Man Seeks $50
Million in Punitive Damages:
Tom Shepherd Was
Abducted From the Doorway of His Home in 1954.
Prior to the
Abduction, Shepherd Was Repeatedly Defiled by Same Boys
His Assailants
Have Never Expressed Remorse, Nor Have They Offered Restitution.
The Tom Shepherd Justice Center
The Shepherd Home – 816 Richmond Road – Joplin, Missouri
- 1950
Senator Richard M. Webster Highly Praises Tom Shepherd
& Family
Mabel Mitchell & John
Abbott Snyder – Founders – Galena Harrow Plow Factory - Snyder Bus Company
First Members: Joplin Rotary
Club - Joplin Chamber of Commerce – Oak (Twin) Hills Country Club
Maternal Grandparents of Tom
Shepherd
Greek Miller Blaise Canterbury
– Tulsa and Los Angeles Real Estate Developer
Eugene F. Blaise – President -
Farmers National Bank of Tulsa – Admiralty Zinc Co. – Cushing Refining Co.
Paternal Grandparents of Tom
Shepherd
Hon. Ignace Hainer – Lawyer – Journalist - Secretary to Hungarian Minister of Foreign
Affairs 1848
Professor of Modern Languages -
University of Missouri – Member – Iowa Grand Jury
Great great grandfather of Tom
Shepherd
Judge Bayard Taylor Hainer – Associate Supreme
Court Justice – Oklahoma Territory
Chief Counsel - Federal
Trade Commission - General Counsel - U.S. Department of
Agriculture
Great great uncle of Tom
Shepherd
Charles Maynard Shepherd – Vice
President – Ohio River Power Company (a Cities Service subsidiary)
Member: Board of Directors
& Treasurer – Empire District
Electric Company
Stepfather of Tom Shepherd
Clara Olive Snyder Shepherd –
Theatrical Producer – Board Member – Jasper County Heart Association
Board Member -
Joplin Little Theater - Board Member - Joplin Woman’s Club
Fund raiser for many civic
organizations and medical foundations.
Mother of Tom Shepherd
Thomas Mitchell Blaise Shepherd
– President – Joplin Council of the United Christian Youth Movement 1956
President -
Young Peoples Service League
- St. Philip’s Episcopal Church,
Joplin
Planning Consultant - Ozark Gateway Regional Planning Commission
Founder & Chancellor -
The Shepherd-Montessori Institute
Missouri Civil Rights Leader -
Outstanding Missourian
Joplin, Missouri
The Desensitization and Brutalization of Teenagers by U.S.
Military
By Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, West Point
http://www.killology.com/art_trained_methods.htm
Cadet Tom Shepherd 1955 Joplin High School Military Ball
Lynn Newcomb and Tom Shepherd, Christmas 1953
Tom’s 1950 Birthday Tom & Loyal Pals
Shepherd Home – 816 Richmond Road
Tom Shepherd was threatened and intimidated by Joplin High School
senior athlete Don Smith. A psychotically angry Don Smith, with his fists
clenched in a fight position, danced around in front of Shepherd, repeatedly
defaming the name of Tom Shepherd’s mother at the 1953 Veteran’s Day Parade
merely because Shepherd had very honestly explained to an inspecting officer
that the reason he (Shepherd) was ‘out of uniform’ was that Don Smith had
demanded Tom Shepherd hand him his own uniform cap (only minutes prior to a
weekly inspection) so that Smith would not be out of uniform. It seems that Don
Smith had misplaced his own uniform cap.
Because Tom Shepherd told the truth as to why he was ‘out of
uniform’ Don Smith not only psychologically terrorized Shepherd while Shepherd
was in ranks, but Smith also promised to inflict bodily harm on Shepherd at a
later date. Smith also persuaded other students to harass Shepherd in the
school hallways.
Tom Shepherd was soon after abducted and battered in the doorway
of his home at 816 Richmond Road, Joplin, Missouri. His
assailants, Bob Thornhill, Buck Jeans and Jim Dailey, are accused of aggravated
battery, conspiracy and premeditation.
For details of the later abduction of Tom Shepherd in the doorway
of the Shepherd home, go here
Man Seeks $50 Million in Punitive Damages
From City of Joplin & Individual Assailants
- Youth Leader
Victim of Series of Gang Assaults
- by Jealous Punk Classmates -
- All of Them
Varsity Jocks ~
During a 1953 Veteran’s Day parade, sophomore JHS ROTC
student and community youth leader Tom
Shepherd (Class of ’56) was threatened with bodily harm by senior ROTC student
Don Smith (Class of ’54). Smith was angry with Shepherd because he (Smith) had
previously been cited by an inspecting officer (Pete Blair) for taking Tom
Shepherd’s uniform cap only minutes prior to a weekly inspection. Smith then
encouraged other students to harass Shepherd in the school hallways.
Don Smith stood before Tom Shepherd (who was in formation
with his platoon), and with his fists clenched in a fight position, repeatedly
screamed vulgar expletives in reference to Shepherd’s mother, then repeatedly
called Shepherd “yellow” for refusing to swing back at Smith and promised to
inflict bodily harm on Shepherd at a later date.
Tom Shepherd was afterwards harassed and assaulted and
battered by other JHS Students after school hours, as a direct result of Don
Smith’s coaxing.
Some of Tom Shepherd’s assailants had been abducting,
humiliating and terrorizing him for years, most probably as a result of his
extreme naiveté and his well-established reluctance to engage in violent
behavior. Plus, Tom Shepherd never had
a father to stand behind him – to coach him – to instruct him in methods for
adequately defending himself.
Buck Jeans, the son of Dr. Virgil E. Jeans, had very
aggressively attempted to engage Shepherd in sex during the fall of 1953, while
they were alone in the yard of the home of Joplin attorney Roy Coyne. However,
because Shepherd did not respond to Jeans’ invitation, Jeans began more
aggressive tactics for the purpose of humiliating and degrading Shepherd.
Utilizing the assistance of Bob Thornhill and Jim Dailey, Jeans succeeded in
severely traumatizing Shepherd to the degree that Shepherd was ultimately
hospitalized for psychiatric observation. More on this matter.
Roy Coyne was Tom Shepherd’s mom’s attorney. Coyne’s
son-in-law Bill Stewart, had been a business partner of Tom’s father and mother
in the ownership and operation of El Cedro Mining Company at Guanajuato, Mexico
many years before.
Frank Shelton, assistant to the president of Empire
District Electric Company, and his stepson Charles W. Keeter (who is
today the Lt. Governor of the Missouri Rotary Club) also committed crimes of violence against
Shepherd. View Frank Shelton and wife Louise at Shepherd home
garden party in 1950. Bob Martini, the son
of architect Truman Martini – who designed the Missouri Highway Department
building on Range Line in Joplin, was an accessory to the crimes.
Malcolm Robertson humiliated and molested Tom Shepherd at
Twin Hills Country Club swimming pool by swimming up behind Shepherd, pulling
his swim trunks off him and taking them with him. Shepherd was thus forced to
climb out of the pool naked, thus exposing himself – to include his surgical scars – to females sitting around the
pool. Buck Jeans and Bob Thornhill
stood by laughing at Tom, along with Malcolm Robertson, who later was
appointed a judge and general council for the Joplin school district.
Ross Roberts, who later served as a city prosecutor, then
as a federal judge, also stalked and repeatedly annoyed Shepherd while Shepherd
was dating Elsa Newman, making inflammatory vulgar comments to the two of them.
Most of Tom Shepherd’s male friends sexually defiled
females Tom was dating in order to further undermine Shepherd’s self-esteem.
“They trashed me and they trashed virtually every girl I ever dated,” says
Shepherd.
“I shall repeat myself because it bears repeating – I was
not a coward. I was a victim of cowardly boys – of cowardly bullies – who
picked on me merely because I was a gentleman and because I was known not to
use my fists. They were determined to drag me down to their own level of
depravity. It’s called aberrant psychological conditioning. Such conditioning can actually rewire a
victim’s brain – thus turning a previously well-balanced, intelligent,
non-violent individual into a paranoid schizophrenic.
“I was a victim of ongoing physical battery during my
sophomore year at Joplin High School, as well as of ongoing psychological rape (sexual
defilement) by my classmates, virtually all of whom were so-called Christians,”
says Tom Shepherd.
“I was told by Charles Perkins, brother of Judy Perkins,
and Phi Lambda Epsilon fraternity brother of, Pete Blair, Bill Repplinger and
Don Smith, that no man is a REAL man until he has had some ‘nigger pussy’ and
that they (Phi Lamb members) were going to get me some ‘nigger pussy.’ I had
previously told them that I was celibate in response to their query, while
blinded by a flashlight shining in my face in the darkened cellar of the
Perkins home on North Moffet Ave. I was
also required (as a pledge) to say, over and over, I am lower than whale
shit on the bottom of the ocean. It
was a form of brainwashing, as well as an attempt to demoralize me – to
undermine my self-esteem as a male.
“What I eventually learned for myself is that the sexual
bravado of Charlie Perkins and other Phil Lamb members, regarding female
exploitation, was merely a cover-up for the fact that they were an underground
mutual admiration society – a pseudo-homosexual S & M fraternity. In the
criminal culture, males typically attempt to compensate for their underlying
troublesome homosexual feelings by treating other males – as well as females –
in a sadistic manner.
“At the time, I was going steady with Miss Lynn Newcomb,
then a pledge in Lambdas, a sort of ‘sister sorority’ to Phi Lambda Epsilon.
The two of us were members of the St. Philip’s Episcopal Church Young Peoples
Service League, of which I was president. Lynn’s dad was a CPA with Baird,
Kurtz and Dobson.
“Following the threats by Don Smith and the sexual
defilement by Don Smith, by Charles Perkins and other Phi Lamb members, I
depedged. I was then mercilessly mocked by my classmates, most of whom were not
even Phi Lamb members or pledges, for the remainder of my high school days,”
says Tom Shepherd. Ironically, Bob Thornhill, who did not even pledge Phi Lambs
because his domineering mother forbade him from pledging, was one of those that
harassed me merely because I later had the courage to depledge the fraternity –
when I came to realize what it really stood for. Bob Thornhill claimed that I was tied to my mother’s apron
strings, when the truth is that Bob Thornhill was the one tied to his mother’s
apron strings. Bob sought to displace his own negative feelings about himself
onto me.
victims’s
offenders Have never expressed remorse,
nor have they offered restitution.
According
to attorney Paul Mones, who has devoted his life to protecting the rights of
children, extreme verbal and psychological abuse can lead to the metaphoric
death of the personality, when the victim stumbles into insanity, for instance,
and sometimes suicide. Tom Shepherd was a victim of extreme verbal and
psychological abuse, as well as of physical abuse.
When he
was in the second grade at Columbia Elementary School, Tom Shepherd
appeared to be in a trance so much of the time that his teacher, Miss Crickard,
thought he might be deaf until a school nurse determined his hearing was
adequate. He possibly had a type of autism known as Asperger’s syndrome or a
mild form of epilepsy.
Tom
also might have been suffering from what Paul Mones has described as
traumatized identity syndrome, as during kindergarten he was constantly
battered about the upper torso by an anti-social classmate, Vern Hine, whenever
their teacher Miss Young’s back was turned. In fact, he was battered so badly
that he did not wish to return to school. Ross Roberts and others later punched
him in the face or battered him in other ways, apparently because they felt
confident that due to Tom’s relatively complacent nature he was of no physical
threat to them. However, because of his demonstrated leadership qualities, Tom
was selected to be a member of the sixth grade Columbia School Boy Honor
Patrol: view > http://www.surfingman10.org/image133.gif
Because
Tom Shepherd did not have a father, an uncle, a granddad or another male mentor
to coach him during the first eleven years of his life and because he had an
apparent maturational lag, he did not develop psychomotor skills of sufficient
adequacy to being able to compete with his peers in group sports or to be able
to defend himself. However, he was taught by his grandmother that attempting to
solve problems with fists, bombs and guns is uncivilized, as well as unmanly.
Tom
Shepherd was born with a cryptorchidism, a condition in which one of his
testicles failed to descend into the scrotum at birth. Although he underwent
corrective surgery – known as an orchipexy – at age 8, the condition was never
entirely corrected. Shepherd also inherited another abnormality – his adult
lateral incisors (teeth) were absent, a condition treated through orthodontic
repair work from the age of 11. He was then fitted with a ‘stay plate.’
As a
result, Shepherd – early on in life – experienced excessive teasing or
humiliation by males and female who were aware of his medical history. He also
experienced a variety of forms of rejection by both males and females,
gradually tending to avoid close relationships with others, resulting in a
quasi-schizophrenic personality and existence.
Tom
spent most of his time during school or after school alone, doodling, playing
with his toy cars and Lincoln Logs, building miniature houses out of cardboard,
and carefully observing houses in the neighborhood that were under
construction. During the summertime, he planted and harvested vegetables in his
back yard and he operated a lawn care service for his neighbors. He spent the
month of August nearly every summer at the Childress Fox Farm and Ranch, where
he and his buddy Carl Childress rode horses, hunted and herded
cattle. Carl, however, had a significant advantage over Tom, as he had a father
during the first eight years of his life, plus he had a well-connected uncle to
provide for the family, plus a male-chauffeur to act as his mentor.
In
order to provide for her family, Tom’s mother commuted in a car pool to Camp
Crowder, 20 miles away, where she was employed during World War II and to
Kansas, 26 miles away, where she was employed by the Spencer Chemical Company.
Following the war, she was away from home from one to two months at a time,
producing and directing musical shows throughout the USA for civic
organizations.
While
their mother was away working, Tom and his brother John were cared for by their
elderly maternal grandmother, Mabel Snyder, a Rotary Ann and volunteer for the
Red Cross, who was frequently shown disrespect by other neighborhood children,
including Dennis Eberle, who lived directly across the street from the Snyders
and who made obscene gestures at Mrs. Snyder when she attempted to exercise her
responsibility as an adult and parent. Other neighborhood children, including
Charles Perkins and his friends, would jump onto her car and try to rock it up
and down as she was backing her car out of the driveway. They also threw rocks,
coated with mud, at the Snyder home.
Tom’s
older brother, John, was repeatedly terrorized, abducted and battered by male
and female classmates, some older, some the same age as he, others younger.
John was abducted and tied up and repeatedly punched in the stomach by the
Rosenberg brothers. John was hit in the head with a rock thrown by Tom Havens,
son of supermarket owner Clarence Havens; and John was followed home from
school by a group of his fourth grade classmates, both males and females, then
repeatedly battered by being punched in the stomach on the front porch of his
own home, a scene John’s own grandmother and brother observed, as did Sarah Van
Fleet, who sat on the sidewalk in front of the Snyder home playing jacks while
the beating was taking place. His abductors would afterwards justify their
violent crimes.
“There
was a lot of irony regarding the way my brother John was treated by his
classmates,” says Tom Shepherd, “in that although our mother had groomed him
somewhat as a female during his early childhood prior to his starting school,
he nevertheless became extremely dominant scholastically, excelling in the
classroom, as well as outside of the classroom. He had read twenty of the great
classics of literature by the time he was nine years old, as our mom subscribed
to the Junior Heritage Book-of-the-Month Club for us.
` “My
brother John’s hobbies included building, breeding hamsters, chemistry and
playing cowboy. He was very dominant and masculine, although somewhat awkward,
in his demeanor, from an early age. His awkwardness was no doubt the result of
a leg and foot deformity, a birth defect, for which he later (during junior
high school) underwent two surgical procedures, during which time he was in leg
casts for months.
“John
was not only at the head of his class, scholastically, but his fourth grade
teacher apparently made it a point to inform his classmates that he scored
higher than any of them on a fourth grade achievement test. However, he was
picked on most probably because all of his classmates were well aware that he
had no dad at home, nor did he have a granddad or uncle in the community, to
stand behind him,” says his brother Tom.
“There
was NO justification for any of the violence meted out against my older
brother or against me,” says Tom. “We were picked on because we were vulnerable
– in a sense we had no one on our ball
team –we were primarily vulnerable because we had no dad or grandad to
stand behind us – no dad and no stepdad to stand behind us and see to it
that our abductors and batterers were placed behind prison bars, as well as the
parents of our abductors – all of them prominent business and professional
people, as well as neighbors of ours.
After
Tom’s mother remarried, his stepfather, Charles Shepherd, an Englishman, Mason, Episcopal Church
vestryman, and director/treasurer of the Empire District Electric Power
Company, who had a serious drinking problem, repeatedly badgered Tom, calling
Tom a “little bastard,” merely because of Tom’s outspoken concern about his
stepfather’s inappropriate use of alcohol. He once emptied his bottle of beer
over Tom’s head while Tom was attempting to rig his fishing line during a
family outing at Shoal Creek, merely because Tom showed a look of disappointment
over the fact that his stepfather and mother had broken their promise to
him to not bring beer along.
It
seems that Tom Shepherd’s stepfather also resented Tom and his brother John
merely because their own father, a mining engineer who reportedly made $25,000
annually, twice the salary he made, was not providing their mother with an
appropriate proportion of child support. Their father, whose own father was a
Tulsa oilman and banker, paid no child support until 1952, when a Bolivian
court ordered their father to pay $250 monthly to their mother. However, their
father, through his influential attorneys, managed to get the judgment set
aside and reduced to $80 monthly, which he then discontinued paying after he
returned to Mexico City to live.
Tom Shepherd’s
stepfather also locked him, his brother and his mother out of the house while
they were attending a Sunday evening prayer service and Young Peoples Service
League meeting at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church on a cold winter evening. Tom
and his brother had to get a ladder out of the garage and climb through an
upstairs bathroom window in order to get inside. Their stepfather afterwards justified
his actions by claiming his attorney, Emerson Foulke, also a communicant of St.
Philip’s Church, told him that because he had not legally adopted Tom and John
that he had a right to lock them and their mother out of their home, a home
that was jointly owned by their mother. Emerson Foulke’s daughter, Dee, was a
member of the YPSL and Tom and his mother and brother had given Dee a ride to
and from the church on the evening they found themselves locked out.
Once,
during a neighborhood wrestling match, after Tom, soon after the match began,
appropriately pinned his opponent’s shoulders to the ground in accordance with
the rules of fair play, his opponent, Charles “Sonny” Keeter, began violently
attacking Tom by clawing at Tom’s chest with his fingernails and drawing blood,
then ripping Tom’s shirt off – not in accordance with the rules of fair play. Charles Keeter then went into his house and
came back outside swinging a baseball bat at Tom, while his drunken stepfather,
Frank Shelton, also an executive of the power company, stood by encouraging
Sonny by shouting, “Hit him Sonny. Hit him!”
The
wrestling match was organized and refereed by Bob Martini, a neighbor who
during the winter months was a student at Western Military Academy. Martini was
the son of architect Truman Martini, designer of the Missouri Highway
Department building on Range Line in Joplin. He was two years older than Tom
Shepherd. Although Shepherd was reluctant to participate in the wrestling match
from the onset, he nevertheless was persuaded by Martini, Keeter and others, to
include Buck Jeans and Bob Thornhill, to participate.
Tom’s
own stepfather also verbally castrated Tom, merely because Tom spent much of
his free time alone, viewing books on architecture and designing homes at an
antique drafting table that had belonged to his maternal grandfather.
As a
teenager, Tom Shepherd built his own bookcases and other pieces of furniture.
He washed dishes in the junior high school cafeteria for a free lunch, sacked
groceries at a supermarket on weekends to earn spending money and always held
down a summer job. His sporting interests were primarily swimming, bicycling,
hiking, camping and fishing, although he took an award as Most Improved
Golfer during the 1953 season as a participant in the Twin Hills
Country Club Junior Golf League. Ark Wadkins was the golf pro and Tom’s coach.
Ironically,
Virginia (Kring) Jeans and Thelma Thornhill, mothers of two of the boys that
afterwards repeatedly abducted and tortured Tom Shepherd, were Junior Golf
League advisors. Other advisors
included Kay Jardon, Lorraine Golf, Esther Newcomb and a Mrs. Salzer, the
mother of Mike Salzer, also a participant.
Tom
Shepherd dated regularly and his romantic interests were exclusively
heterosexual. The irony is that Tom was a regular guy and a gentleman. His
stepfather and the bullies that ganged up on him, most of whom attempted to
aggressively engage him in a variety of lewd sexual acts, while they were in
the public eye, were neither.
Most of
the boys that repeatedly abducted, sexually battered and humiliated Tom also
defiled females Tom was dating, to include Elsa Newman, daughter of Newman’s
Department Store co-owner Albert Newman.
Tom
Shepherd had increased difficulty concentrating on some of his studies during
his junior high and high school days, in part because he was constantly
terrorized by his classmates during school hours and in part because he was
preoccupied over the fact that he was repeatedly disturbed during the night by
the sounds of loud quarrels between his mother and his abrasive stepfather, who
constantly talk about divorce. During school study hall, Tom spent most of his
time reading encyclopedias. He also served several terms as president of the
Young Peoples Service League at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, where he was an
altar boy. He was appointed citizenship chairman, then president of a Joplin
Council of Churches protestant youth organization.
During
his junior year of high school, Tom attended Missouri Boys State at
Warrensburg. Leo Schrader, who later served in the Missouri House of
Representatives, was his roommate. Both of them, Schrader and Shepherd, passed
the Missouri Boys State bar exam. Both also had previously dated Judy Newman
(class salutatorian) at different times. Tom’s brother, John, had dated Leo
Schrader’s sister during junior high school.
Tom
Shepherd reportedly received more nominations from his teachers than any of the
12 other male students selected to be delegates, although his grade point
average was the lowest. His stepfather committed suicide in May 1955, at the
end of Tom’s junior year. During his senior year of high school Tom was
employed as a stock clerk at Spurgeon’s Book Store. He had previously sack
groceries at Foodtown Supermarket after school hours and on weekends.
Following
high school Tom entered the University of Mexico in Mexico City, where he
received a 3.6 GPA. While in Mexico City, he met his father for the first time.
Ironically, his own father was a volunteer Little League baseball coach for his
son two years younger than Tom and for other peoples’ sons. Because his father,
Dudley E. Blaise, an engineer, and his
grandfather, a well-to-do Tulsa banker and oilman, who was also a Thirty-second
degree Mason, refused to aid him in furthering his studies in architecture, the
following year he enlisted in the Coast Guard.
While
he was serving in the Coast Guard between the ages of 18 and 21, Tom was
repeatedly mentally and physically tortured by his shipmates, as well as by
superior petty officers and officers, then discharged, following two lengthy
hospitalizations in a U.S. government hospital, which torture had actually begun
during Tom’s sophomore year of high school while he was enrolled in the ROTC
program and even before when he was repeatedly victimized or humiliated by his
classmates. He was also preyed on, robbed and battered by aggressive female
hustlers while socializing off-duty at military-approved socialization clubs.
Mr.
Tom Shepherd is seeking $50 million in punitive damages from the City of Joplin
for severe mental distress and public embarrassment he suffered as a result of
a violent and threatening attack on him by Don Smith, a Joplin High School
senior baseball, basketball and football player. The attack took place during a
1953 Veteran’s Day parade, in which Shepherd was required to participate as an
enrollee in the Joplin High School ROTC program. Shepherd was a sophomore.
Smith
became angry and violent because he was cited by an ROTC officer for taking Mr.
Shepherd’s ROTC uniform cap for his own use only minutes prior to an inspection
a few days prior to the Veterans Day parade, when he unleashed his anger on Mr.
Shepherd, rather than on the inspecting officer who cited him. The officer
happened to be the same age as Smith and an outstanding JHS athlete himself, as
well as a fraternity brother of Smith’s. Mr. Shepherd was two years younger
than Smith and of slighter build.
Smith
danced around in front of Mr. Shepherd with his fists clenched in an assault
position, attempting to intimidate and incite Mr. Shepherd by repeatedly
screaming vulgar references to the name of Mr. Shepherd’s mother. Smith also
repeatedly called Mr. Shepherd “yellow” for not engaging in a fistfight with
him, for not swinging back at Smith while in formation during the Veteran’s Day
parade.
Don
Smith also threatened Tom Shepherd with bodily harm to be carried out at a
later date.
Smith was at the time a member of Phi Lambda Epsilon, a
fraternity in which Mr. Shepherd was a pledge. Following the attack on him, Mr.
Shepherd depledged. Other JHS students reported that Smith encouraged them to
harass Mr. Shepherd in the school hallways by calling him “Quitter Shep” merely
because Mr. Shepherd, who was also a pledge in SPQR, the JHS Latin club and
president of the Young Peoples Service League at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church,
depledged the fraternity.
Interestingly
Don Smith was also a senior member of the JHS Hercules Club, of which three of
Tom’s closest childhood companions, Bob Thornhill, Buck Jeans and Jim Dailey were
pledges. It was perhaps because Mr. Shepherd was somewhat awkward and not
particularly good at playing football, basketball or baseball that he was not
invited to pledge the Hercules Club.
The Assault and Battery
Following Smith’s Threats
Following
Don Smith’s intimidation and threats, Mr. Tom Shepherd was repeatedly harassed
and assaulted by other students, most of whom were either pledges of Phi Lambs
or of the Hercules Club, three of whom appeared at the door of his home at 816 Richmond Road one evening. After the front
window of the Shepherd home was pelted with snowballs, Tom Shepherd went to the
front door and looked out the window, when he saw Bob Thornhill, Buck Jeans and
Jim Dailey in front of the house packing together more snowballs. Although Tom
Shepherd was reluctant to open the door, at his mother’s insistence he
opened the front door and invited the three boys in to play ping-pong down in
the basement rec room. However, instead of coming inside, Thornhill accused
Shepherd of being “tied” to his “mother’s apron strings.” Although Tom Shepherd
did not respond to Thornhill’s antagonistic remark, Thornhill grabbed Shepherd
around the neck, pulling him outside, and then knocked Shepherd to the
snow-covered ground, after battering Shepherd about the face.
In the
process Bob Thornhill knocked out Tom Shepherd’s front incisor tooth and
damaged expensive orthodontic work. When Mrs. Shepherd asked the three boys to
phone their parents and tell them what they had done to Tom, the three of them
just stood inside the foyer of the Shepherd home and glowered at her, adamantly
refusing to comply with her request. They then left. Although the Shepherds did
not file aggravated battery charges against the three boys, which would
have most likely resulted in their incarceration at a state correctional
facility, none of the three boys, nor their parents ever
expressed remorse or offered restitution to Tom Shepherd. Although Bob
Thornhill committed the actual battery, both Buck Jeans and Jim Dailey were
accessories to the crime.
Mr.
Shepherd resultantly had to undergo orthodontic repairs the following day for
the injuries he sustained as a result of Thornhill’s apparently premeditated
assault. He subsequently missed classes. Shepherd has also suffered over the
years from a nervous disorder as a direct result of the assault.
Prior
to the assault as his own home, Tom. Shepherd was held hostage in a basement
areaway at the William R. Thurston home on Crest Drive. When he tried to
escape, Jeans and Thornhill stepped on his fingers and spit down on him. Tom
Shepherd was also pushed backwards off of a 4’ high retainer wall around Jeans’
front yard at 629 Islington Place by Bob Thornhill, while Jeans stood by
watching and laughing.
“Buck
and Bob would encourage me to hang out with them after school, and then when
the three of us were alone they would very cunningly humiliate me and batter me
in a variety of different ways,” says Shepherd
During the fall of 1953, Buck Jeans knocked
on Tom Shepherd’s front door and asked Tom to accompany him across the street
to the Roy Coyne yard. Buck Jeans then opened his fly and took his penis out and,
while stroking himself, asked Tom Shepherd to touch his (Buck’s) penis with his
own hand, although Shepherd did not comply with Buck’s request. Buck Jeans then
asked Shepherd to expose himself, which Shepherd also did not do. Tom Shepherd
was very much confused because of the fact that Buck had previously told him
that his own mom, Virginia Jeans, forbade him from playing in the JHS orchestra
because of a rumor she’d heard that Mr. Coulter, the orchestra director, was a
homosexual.
Breck Caldwell, the stepson of Dr. Charles S.
Paddock, had previously (1950) attempted to engage Tom Shepherd in mutual
masturbation at his (Caldwell’s) home, in his bed. Tom was unable to
accommodate Caldwell, as Tom did not have homosexual inclinations. Ironically,
Caldwell attempted to make Tom think something was wrong with him. “What was
WRONG with me,” says Tom, “is that I was not homosexual – I was not sexually
aroused by other males. Yet Caldwell, as well as others, attempted to make me
think there was something wrong with me! How ironic!
Caldwell and others, to include Ross Roberts
and Paul Kingsborough, would later attempt to humiliate Tom Shepherd, as well
as publicly soil the reputation of girls Tom was dating via physical
aggressions (sexual assaults) and offensive verbal innuendoes against Norma Sue
Lewis, Dee Ann Gill, Anne Friedheim and Elsa Newman (daughter of Albert Newman)
and other girls Tom dated.
Jeans
and Thornhill were present on another occasion when Malcolm (Mike) L. Robertson
(who was later appointed a judge, then general counsel for the Joplin school
district) swam up behind Tom Shepherd at the Twin Hills Country Club swimming
pool and pulled Tom’s swim trunks off of him from behind. Robertson then jumped
out of the pool, holding Tom’s swim trunks in his hand, forcing Tom to exit the
pool naked in order to claim his trunks. Jeans and Thornhill stood by giggling
at Tom as he exited the pool.
It also
should be pointed out that a couple of days before the assault in the doorway
of Tom Shepherd’s home, Jeans and Thornhill came to the Shepherd home in search
of beer, although they had never been served beer by any member of the Shepherd
family. They claimed they had a bet going that they would find beer in the
Shepherds’ refrigerator. When Tom Shepherd explained to them that they did not
have any beer, the two of them very rudely insisted in looking inside the
Shepherd family’s refrigerator. There was no beer in it. Tom Shepherd’s
stepfather, Charles M. Shepherd, had been attending AA meetings since his
treatment for alcoholism at Robinson’s Sanitarium in Kansas City six months
before. However, following the assault and battery by Thornhill, Tom Shepherd’s
stepfather started drinking again, resulting in his resignation as treasurer of
the Empire District Electric Power Company a month later and in his suicide a
year later.
The
psychological scars resulting from the aforementioned traumatic events have had
a lifelong deleterious effect on Tom Shepherd.
After
Thornhill, Jeans and Dailey left the Shepherd home on the evening of the
assault and battery, Tom Shepherd’s stepfather, Charles Shepherd, began
berating his stepson for not fighting back. He also began berating Tom’s mother
merely for standing up for her son. Tom’s mother resultantly filed a petition
with her attorney, Roy Coyne, for separate maintenance, after which Charles
Shepherd resigned as treasurer of the Empire District Electric Co., then
disappeared, hiding in an Episcopal Monastery. After he returned home, because
he continued to berate Tom, Tom’s mother filed for divorce in May 1955. A
couple weeks later, Charles Shepherd’s body was recovered from the East River
in New York City, where he had gone on a business trip.
Two years later
(during the summer of 1956), following their graduation from Western Military
Academy, offender Bob Thornhill and offender Buck Jeans (and Bill Thurston)
were apprehended by the Joplin police for stealing hubcaps from other Joplin
citizens while Tom Shepherd was attending college at University of Mexico in
Mexico City.
Jeans
was the son of Virginia and Dr. Virgil Jeans. Thornhill was the son of Thelma
and Cecil Thornhill, operators of the Thornhill-Dillon Mortuary. Dailey, who
was later acclaimed as an all-star basketball player, was the son
of Al Dailey, a home furnishings department manager for Newman’s Department
Store.
It was later speculated that Thornhill, Jeans and Dailey were
suffering from a bad case of sour grapes over the fact that the Shepherd
brothers, Tom and John, both took awards in the 1953 Twin Hills Junior Golf
Tournament, whereas neither Thornhill nor Jeans nor Dailey took any award,
although they were participants in the tournament. Tom and John were honored in
two different news stories appearing in the Joplin Globe in October 1953, one
containing a photo of the award winners. Incidentally, Bob Thornhill’s mother,
Thelma Thornhill, and Buck Jean’s mother, Virginia Jeans, were members of the
Junior Golf board of directors that season. Art Wadkins was the golf pro at the
time. Tom Shepherd took an award as Most Improved Golfer of the Season.
Bob
Thornhill and Buck Jeans and another other boy, Billy Thurston, had previously
grabbed Mr. Shepherd and then unzipped the fly of Mr. Shepherd’s jeans, while
fondling his penis in the presence of two younger females, Mary Thurston and
Nancy Gaines (Nancy Gaines’ mother was previously married to actor Bob
Cummings). Dailey had previously thrown a softball at Mr. Shepherd, hitting him
in the mouth, prior to the beginning of a softball game in the backyard of the
Arthur Christman home, while Mr. Shepherd was looking the other way. It was not
accident, says Tom Shepherd, as Dailey did not demonstrate any form of shock or
concern over the fact that he had hit Shepherd in the face, nor did he apologize.
“Dailey merely displayed a smirk on his own face, apparently pleased at the
outcome of his violent, antisocial behavior,” says Shepherd.
“It is reasonable for me to assume that all of my assailants were severely
disturbed sadists. Although they all apparently obtained immense gratification
from the various sadistic methods they used to molest and batter me, they
apparently became increasingly angry over the fact that I did not respond to
their numerous attempts to rile me up or to engage me in sex,” says Mr.
Shepherd. “By the time I was a sophomore in high school, I had been a victim of
abuse so many, many times that I was numb, emotionally blocked. I had from the
age of 12 learned at the abusive hands of my own stepfather, who emptied his
bottle of beer over my head, to never again complain about anyone’s abuse of me
or to even attempt to defend myself, lest I be abused even more. It seemed I
had no one on my ball team.”
Mr.
Shepherd is seeking $5 million damages from Malcolm L. Robertson, for attacking
him from behind in a Twin Hills Country Club swimming pool and pulling his swim
trunks off him, then taking them with him, forcing Shepherd to climb out of the
pool naked in the presence of females sitting by the pool, while Jeans and
Thornhill stood by giggling along with Robertson. After Tom Shepherd reported
the facts to Robertson’s mother and others, Robertson maligned Shepherd by
calling him a liar. He is seeking an additional $5 million from Twin Hills
Country Club for not having hired a more responsible lifeguard. Later photo of swim jock Tom.
Mr.
Shepherd claims that Ross T. Roberts (who was later appointed a federal judge
by President Reagan) stalked and verbally harassed him and his girlfriend, Miss
Elsa Newman, with sexually explicit inflammatory remarks while they were dating
during their teenage years, repeatedly taunting them by asking Tom, “Do you
have the necessary six inches?” Because Tom and Elsa ignored Ross by moving
away from him, Ross continued to stalk them while accusing Tom of being “too
serious.”
On still another occasion, during the summer
of 1952, while Tom Shepherd was going steady with Norma Sue Lewis, a student at
St. Peter’s parochial school, Paul Kingsborough and some other boys suggested
that because Jim Dailey allegedly had more ‘pubic hair’ than Tom, that he
should be with Norma Sue instead of Tom. Thus, Kingsborough and the other boys
persuaded Jim Dailey to abduct Tom’s girlfriend Norma by taking her into the
bushes and mauling her for the primary purpose of humiliating Tom. “It was not
a joke, “ says Tom Shepherd.
“If you don’t think that particular occasion
significantly damaged my psyche, you are dead wrong! I highly resent the fact
that others have attempted to minimize the degree of trauma I absorbed as a
result of the ongoing sexual abuse initiated by Ross Roberts, Paul
Kingsborough, Jim Dailey, Buck Jeans and others. In my book, they are ALL sex offenders,”
says Shepherd.
“Prior to depledging Phi Lambda Epsilon
fraternity, I was repeatedly subjected to humiliation by members when alone
with them. While shining a flashlight in my face in a dark cellar at the
Perkins home, the members, all of them Joplin High School varsity jocks, asked
me extremely inappropriate questions about my experiences with the females I
had dated. They wanted intimate details. They wanted to know if I had ever “had
any titty” and if I’d ever had any ”pussy.” They also asked me if I was a
virgin. They then told me they were going to get me ‘a piece of ass,’ a piece
of nigger pussy,” as Charlie Perkins put it. The Phi Lamb members
psychologically raped me through their brainwashing process. They then
regularly and repeatedly beat me on my rear end with a board “for general
principles.’ How manly of them! What they actually did was commit multiple
batteries on me,“ says Tom Shepherd.
‘’The City of Joplin is an unsafe place for children to grow up,”
says Mr. Tom. Shepherd. “People like Jim Dailey and Don Smith, coddled
athletes, generally get away with virtual murder while their victims are
typically treated with indifference and even scorned or laughed at, as I was,
merely for acting responsible. When I later, following the death of my mother
20 years later, explained to Don Smith’s wife what he did to me, she just
laughed in my face, saying, ‘Why Don was just a little guy!’ She herself
offended me with her remark! Although I was two years younger than Smith, size
was not the issue. With his fists clinched, Smith attempted to incite me to
violence by repeatedly calling my mother a “bitch,” while insisting that I
swing at him, that I hit him. Then he repeatedly called me “yellow” for failing
to swing at him.
“As for
Don Smith, he should have been placed in a military brig, then expelled from
Joplin High School and stripped of all athletic accolades for attacking me. Smith
had no moral scruples. He took my hat so that I would receive a demerit for
being out of uniform instead of he, and then afterwards threatened, intimidated
and demoralized me merely for explaining to the inspecting officer why I myself
was without a cap, why I was out of uniform.
Quite
obviously, Don Smiths’ wife has no more moral integrity than Smith himself.
Jeans and Thornhill Were
Insanely Jealous,
Yet Viciously and Calculating Cruel
“One more point needs to be made. I went out for B football
my sophomore year because my closest companions and neighbors, Buck Jeans and Bob
Thornhill, encouraged me, although I was not particularly interested in or even
good at playing football. However, neither of them was much better than I was
at the sport. Although the coaches did let me play for a few seconds in one
game, I did not quit. I suited out until the end of the season. Yet both
Jeans and Thornhill quit the football team early, when they learned from Coach
Belk that they were not going to “letter.” Both of them betrayed me by turning
on me, most probably because Don Smith encouraged them to do so while they were
pledges in Hercules Club and neither of them had the integrity to say No
to Smith, as I did.
Although
neither Jeans nor Thornhill pledged Phi Lambs, Thornhill had the nerve to call me
“Quitter Shep” in the JHS hallway after I depledged Phi Lambs and after he
assaulted and battered me in the doorway of my home. I was more of a man than any
of them, and I still am, as none of them has ever acknowledged his wrongdoing
or even offered an apology!
“The old adage that sports builds
character is a myth! I don’t consider Smith, Robertson, Dailey, Jeans or
Thornhill to have any more character or to be any more moral or to be any
different in their sexual makeup than a serial killer of the likes of John
Wayne Gacy Jr. Both Smith and Thornhill should have been required to make
public apologies and restitution to me for their anti-social acts against me.
As for the irresponsible parents of all of those boys, they should have been
required to pay me compensatory damages 50 years ago! The compounded
interest on the long overdue compensation is considerable!
“Some people may have forgotten that the front door of JHS Vice
Principal Roy Greer’s home was riddled with bullets by unknowns following Don
Smith’s threats against me during the Veteran’s Day parade and following
Thornhill’s crime of aggravated battery. Roy Greer had been apprised in a
letter written by Shepherd’s mom of the violent attack on Shepherd in the
doorway of the Shepherd home by Bob Thornhill, who was accompanied by Jeans and
Dailey at the time.”
Although
no member of the Jeans, Thornhill or Dailey families ever made any form of
apology to Tom Shepherd, nor did they offer any form of restitution, the
parents of Buck Jeans and Bob Thornhill disenrolled them from JHS (following
complaints made by the Shepherd family) and enrolled them at Western Military
Academy the following year. Following their graduation from Western, both Buck
Jeans and Bob Thornhill were arrested by Joplin police for stealing hubcaps
from other neighbors while Tom Shepherd was attending college in Mexico City.
Tom Shepherd was hospitalized in three
different psychiatric hospitals during his 3-year service with the United
States Coast Guard, and then discharged for a psychiatric disability, for his
reaction to ongoing sexual abuse by his childhood classmates, as well as by his
Coast Guard shipmates and civilians. The memories of the ongoing, unrelenting
trauma he endured during his junior high and high school years eventually
produced a schizophrenic breakdown while he was serving his country. The post traumatic stressful memories have
interfered with Tom Shepherd’s ability to concentrate and to cope with
day-to-day living problems.
Tom Shepherd is an alumnus of the American
Academy of Dramatic Arts and of the Graduate College of the University of
Oklahoma, where he majored in regional and city planning.
Tom Shepherd worked
as an assistant planning director for the Ozark Gateway Regional Planning
Commission and Law Enforcement Assistance Council from 1971 to 1972. Note:
Ozark Gateway was reorganized in 1990 and renamed Harry S. Truman Coordinating
Council. Mr. Shepherd was wrongfully terminated by executive director Jack
L. Williams merely for complaining about and for reacting to incessant sexual
harassment by Jack Williams himself, as well as by the office secretary, the
office bookkeeper and his supervisor, Dr. Mary Megee, planning director. Since
Ozark Gateway did not pay unemployment compensation and because Jack Williams
lied to others regarding the actual circumstances that existed at Ozark
Gateway, Tom Shepherd drifted into a borderline-homeless, schizophrenic nomadic
existence for years thereafter. In 1986 he was awarded Supplementary Security
Income, a minimum subsistence allowance.
Tom Shepherd, who is
now 71+ years old, is still seeking compensatory and punitive damages from the
City of Joplin, as well as from the Veteran’s Administration and the Department
of Defense.
Tom (Blaise) Shepherd
performed as an actor in a film titled Police Procedures, produced in
1973. He also is the founder of the Shepherd-Montessori Institute. He is a
great great grandson of Hungarian and American statesman and jurist Ignace
Hainer, a professor of modern languages at University of Missouri.
Tom (Blaise) Shepherd is a grandson of Tulsa
banker, mining engineer and oilman E.F. Blaise, and of Joplin bus line founder
John Abbott Benham Snyder. Snyder was one of the first members of the Joplin
Rotary Club, of the Joplin Chamber of Commerce and a charter member of Twin
Hills (Oak Hills) Country Club. Tom Shepherd was a brother of John Snyder Shepherd (JHS Class of 1955). He is
a son of Clara Olive Snyder Shepherd, Joplin civic leader. He is a stepson of
Charles M. Shepherd, former treasurer of the Empire District Electric Co.,
prior to committing suicide in 1955, one year after the assault on Tom
Shepherd.
Tom
Shepherd blames Bob Thornhill, Buck Jeans, Jim Dailey, the parents of the three
boys and Frank Shelton and Shelton’s stepson and stepdaughter, Charles Keeter
and Susan Keeter, for the suicide of Charles Shepherd in May 1955 and for the
ongoing post traumatic stress that Tom Shepherd himself has had to deal with
for over 50 years.
Birthday Party 1943 or 44 (photo)
Above: Tom and
Brother John Blaise and Friends at
Grandmother
Snyder’s Home (412 N. Moffet Ave.)
Note that Bob Thonhill
is one of guests.
Tom
Shepherd and ‘Friends’ Celebrating Birthday 1950
Thornhill, Jeans and Dailey are guests
Shepherd Family Home at 816 Richmond Road
Age 15 – Just Prior to Abduction
1955 JHS
Military Ball
click to enter Shepherd Chapel of the Sea and Sky click to view
Founded
by Tom Shepherd in memory of John Shepherd
October 28, 1975
Richard M. Webster,
32nd District
To Whom It May Concern:
It is my pleasure to introduce Mr.
Thomas Mitchell Blaise Shepherd.
I have known Mr. Shepherd for many years, and have known
his family for three generations. His reputation, and that of his family, has
been excellent down through the years.
After graduating from the University of Oklahoma, Mr.
Shepherd completed a year of graduate study in the Department of Regional
and City Planning at that University. I had an opportunity to observe his
work while he was employed as an urban planner with the Ozark Gateway
Regional Planning Commission in Joplin. I found that his work product was
excellent and he had a particularly satisfactory way of meeting with the public
and dealing with most difficult problems.
His publication The Investor’s Handbook on Mexico
is recognized as an outstanding working tool for persons interested in
investments in that country. The work particularly demonstrates his ability as
a research writer.
I would appreciate any courtesy that would be extended to
Mr. Shepherd.
Yours very truly,
Richard M. Webster
Senator, 32nd District
Ozark Gateway Regional Planning
Commission
(Serving Barton, Jasper, Newton
and McDonald Counties)
Note: Ozark
Gateway was reorganized in 1990 and renamed Harry S. Truman Coordinating
Council, 211 S. Main St., Joplin, MO64801
Harry S. Truman Coordinating
Council of Governments
Webb City, Missouri
Asperger’s Syndrome
Asperger’s syndrome is a
condition characterized by some of the features of autism, such as withdrawal
from social interaction and repetitive and stereotyped interests and
activities, but without the degree of delay in language and cognitive
development that is seen in true autism. Physical injury during childbirth may
predispose an individual to autism. Also, mental and physical trauma from
accidents or abuse or as a result of separation from a parent during any point
of one’s childhood can set the stage for autistic or schizophrenic behavior. It
is known that autistic children may be oversensitive or undersensitive to
sounds. Sometimes they act as if they were deaf, but at other times they
startle at relatively ordinary sounds.
Typically, boys with Asperger’s syndrome
often have great difficulty with eye-hand coordination, finding themselves
unable to throw a ball straight or to catch a ball. Although they have either
normal or above average intelligence and often possess an excellent vocabulary,
they commonly fail to readily grasp the humor in another person’s joke. They
also have difficulty interacting in non-structured social situations, either
remaining mute or else dominating and restricting the conversation to one of
their own special interests. Children with Asperger’s syndrome often exhibit
limited or focused interest in unusual subjects such as astronomy, or
activities such as doing intricate jigsaw puzzles, designing houses or drawing
highly detailed scenes. As a result of their atypical personalities, they
frequently find themselves to be objects of bullying by their classmates.
Because male brains develop more slowly than
female brains (on the average by about three year), and because the incidence
of autism is far more common in males than in females (4 to 1), children
characterized as having Asperger’s syndrome are viewed by some experts as
having an “extreme male brain.” Interestingly, such individuals often surpass
their peers in one or two areas of development by the time they reach the age
of 25, yet they tend to be very one-sided, perhaps demonstrating genius-like
ability in certain areas of expertise. They tend to be loners. World-renowned
physicist Albert Einstein is believed to have suffered from Asperger’s
syndrome. His son Eduard, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, may have
actually been suffering from Asperger’s syndrome.
read
Weaving the Web of Schizophrenia
http://www.surfingman10.org/weavingthewebofschizophrenia.html
