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Police refused to believe that a
stranger had assaulted Alicia, even though a man later pleaded guilty to
similar assaults on five young girls, some in the Wades' neighborhood,
during the same time period. Among those attacked was a 4-year- old who
was taken from her own bedroom and molested less than a week after Alicia.
In the case of Alicia Wade, however, investigators chose to focus on
her father, Jim Wade, a burly 20-year Navy veteran whose eyes fill with
tears as he talks about his daughter.
Just suspicions
''I don't think people realize just how tenuous your hold on your
children is," said Jim Wade, 37. "They don't have to prove
anything. They can take your kids away on just suspicions."
San Diego County's Child Protective Services agency put Alicia in a
foster home. Thirteen months later she finally said, "Daddy did
it."
''She was told over and over that she had to blame her daddy,"
said Alicia's mother, Denise Wade, 33. "She was isolated from her
family. It was a form of torture and brainwashing."
Alicia later told her mother, "I was just saying what they told me
to say." She never realized her father might go to prison.
Jim Wade was arrested Dec. 13, 1990, while on the job as a Navy
parachute rigger. He was charged with committing lewd acts on a child, a
crime that carried a possible 16-year prison sentence. "I thought my
life was over," he said.
Instead, the arrest proved to be his salvation.
Overlooked evidence
Jim Wade's attorney, Michael McGlinn, discovered overlooked semen
stains on Alicia's gown and underwear and sent them to a laboratory for
DNA tests.
Alicia was a week away from being adopted by another family when the
results came back: The semen could not have come from her father.
On Nov. 15, Superior Court Judge Frederic Link dismissed the case. He
also went one step further, making a rare factual finding of innocence and
ordering Jim Wade's arrest record destroyed. Alicia could go home.
By then, the Wades had endured an endless, humiliating series of
interrogations, therapy sessions, psychological tests and court
appearances.
Neighbors snubbed them. Friends stopped playing with Alicia's brother,
Joshua, now 9. And his parents lived under constant threats that he, too,
might be taken from them.
Saddled with $125,000 in legal fees, the Wades were forced to borrow
from his parents.
The couple had given up hope of regaining custody of Alicia, and both
considered suicide. Denise Wade was hospitalized for depression. Joshua
was confused and frightened.
Lingering fears
''I'm still scared to this day that they're going to come and take my
children away," said Denise Wade, who wakes in fear every night and
peeks into Alicia's bedroom for reassurance her daughter is safe.
The Wades expect Alicia to need counseling for much of her life, and
they hope a lawsuit filed against San Diego County will help pay the
bills.
Their claim, which asks unspecified damages for emotional and physical
trauma, accuses Child Protective Services, the district attorney's office,
San Diego police, and various attorneys, counselors and social workers of
negligence.
''I expected a lot more from the government and Constitution I've spent
20 years protecting," Jim Wade said.
The Wades believe Alicia was attacked by Albert Carder Jr., who has
been sentenced to 25 years in prison for molesting five young girls in the
spring of 1989.
He has not been charged in the Wade case. Police Detective William
Montejano, who was involved in both the Wade and Carder cases, confirmed
that Alicia failed to pick Carder out of a police lineup.
DNA tests, however, showed Carder was among 5 percent of the population
that could have produced the semen stains on Alicia's clothing, said Cathy
Stephenson, head of the San Diego County district attorney's child abuse
unit. Further tests are under way.
The Wades complained to the county grand jury, which unknown to them
was already investigating Child Protective Services. A report issued in
February described the agency as "out of control, with few checks and
little balance." The grand jury found the system overzealous in
separating children from allegedly abusive families and said the child
protection system had developed a bias that assumed the guilt of parents
accused of child abuse. |
