Childhood Rape Victim Speaks Out: OPEN LETTER to my cousin, Beverly Ann (Stallings) Moerke

Bill and Beverly Moerke

27 Sullivan Place

Walla Walla, WA 99362

509.526.5561

“CHILD RAPE VICTIM SPEAKS OUT: OPEN LETTER to my cousin, Beverly Ann (Stallings) Moerke

December 21, 2023

“To live in the body of a survivor is to never be able to leave the scene of the crime.

I cannot ignore the fact that I live here.” - Author unknown

Dear Beverly, [Bill, Sandra & Laura],

My name is Coral Anika Theill, aka Kathryn Yvonne Hall. I am the daughter of Bobby Ray Hall and Carolyn Jean Hall. I was the only sibling of my brother, Donald Alan Hall. My mother, Carolyn J. Hall, was your aunt.

Since my mother’s death in 2010, I have no family left. Due to the horrific crimes committed against me by my family, mentors and friends remind me that I truly never had a family - my family was a group of predators and abusers. After my mother’s death in Nov. 2010, I received a copy of my mother’s “Will” in Dec. 2010. My friends, mentors and I wrote to you and my mother’s attorney, Mr. Brad Timmons, Hood River, Oregon, in Dec. 2010 and Jan. 2011. We received no response.

Instead, you sent me a $1.00 check, Nov. 11, 2011, from my mother, father & brother’s estate. You received the entirety of my mother, father and brother’s estate. Nothing in life prepared me for the day I held the $1.00 check. It truly was the summation of my life with the Hall and Stallings/Moerke families. The $1.00 transaction was one of the most obscene and cruel abuses and injustices I had suffered in this life. I wanted to contest the “Will,” but since my mother had left me $1.00, Oregon and Washington law prohibited me from doing so.

I am writing to you today to request you send my inheritance to the account of:

Coral A. Theill

Oregon State Credit Union

1980 NW 9th St. Corvallis, Oregon 97330

1-800-732-0173

Mr. Brad Timmons sent me a copy of the “Will” via my close friend and trauma expert in Oregon, because I live under an attorney general’s address protection program. My close friend and mentor, Christine Pahl, MS, LPC, read my mother’s Will.

Here are excerpts from her letter to me: “Dear Coral, I opened your mother’s “Will” as you had requested earlier today. I want to begin by saying that your mother showed her true colors in her Will. Whatever would possess a “mother” and I use that word loosely regarding Carolyn Hall—as I feel she was one very very sick lady, a horrible abuser—to behave as evil and shamelessly as she did is truly beyond my comprehension. She could play the innocent victim all her life, but she knew about your uncle and sacrificed you intentionally. I am so sorry you had to suffer the massive injustices you have. This injustice is behind my comprehension.” Love, Chris Pahl

Due to my abusive mother’s wishes in her Will, she gave you, my inheritance. This was no surprise to me, as she had screamed her “wishes” at me since I was 10 years old - telling me she was cutting me out of her “Will.” The only reason you, Beverly, received my family inheritance is because “you were not me”- a victim of years of childhood rape and the object of my mother’s hate and sociopathic behavior. *Please read attached excerpt from my published memoir and chapter “Childhood Rapes, Soul Murder and “Trauma Blindness.”

You and my mother’s attorney, Mr. Brad Timmons, names are mentioned. My mother sex trafficked me for years to my great-uncle Hershel Stonebraker - a convicted murderer and a rapist. I hope you and your family read this letter and attached document in its entirety. In 2024 I will be publishing my mother’s Will, and my letters to you and letters concerning this matter and sharing them with Oregon and Washington state congressmen/woman, senators, attorney generals, district attorneys, advocates, clergy, journalists as well as my mentors and readers. I am publishing a book concerning this matter featuring you, your family and my mother. I will detail the crimes committed against me in an effort to change inheritance laws in both states on behalf of ALL childhood rape victims.

Keeping secrets only protects the abuser. Abuse does not deserve privacy. I choose not to participate in the silence that protects perpetrators and isolates victims. I sent a letter to both my mother and grandmother, Fern Hall, while I was living out of my car and destitute in 2003, requesting monetary restitution for the years they sex trafficked me to my great-uncle. They responded with rage and were not sorry for what they had done to me.

This matter was supposed to be kept a family secret. I have included this letter to help raise the consciousness in our society concerning the horrific lifetime ramifications of childhood rape. Trauma expert and author, Bessel Der Kolk wrote, “It takes tremendous energy to keep functioning while carrying the memories of terror.”

Due to writing to you previously, you were aware of the childhood rapes I suffered within my family home, but decided my restitution would be the $1.00 check you sent to me. Would your decision and actions be appropriate if your daughters, Sandra and Laura, had been tortured and raped like me as children? I question your loyalty and friendship with my mother. Abusers often support abusers. Abusers and perpetrators, like my mother and ex-husband, often draw to themselves people whose consciousness is aligned symbolically and in terms of their own beliefs - selfishness, fear and corruption.

When my great-uncle Hershel was released from the Walla Walla State penitentiary our family and grandparents gave him free lodging, meals, clothes, food, cars, work, medical care, legal fees (to defend my uncle from another local childhood rape case). In 1955, my great-uncle was convicted of murdering (execution style) his 16-year-old daughter in the presence of his wife, daughters, and his daughter’s boyfriend. He had also attempted to murder his wife and had raped all 3 of his daughters. He ran from the murder scene and my grandmother hid her brother (my great-uncle) from the police. At his murder trial he was asked why he had murdered his daughter. He replied, “She had it coming to her.” He served several years at the Walla Walla State Penitentiary.

My grandparents, my parents, my brother and I visited him often at the prison. He was released early due to “family support” and moved in with our family in Kennewick, Washington. That was when my life ended. His probation officer was “missing in action.”

Years later my parents assigned me to be my great-uncle [the man who raped me for years as a young child] caretaker when I was a teenager living in Federal Way, Washington. Ten years later my grandparents paid for his medical needs when he was dying of prostate cancer and paid for his expensive funeral and burial. I visited my great-uncle when he was dying at my parent’s request, but I refused to attend my great-uncle’s funeral.

My parents and grandparents were furious with my decision to finally protect myself. At my father’s funeral in 1984, my mother and grandparents yelled at me after the burial saying I was the worst daughter and granddaughter. I was never “enough” for their dark souls. My family generously supported a murderer and rapist but DID NOTHING to restore me, his rape victim. I have lifetime disabilities because I am the daughter of Bobby and Carolyn Hall. I almost died of German measles when I was 8 years old due to the rapes perpetrated by my great-uncle & severe beatings from my step grandfather, Odis Hall. I was weak from the severe abuse. “A child does not question the wrongs of grown-ups. He suffers them.” - Chief Dan George

I was also used as a laborer by my parents from the time I was 12 years old. For years I renovated homes for them and split cord wood, so they did not lose their home while my father was ill and unemployed. I was my mother’s personal slave. I was her cook, housekeeper, chauffeur, and caretaker. After 18-hour workdays at my courthouse job, my father expected me to drive a long distance “to be available and care” for my mother when he was out of town. I was subjected to extreme abuse, cruelty and many incidents too shameful to mention as a daughter of Bobby and Carolyn Hall. My mother and father often left me alone as a young child in the care of my great-uncle. They protected my brother.

My childhood days were filled with sheer terror and indescribable pain. “The predator can always tell who is without protection.” -Dr. Gabor Mate

Childhood sexual abuse and rape is “soul murder” and child homicide. The effects of these types of crimes reverberate through a child’s life and extend into adulthood. Victims suffer not only from the abuse they experienced but also from the threat of meaninglessness and powerlessness that comes with it. People who experience the trauma of rape and violence at the hand of someone they know, (i.e., a partner, parent, relative, therapist, teacher, pastor, or priest) - struggle to make meaning, usually in a context of isolation, if not moral condemnation and victim blaming. Meanwhile, as the years pass, victims are betrayed all over again by those close to them who refuse to deal with the truth and by those who find denial an easy alternative. The burden placed on the victim's shoulders becomes unbearable.

After decades of abuse & torture, I identify with the character of the Vietnamese woman portrayed in the movie, 'Casualties of War' starring Michael Fox and Sean Penn. A group of American soldiers invades a Vietnamese village and capture a young woman. They gang rape her and force her to march with them on their patrol. When they were 'finished with her,' they shot her and threw her over an embankment. My family “used me up,” covered up crimes committed against me then discarded me. Several years ago, advocates for sexual assault victims in Kennewick, Washington, recommended that I report the crimes I suffered as a child perpetrated by my own family. I reported the crimes decades after the fact to honor myself and to shed light on the darkness. My mother and grandmother are documented as the women who sex trafficked me.

The profound and powerful INTRODUCTION to my memoir was written by Christophe Difo, J.D. and Sean Prophet, “Coral’s experiences at the hands of her tormentors, including members of the People of Praise, are heinous enough to disturb even the most seasoned social worker. The atrocities include serial rape, kidnapping, domestic assault, involuntary servitude, ritual humiliation, denial of medical care, financial exploitation, social ostracism, psychological torture, and disinheritance. For Coral, all of that immeasurable suffering pales in comparison to the agony she has endured as a result of her court-mandated separation and emotional alienation from her eight children.

There is no language sufficient to express the extent of the physical and psychological suffering Coral has endured in the name of religion. The only thing that’s more shocking than Coral’s experience is that she survived it.”

My published memoir received national and international attention these past several years. I have participated in 70 interviews including speaking to journalists from the Washington Post, AP, Newsweek and dozens of other media outlets. I will continue to “give voice to the violence.”

“In BONSHEA, Coral Theill has clearly chosen to take a courageous stand. It is a stand that comes with a cost, but whose dividends are measured in the strength of the soul.” - District Attorney John Haroldson, Benton County District Attorney’s Office, Corvallis, Oregon

Beverly, I want and need restitution (my inheritance) for counseling and support. I want and need my inheritance for a proper cremation/burial as was provided to all my family members, including my rapist. I want and need to retire so I can take care of my health and well-being and finally have time to rest and recover from six decades of torture and trauma. I am almost 69 years old and still working 7 days a week in order to survive. For the past 25 years, I have lived under poverty level often without shelter, adequate food or health care. I have no savings or accounts.

I am hopeful you and your family will respond in a positive manner and return my inheritance to help provide restitution and some form of justice for the decades of abuse and torture forced upon me. In the spring of 2018, you were served a subpoena by the Walla Walla Sheriff’s department to be appear and testify at my 50th court hearing related to my 1997 divorce and my loss of inheritance. You were a “no show.”

I have already contacted your county and state representatives about the matter of my loss of inheritance and being a victim of childhood rapes. In August 2023 I contacted the Victim Assistant for the District Attorney of Klickitat County (Washington) about this matter. After hearing my story and learning of my desire to propose new state inheritance laws, they were all gracious, kind and helpful. In August 2023 I also contacted the Walla Walla Catholic School (where you and Bill have donated large sums of money). Decent people understand the victim’s longing for justice and restoration.

I want to die with the dignity I deserve. For me, that requires being restored as a daughter and childhood rape victim by the one family member (you) who has the power and ability to do so.

Today you can decide your legacy - a friend and enabler of a sex trafficker and abuser - my mother, or a person who chooses to restore and bring some justice and restitution for the crimes my mother and uncle committed against me. You choose.

As a child I deserved to feel safe in my own home, live free from emotional and physical outbursts and rage of others and not be subjected to rape and human trafficking. Safety was not my mother’s concern for me - destroying my very being, spirit and soul was her goal.

I believe that many of the injustices of innocent people are a result of specific individuals ignoring their own responsibility in given situations. Speaking out and requesting that the violence committed against me be acknowledged and resolved is an act of self-respect, love and healing. Seeking restitution is NOT seeking revenge.

Sincerely,

Coral Anika Theill

Aka Kathryn Yvonne Hall

Author, Advocate, Victim/Survivor

cc Memoir: BONSHEA Making Light of the Dark

Website: www.coralanikatheill.com

“A victim’s first scream is for help; a victim’s second scream is for justice.” - Coral Anika Theill, BONSHEA Making Light of the Dark