Editor’s note: This is the first installment in a three-part series about a woman whose stepfather, Julio Valencia, was charged with sexually and physically abusing her and her brother and sister in their Athens home between 1979-82, her quest for justice and her frustration with the justice system. The names of the alleged victims have been changed to protect their families.The woman and her sister were interviewed in the presence of a law enforcement officer familiar with the case.

Mary Williams said she was only 4 when her stepfather, Julio Valencia, began to physically and sexually abuse her in her Athens home.

She said her 5-year-old brother, David, and 6-year-old sister, Sarah, were also victims as well as their mother.

The alleged offenses stretched on for three years — between December 1979 and December 1982 — before authorities interceded.

Mary’s mother first met Valencia after divorcing the children’s father.

“We were on welfare when she met Julio,” Mary said. “He had money.”

During the years of alleged abuse, neighbors and others suspected and reported possible sexual and physical abuse in the home. Athens Police Department investigated followed by the Limestone County Department of Human Resources.

In a January 1983 interview with two DHR case workers, Valencia admitted sexually abusing Mary and David.

One page of the interview, which is part of the children’s lengthy DHR case file, was released to The News Courier.

It says Valencia told DHR workers he “took advantage of (Mary’s) curiosity.”

He denied having sexual contact with David more than a couple of times and with Mary more than three or four times. He denied attempting to penetrate Mary, even though he said he decided to cease sexual contact with the children after Mary complained of “it hurting.”

He asked DHR not to “burn” him (prosecute him) because he knew what he did was wrong, he was seeking help (for his predilection), he was cooperating with the investigation and he promised not to do it again. He said he did not see what good prosecution would do.

The children’s mother also reported the sexual abuse of her children during that investigation.

Mary said Valencia had confessed to sexually abusing both Mary and her brother to a DHR worker, a therapist and her mother.

First-hand hell

Mary remembers much of the abuse that occurred during her years with Valencia. She feels a survivor needs to explain she was not a willing participant.

“It is important to understand how young we were when we were forced into a relationship with a perpetrator,” she said. “Julio was an extensive drug user. He often encouraged us to use drugs and participated in drugging all three of us kids.”

She said they were given alcohol and marijuana “on a regular basis,” and “often before bedtime.”

Valencia was a violent man, both to the children and their mother, she said.

He sometimes demonstrated his power by threatening the children and their mother with his machete.

“Julio was very physically and sexually abusive,” Mary said. “He molested all three of us but, unfortunately, because I was the youngest and most vulnerable, I was sexually victimized the most often and the most extensively.”

Like many domestic abuse victims, Mary sees the victimization of her siblings as worse than even her own. She was moved to tears when she spoke of a particularly violent beating her brother endured.

“My brother and sister were emotionally and physically abused far worse than me,” Mary said. “My brother was often beaten unmercifully at 5, 6 and 7 years old. On one occasion, he was beaten unconscious by Julio and had paralysis in his face and problems stuttering for many months.”

Conveying the details of her brother’s beating brought Mary to tears. She said she realized later in her life her brother’s symptoms following the beating were caused by brain damage.

Mary said Sarah was often made to stay in her room while in the home and was eventually “shipped off” to her maternal aunt’s house and separated from she and her brother “because she would not cooperate with Julio’s abuse.”

Signs

The family’s neighbors suspected something was wrong at the home, either physical abuse or sexual abuse, or both, Mary said.

In December 1982, Athens police took a report from Mary and family members and began investigating allegations of sexual abuse. The DHR caseworker who made the report on Valencia’s confession of sexual abuse in January 1983 had also reported that Mary, “has been allowed to wear makeup and has dressed with the expressed concern of appearing ‘sexy.'”

Her behavior and appearance may have prompted neighbor’s and others to suspect abuse in the home.

Despite the investigations by police and DHR, and their finding of evidence of both physical and sexual abuse, Valencia was never charged with a crime. It is not clear whether the case was ever sent to the office of then-District Attorney Jimmy Fry so he could present it to a grand jury and seek an indictment, or formal charges, against Valencia.

Floyd Johnson, who is the current chief of Athens Police Department, had just become a police officer for the department in 1982. He didn’t know what happened to the old case but worked to build a new one.

“I don’t know why the case wasn’t prosecuted in the early ’80s,” Johnson said. “When I was contacted in 2006 (about trying again to bring charges against Valencia), we couldn’t locate any files about the case at APD.”

Johnson said the Limestone County Sheriff’s Office and DHR also looked for files but none could be found.

“The first records anyone could locate were District Court records when Judge Burns was the judge,” the chief said. “I then went back to DHR in Montgomery and they located a file. I talked with everyone from law-enforcement who was living. No one had any memory of being a part of or investigating the case.”

Better life

Mary and her siblings were placed with their real father and raised without further abuse. Their psychological wounds remained but were not discussed.

“Our father was just not the kind of man who discussed those kinds of things,” Mary said.

In 2005, Mary’s past life called her.

She had spent the previous year pregnant with her first child.

“I constantly thought about how I would protect my child from someone like Julio Valencia,” she said. “I started to realize that it had to start with me; that I had to stand up and keep other children safe if I ever expected others to do the same in a society where my children would grow up.”

She contacted Athens police to see if they could reopen the case and police agreed.

Under Alabama law, there is no statute of limitations (no time limit) for charging someone with the crimes of rape, sodomy, sexual torture, sexual abuse, enticing a child to enter a vehicle or sexual misconduct if the sex offense involved a victim under age 16, regardless of whether it involved force or serious physical injury or death.

Mary and her siblings were about to embark on a long journey for justice.

She tells how Valencia was finally charged with sodomy and sexual abuse in 2008, how he was finally found and arrested in 2013, how they waited nearly nine years for his trial and how a Limestone County judge recently dismissed the charges because Valencia was not given a speedy trial. She also shares her frustration with the justice system and her hope for something better.

See Tuesday’s edition of The News Courier for part two of this story.