You may not know Rev. Mack Ford yet, but you will. He ran the New Bethany Home for Girls and Boys in Arcadia. And as my readers know, mix a christian pastor together with a bunch of children and add questionable oversight and what do you get? Well... It starts with allegations of abuse. It ends with a long prison sentence.
As more and more revelations come to light about the treatment of residents of the New Bethany Home for Girls and Boys in Arcadia and similar homes run by Rev. Mack Ford and wife Thelma in other localities, many serious questions remain unanswered.Why, for example, have the Fords and employees of the home never been charged with felony child abuse? How can a man (and dozens more like him scattered across the U.S.) mete out such barbaric treatment of children in the name of a Savior who’s every utterance of love, peace and forgiveness is in direct contradiction to the policies of these institutions?
Source:Questions abound as more horror stories emerge from New Bethany Home for Girls and Boys in Arcadia and Longstreet by Tom Aswell
I’ve been contacted about this case a few times but could not publish without a source. I don’t do investigative reporting. I wish I could do more, but my lack of training would get me in trouble. Instead, I try to help my point out resources and publishing stories here when they make it to the press.
There are more than a dozen affidavits from alleged victims.
LouisianaVoice has obtained more than a dozen affidavits from women who lived at New Bethany as teenagers and each one accuses Ford of sexual abuse, including rape and in at least one case, of having forced a 17-year-old girl at the school to perform oral sex on him.
Nobody believed these girls. It was thought so improbable that a pillar of the community could molest children that the victims had a difficult time bringing this story to the public. Nobody wanted to help them. At least one woman killed herself.
Another girl who claimed to have been subjected to sexual abuse at the hands of Ford, attempted to have Ford prosecuted after she left the home, married and had children of her own but law enforcement officials and the district attorney’s office in Bienville Parish ignored her claims until, despondent over her failed efforts, she committed suicide. Before she killed herself, however, she fired off a scathing letter to Ford.
In her letter, she reminded Ford that she was recruited for a singing quartet which would visit area churches to give testimony in order to attract monetary donations to the home and he would then later force her to have sex with him.
I want to see this story get as much attention as possible. Please read the articles and then spread the word. I’d also recommend that you read the comment thread in each article as they are full of additional information. If you write a post yourself, send me a note so I can point my readers to it.
