'Shellshocked' in Gulf Breeze

Abby Goodnough bats clean-up on the Roy Atchison story in Saturday's edition of the New York Times, with an assist from Terry Aguayo of Miami and "Mari Krueger from Gulf Breeze, Fla."

The headline for the story is "Town Is Shaken After Prosecutor’s Arrest in a Child-Sex Sting." Oddly, it carries a three day old dateline.

Here's the lede and a snippet of what follows:

To neighbors here, J. D. Roy Atchison was a deft federal prosecutor, an involved father and a devoted volunteer, coaching girls’ softball and basketball teams year in and year out.

His wife is a popular science teacher; his youngest daughter, an honors student who was on her high school homecoming court last year. Their house, with rocking chairs on the porch, oaks in the yard and a wrought-iron fence, is among the prettiest in town.

Butin an instant last week, the community pillar became an object of community loathing. Mr. Atchison, 53, was arrested getting off a plane in Detroit on Sept. 16 and charged with the unthinkable. The authorities there said he was carrying a doll and petroleum jelly, and that he had arranged with an undercover agent to have sex with a 5-year-old girl.

Now Mr. Atchison is awaiting trial in a federal prison in Michigan, and the people of Gulf Breeze, an affluent bayside suburb in the Florida Panhandle, are outraged, baffled and repulsed.

The rest is also pretty much what we've come to expect. Two local lawyers attest to Atchison's professional reputation, which comes down to "a little eccentric, but nothing perverted or weird." Buzz Eddy once again 'scours his memory' for any clues that Atchison was not what he seemed and, again, he comes up empty. The Gulf Breeze police once more report that "no one" locally "has come forward with accusations of abuse" by Atchison in the past.

And two or three previously obscure locals get their allotted 15 words of fame, one of whom uses it to say, "They ought to torch this guy.” Not specified was whether the 'torching' should come before or after the trial.

In other words, Goodnough doesn't uncover anything that wasn't known already and reported elsewhere, except that the Times' chief Florida bureau reporter, who also is the author of "Ms. Moffett's First Year: Becoming a Teacher in America", does add a little about Atchison's teacher-wife:

Around town, praise flowed for Mr. Atchison’s wife, Barbara, who teaches anatomy at Gulf Breeze High School but took a leave of absence after his arrest. She won the town’s teacher-of-the-year award in 2004. Several people said she was as stunned as anyone by the news.

"She’s shellshocked," said Deputy Chief Randle, who went with F.B.I. agents to execute a search warrant on the Atchison home, where they seized at least one computer. "She’s just floored."

Rick Outzen of the weekly Independent News tried just as hard, using similar sources and even his own son (a freshman at Gulf Breeze High) but he came up just as stumped as everyone else.

Either Roy Atchison was a monster nobody ever really knew or something catastrophic recently happened inside his brain. There doesn't seem to be any third explanation.

The Man Nobody Knew

Sunday's Miami Herald has one of the better written pieces we've seen about Assistant U.S. Attorney Roy Atchison's arrest on federal charges related to crossing state lines in an attempt to have sex with a 5 year old. Reporter Mary Ellen Klas was in the area several days late last week, trying to find the story that lies behind the story.

She knows what that story is: Who was this guy, really?

Aptly, her article begins with an almost lyrical passage describing the "picture perfect" exterior of the Atchisons' Gulf Breeze home. It could stand as a metaphor of the man's seemingly picture perfect life -- until last week.

The courtly colonial house with its wraparound porch and fishing boat in the back is perfectly situated in this close-knit beach town.

Twenty years ago, John D. Roy Atchison, a young prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office, picked this idyllic spot a block from the beach to build a home and raise a family. He fished in Pensacola Bay, coached girls basketball and softball, and dedicated himself to the community sports association just blocks from their home, while his wife, Barbara, taught honors science classes at Gulf Breeze High.

In contrast, the criminal charges Atchison now faces, as Klas writes, "paint a portrait of a man nobody in this small town even recognizes." Just as the house itself is now tightly shuttered against prying eyes.

In the end, Ms. Klas seems to have wound up as mystified as friends, neighbors, co-workers, and other locals are. Nothing she uncovered in Atchison's prior life even remotely hints at someone capable of committing the acts for which he has been indicted. As it appears -- for now, at least -- no one else can find any past signs or forewarnings of what was to come, either.

Writes Klas:

It's not unusual for there to be more issues other than the chat room,'' said Macomb County Sheriff Mark A. Hackel in Detroit. Among them, he said, is the possibility there may be child victims and involvement with child pornography.

That possibility has racked the Gulf Breeze town of 5,800 with worry and doubt.

''I've gone back mentally and reviewed everything we've done,'' said Buz Eddy, Gulf Breeze's city manager whose office is lined with team photos of his daughter's sports, including teams Atchison coached.

'If he would have called and said, `I'm taking a bunch of girls fishing in Destin for the weekend, can your daughter go?' I wouldn't have had any hesitation,'' said Eddy. "We've never seen anything like this from Roy, particularly from his demeanor and his profession. Shock isn't a strong enough word.''

Police have assured the community that no one has come forward to allege abuse by Atchison. The Gulf Breeze Sports Association, of which Atchison served as president until Monday, offered similar assurances.

The reporter did find some small evidence of newly expressed community hostility toward the once-respected Assistant U.S. Attorney who is now sitting in a Michigan jail under suicide watch.

Since news of the arrest, Atchison's well-kept house on Shoreline Drive has been egged by high-schoolers. His wife, a popular teacher who recently won teacher-of-the-year honors, has taken a leave of absence. His youngest daughter, a senior at Gulf Breeze High, has not returned to school all week.

And, of course, net-thugs can be found on countless message boards volunteering to personally dismember the defendant even before he is tried and convicted.

Everyone here is acutely aware, as city manager Buzz Eddy told the Northwest Florida Daily News, that with investigations continuing "someone" could "come forward with an accusation tomorrow." Or not. There simply is no way to know.

But local support for the family of the Assistant U.S. Attorney remains strong. Last week, Gulf Breeze High seniors hung a large sympathy banner, or perhaps more accurately it could be described as a solidarity banner, inside the school. And almost everyone else in Gulf Breeze, sensibly, is reserving judgment until all of the facts are known.

Atchison's Health: What We Don't Know

Today's news only deepens the tragedy that has befallen the Roy Atchison family. The Pensacola lawyer, arrested Sunday in Detroit as part of an F.B.I. sex predator sting operation, tried to hang himself in his cell early this morning, according to the Detroit Free News.

The 4 a.m. suicide attempt came only one day after Atchison asked a federal judge to take him off a suicide watch and assured her he would not try to harm himself.

Atchison tied a sheet around his neck, but the suicide attempt was discovered by sheriff's deputies before he had a chance to harm himself, Sheriff Virgil Strickler said today.

The tragedy that has befallen Assistant U.S. Attorney Roy Atchison and his Gulf Breeze family doubtless has many dimensions. The general public knows almost none of these, in truth. All that is known, when one looks at it critically, is very sketchy:

• Atchison is a widely admired husband with a long history of working with a children's sports association.
  
• Unlike most sexual deviants, there was no known manifestation, until now, that Atchison harbored any pedophiliac thoughts or urges. Yet, he has been arrested on horrific-sounding charges of crossing state lines with intent to have sex with a five year old girl.
• Allegations that for nearly a month he engaged in on-line messaging back and forth certainly reflect a paraphiliac condition.
  
• Many long-time friends and fellow parents in Gulf Breeze who have personally known Atchison for decades are shocked, or worse, at the news about a man they liked and trusted. They never had a clue, apparently, and even thinking back can't see one.
  
• So far, as it seems, no one locally claims to have had so much as an inkling Atchison ever harbored untoward or sexual feelings toward children.
  
• No one is able to explain how attorney Atchison could have become so suddenly, as it seems, ensnared in such a horrific situation after nearly 53 full years of blameless life.

We must remind ourselves, too, that at this writing there is not so much as a shred of a fact or even a rumor that Atchison has ever injured anyone of any age. The five year old girl in Detroit was a myth; the supposed mother of that child was merely an "online undercover persona" created by an FBI agent for the sting operation. Although Atchison in on-line chats allegedly "suggested" he had "previously had sex with minors" at this writing no fact has been revealed to show that such a "suggestion" was true.

Putting aside the question of guilt -- because, after all, under our legal system Atchison must be considered innocent until proven guilty -- there are reasons to suspect from all of this that something even more tragic may lie behind Atchison's actions in stepping off the plane in Detroit "with a Dora the Explorer doll, hoop earrings and petroleum jelly," as USA Today reports.

What if Atchison's on-line 'boasting' of previous experience was a lie grounded in a fantasy? What if he was acting out another fantasy with the Dora doll? Isn't it possible -- perhaps more than possible -- that Atchison was an upstanding citizen for all of his 53 years until something highly unusual happened in just the last few weeks or months?

We don't have a medical or psychiatric license, but from what we can unearth on short notice via the internet, it looks to us like the psychiatric world doesn't know much about paraphilia, either. As one recent researcher admits, the professionals don't even know the frequency and incidence of "hypersexual" desire:

Although hypersexual desire, a quantitative measure of enacted sexual behaviours, may be a meaningful construct for clinically derived samples, the incidence and prevalence of hypersexual desire in community samples of males with paraphilias and paraphilia-related disorders is unknown.

Nor can they agree, even among themselves, whether it should be included in the DSM as a mental illness diagnosis. Much less do they agree on the underlying cause(s).

The world of shrinks just doesn't know enough about this kind of behavior. But at least some research in the past few years suggests that in a minority of older men a sudden change in sexual appetite and interest can be traceable to dramatically "increased (or decreased) dopamine neurotransmission" and "central serotonin activity." In turn, changes in dopamine neurotransmission can be caused by organic changes in the brain brought on by lesions, disease, genetic disorders, or a comparatively rare type of dementia such as Pick's Disease. In these unfortunates, the organic changes lead directly to dramatic changes in the chemistry of the brain.

We know no more facts about the Atchison matter than you can find for yourself in the library or on the internet. And we're not making excuses for anyone. Nor are we in any way minimizing the horrific nature of the behavior Atchison is alleged to have exhibited.

But we would like to see a stop to all those cranks commentators out there who are so very quick to pollute the world wide web with their own sick fantasies about how Atchison should be tortured and executed without a trial. (No links provided -- there are plenty of comments of that character to be seen on-line; find them yourself, if you must).

And, we'd also like to see Atchison's Michigan lawyer get him an expert medical work-up, fast. Just as does the law, we presume Atchison is innocent of a crime. But we'll make no presumption he is free of disease.

Assistant U..S. Attorney's 'My Space' Page

News reports aren't getting any better for Pensacola's Assistant U.S. Attorney John David Roy Atchison.

A Michigan grand jury indicted him this afternoon on a new charge basically arising out of the same set of operative facts. He now faces, potentially, as much as life in prison, if convicted:

A U.S. prosecutor and youth sports leader from Florida who authorities say flew to Michigan for an expected sexual encounter with a 5-year-old girl was indicted on an additional charge Tuesday and ordered held without bond.
* * *
He originally faced charges of use of the Internet to seek illicit sex, which carries a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison and a maximum of 30 years; and interstate travel to engage in illicit sexual contact, which carries up to 30 years.

On Tuesday, a federal grand jury added a charge of crossing state lines with intent to have sex with someone under 12, which carries a minimum 30-year prison sentence and a maximum of life.

The Detroit Free Press also is reporting that Atchison had a cyber-home in the notorious internet sewer known as MySpace.com. The information supposedly comes from law enforcement sources. How they can be sure it really belonged to Atchison, we do not know.

Under the user name fldaddy04, name John and caption "Experienced, understanding Daddy," Atchison allegedly described himself in his profile as: "Handsome, educated, professional, experienced Daddy. I love younger girls. Like everything about you... how you think, talk, act. I'm very understanding and supportive... never ever judgmental."

There's more, if you have the stomach for it, including a link to fldaddy04's MySpace.com page. Look for it yourself, if you must.

We know a professional in the juvenile crime-prevention business who routinely advises parents to order their children to show them all of their "MySpace.com" web pages -- or suffer having their computers locked away in the trunk of the car. (Warning: the results can be shocking, indeed.)

A lot of teens seem to assume parents can't comprehend computer photos or read digitalized text, so they merrily share with their "cyber friends" rank shots of themselves drinking, using drugs, and having sex, along with semi-literate narratives describing past escapades.

Apparently, teens aren't the only ones soiling the darker alleyways of MySpace.com.

Finding the American Way in Gulf Breeze

After 'disappearing' Roy Atchison like some Soviet 'unperson', or so it seemed this morning, this afternoon the Gulf Breeze Sports Association issued this formal statement:

Roy Atchison has been a valued member of the Gulf Breeze community and the Gulf Breeze Sports Association for the past decade. He will be on a leave of absence as President of the Gulf Breeze Sports Association until the outcome of the case. The board will continue to administer and oversee sports for the Gulf Breeze community.

Good for the GBSA! A solid, factual, and open statement, acknowledging but taking no position about Atchison's arrest and his legal troubles. The GBSA reserves judgment, but at the same time gives the public their honest evaluation that "Atchison has been a valued member of the Gulf Breeze community" and the sports association.

Someone understands the American way -- and lives by it. No need to cover up or re-write history. The more hateful the alleged crime, the more important becomes the presumption of innocence.

Local U.S. Prosecutor Nabbed on Child Sex Charges

We absolutely hate to sound like a tabloid. Still, maybe this will bring home to people just what is at stake when the Attorney General of the United States hires on the basis of party loyalty -- and nothing else:

A federal prosecutor from Florida was ordered held in custody Monday after he appeared in U.S. District Court in Detroit on a charge that he flew to Detroit intending to have sex with a 5-year-old girl.

John David R. Atchison, 53, of Gulf Breeze, Fla., an assistant U.S. Attorney in Florida's northern district, is expected to appear again in court for a detention hearing on Tuesday.

He was caught in an Internet child sex sting run by the Macomb County Sheriff's Department and the FBI and arrested Sunday when he flew into Detroit Metropolitan Airport from Pensacola, Fla., according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Detroit.

A sheriff's deputy posed as a mother who was interested in finding someone to have sex with her children, in a sting that has already netted a California paramedic and numerous other alleged pedophiles from around the country.

According to the complaint, Atchison reassured the sheriff's deputy who was posing as the child's mother that he would not hurt the 5-year-old because he goes "slow and easy," and "I've done it plenty."

Of course, hard as it would be to say this to a victim's parents, there are larger principles at stake than even this when the president appointments and then protects a hack for Attorney General -- such as the liberties we all enjoy.

UPDATE
9-17 pm

WEAR-TV has the jump on tomorrow morning's Pensacola News Journal. With a photo (below) and the Second Amended Criminal Complaint (pdf version).

Photo said to be of arrested suspect Atchison