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This is a 7 minute audio where attorney Jack Connelly Jr. tells how the OKBR kids hoped for help at the ranch. The insurance for the OKBR had exclusions for sex abuse, but allowed claims for "institutional neglect." The OKBR defense attorney (Don Law), was a former OKBR board member. John R. Connelly Jr. said that the OKBR was comparable to a Nazi camp. A "smoking gun" memo was discovered late from DSHS that said "if plaintiffs attorneys find this information, the whole department will be compromised." Discovery documents were withheld and OKBR attorneys were sanctioned $160,000 and DSHS attorneys were sanctioned $417,000.

There were many obvious and long-term warnings about the 1970-94 OKBR.

  • DSHS knew since at least 1977.
  • The OKBR staff certainly knew.
  • The abused kids told staff, schools, counselors, police, caseworkers, therapists, ect.., about their abuse at the OKBR, but nobody investigated.
  • Olympia Police Chief Wurner came to an Olympia Kiwanis meeting in 1986 and told the Kiwanis about the troubles at the OKBR. Chief Wurner was ignored. Maybe he should have done more, but he probably wanted to keep his job.
  • It was well know by the Thurston County courts. These kids were constantly in and out of the Thurston County legal system.
  • The OKBR was written about in the Kiwanis Komments newsletters, and the Kiwanis Board Ranch minutes.
  • All the OKBR Board Members had a legal oversight of the OKBR.
  • Were all Olympia Kiwanis Attorneys & Judges and/or Politicians uninformed?
  • It's amazing how blissfully ignorant some people were about the OKBR. You can read about their guiltlessness in some of their Washington State Patrol and Office of Special Investigation statements.
  • Here's Wa St Patrol Olympia Kiwanis member lists of 1987, 1990, 1994
  • Here is a 49 page index of 5,223 pages of documents that the WSP collected about the OKBR. Anybody can order any of those public documents by following the instructions on that page.
  • The OKBR sent kids for weekend visits to child abusers who donated land to the Kiwanis. The Kiwanians sold the land in 1993 for $125,000.
  • Can the Olympian Newspaper claim ignorance?
    manaco@whidbey.net