sex abuse—he’s also the first to say he lied and that it never happened. Not long after the trial was over, he told Mr. Jones’ attorneys in a sworn deposition that his mother threatened to lock him in his room and never let him out if he didn’t say that Mr. Jones had raped him.

“She’s had things against Lee…� Michael told the attorneys, according to a transcript of his deposition. “He put her in a mental home,� referring to an incident in which Mr. Jones, responding to an emergency call, found Michael’s mother on her balcony, naked and screaming hysterically. She was taken away in an ambulance and later involuntarily committed by her husband to hospitals and treatment centers for six months.

According to the deposition, Michael’s mother fed him details of sexual abuse that he believed she had suffered herself as a child, and told him to repeat them when questioned by the police and at trial.

Michael told the attorneys that he came to them because he wanted to finally tell the truth. “I just—I just knew it was wrong after I sat here thinking about it for a long time. I was sitting thinking about it after it happened , and I realized it was wrong, and I didn’t know what to do…� he said, according to the deposition transcript.

Ms. Keller points out, however, that Michael’s story didn’t change until he was returned to West Virginia to live with his father—a friend of Mr. Jones and a man Michael accused at trial of beating him. She told Where Doubt Remains she’s neither surprised nor swayed by Michael’s sudden reversal.

“We look at recantation as just another part of prosecuting a case,� she said. “As a child witness, it’s something we’d expect,� again pointing out that Michael was now in what she believed was a “closed environment.�

But Michael’s also taken back the allegations he made against his father, saying in the deposition that his mother forced him to make those up, too (not to mention that none of the adults in his life, including his teachers and principal, ever saw him with the “blackedâ€? eyes he claimed at trial his father gave him at least once a month for years).  And there is other evidence to suggest that Michael’s story wasn’t his own.