“You Can Tell Me Anything”
CINDY BETHEL WAS 6 when her babysitter’s neighbor started molesting her. Worried what else would happen if she told her parents, she confided in her stuffed panda instead. Sometimes she acted out the abuse with Barbie and Ken dolls. A few years later, the same teen neighbor raped her on a woodpile outside his house. She didn’t tell anyone about the assault until long after she moved away from her Ohio hometown.
Even if she had spoken out, investigators may have struggled to get her full story.
