Town reflects on clues about how doctor abused its kids

LEWES, Del. — Every day last week, a team of State Police detectives has arrived at a different front door in the seaside resort town of Lewes on the same heartbreaking mission. They bring with them a captured video image, carefully cropped to show nothing but a young face, that confirms another family's nightmare: Its child might be a victim of Earl Bradley, a popular pediatrician who stands accused of sexually molesting scores of young patients.

More than 100 victims have been identified from the 13 hours of video made of the assaults. Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden last week announced a 471-count indictment against the physician.

But as one of the largest sex-crime investigations in U.S. history works through more than 7,000 case files removed from Bradley's office, hundreds of other parents wait to find out if their child was victimized.

"There are definitely more to come," said Patricia Dailey Lewis, the deputy attorney general who runs the victims-service office the state has set up a few doors from Bradley's frame house. "I had a woman call yesterday just screaming, 'I want to know right now if my daughter is on a video.' It's horrible for them, just horrible."

Lewes residents say the case has shattered the town's typical calm and threatens to split it over questions of blame.

Lewes' anguish began two months ago when police, acting on a complaint from a patient, arrested Bradley, 56, and searched the garishly decorated office he maintained.

Amid the miniature carnival rides and elaborate toys, investigators found a network of video cameras, computer files and other evidence they said documents a history of systematic pedophilia dating back at least 11 years.

Since 1998, according to the indictment and interviews with attorneys, Bradley violated children ranging in age from 18 months to 14 years of age, many of them on multiple occasions. The charges include rape, sexual exploitation, continuous sexual abuse of a child and reckless endangerment. All but one of the victims identified so far are girls.

Bradley is being held with bail set at $2.9 million. His attorney did not return a call seeking comment.

Many of the alleged assaults reportedly occurred in the presence of parents, disguised as part of an examination under a privacy sheet. Bradley might have also used a camera concealed in a penlight or a cellphone he was known to place on the exam table, according to one couple briefed by investigators.

At other times, Bradley would take the child on a brief visit to the basement or a nearby outbuilding, ostensibly to fetch one of the post-exam toys he was famous for giving his patients.

"He took her down to the basement one time, but it was for less than two minutes," said one distraught mother whose 7-year-old daughter had been a patient of Bradley's since birth. This woman and husband, who asked not to be identified, agreed to meet at a library to talk about the case. "He told me it was too messy down there," she said. "I waited right at the top of the stairs."

The couple said investigators have told them several of the counts in the indictment relate to crimes against their daughter. Bradley said he was treating the child for a recurrent urinary-tract infection, which they now see as a ruse.

"It was just a way for him to examine her private parts every time we took her," said the husband. "We have laid in bed until 3 o'clock in the morning to review every visit from birth to now, looking for clues."

In retrospect, they said, there were some: He lavished hugs and nose rubs on their daughter while being businesslike and perfunctory with their son, now 2; the kisses on the cheek that their daughter had lately begun to complain of; that quick visit to the basement.

But at the time, Bradley struck them as accommodating and competent. He met them at off-hours and sometimes didn't charge for minor consultations.

"He had a very good reputation," the mother said.

Oddball or talented?

There were always two schools of thought about the doctor who buzzed around town in a series of bright yellow Volkswagen Beetles. To some, he was a disheveled oddball, socially awkward and overly ostentatious with an office that featured a statue of Buzz Lightyear on the roof.

But to others, including many medical professionals who put their kids in his care, he was a talented doctor with a unique gift for relating to children.

"They all said he didn't talk well with parents but with kids he was the best they'd ever seen," recalled the mother of the 7-year-old, who said she chose Bradley based on the recommendation of nurses at the hospital the day her daughter was born. "I look back now and realize that was the day I could have changed a lot of things."

The charges against Bradley have rocked the town of 3,100. Public meetings have been filled with angry accusations that authorities should have uncovered Bradley's suspected crimes earlier because there reportedly were complaints dating back many years. Other professionals, from teachers to preachers, say a new wariness affects every contact with a family.

"You second-guess going to a dentist office now," said Anna Moshier, who did not take her two children to Bradley. "My son had to go back for an X-ray, and I said, 'No way he's going without me.' This has always been like a village, but our sense of trust has been broken."

Beau Biden, who was elected attorney general in 2006 and is the son of Vice President Joseph Biden, said his office has poured unprecedented resources into the case. More than 20 prosecutors and staff workers, along with agents borrowed from other departments and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, are working in Wilmington, Lewes and a crime lab in Dover.

In Lewes, the temporary office is fielding calls from victims' families, overseeing Bradley's medical records and counseling children, parents and even grandparents.

'Neverland' trimmings

Margaret Drury, a retired nurse from Lewes, has been picketing Bradley's former office, facing the traffic on the road with signs that call for officials to remove the amusement-park trimmings from the site. Two weeks ago, state workers dismantled the Ferris wheel, moved Buzz Lightyear to a side yard and covered the carousel with plywood. A Mickey Mouse riding toy is visible through the front-door window.

Drury, standing near one of the idled yellow Volkswagens, said the local medical community should have known what Bradley might have been up to within the doors that some locals reportedly referred to as "Neverland."

For victims and their parents, it might be years before recriminations give way to healing. The 7-year-old's parents said it was impossible to shield their daughter from talk of the case, which has saturated local media and sidewalk gossip. It adds to their agony when bloggers, strangers and even friends who don't know their involvement blame parents for being careless guardians.

The father recently had to hold his tongue when he was in front of two chattering strangers in line at Dick's Sporting Goods, both of them heaping blame on "those kids' parents."

"I wanted to turn around and say, 'If that monster could fool me, he could fool you,' " the father said, tears in his eyes. "You hear that stuff, it's like an arrow in your heart."