A Florida teenager gathered proof showing she was sexually abused following police rejection of her claims.
When her great uncle and adopted father, Henry Cadle of Lakeland, Florida, began sexually abusing her, Taylor Cadle contacted the police. Cadle, aged 13, was charged with lying to authorities instead of being arrested in cuffs.
“What did I do for you to punish me?” Cadle, now an adult, asks in a PBS NewsHour episode that aired on Tuesday, Oct. 29.
The particular information that journalist Rachel de Leon discovered during creating the Emmy Award-winning Center for Investigative Reporting and Netflix documentary Victim/Suspect: hundreds of claimed victims nationwide who report sexual assaults often end up getting arrested themselves for lying to authorities.
After spending a year and a half in foster care, Cadle was adopted by Henry and his wife, de Leon says. Per de Leon, she left living with her mother when she was seven years old.
Uncertain of what to do, Cadle listened to her adopted mother’s advise to plea guilty “and get it over with,” she told De Leon.
She was sentenced to probation following her guilty plea for providing false information to a law enforcement official, according to court records The Ledger reported.
Working for more than 20 years to defend victims of child abuse, Florida State Sen. Lauren Book is worried that Cadle had no support system to get through her tragedy.
Book notes in the special, “Where was a person for Taylor?”
De Leon wrote, “Determined to prove Henry was abusing her, Cadle took pictures during a subsequent attack, photographing an empty condom box, a clock inside his vehicle and the suspect himself walking outside of the truck.”
When Cadle reported what she said Henry had done to her to the authorities in 2017, she had evidence. The Ledger said 2019 saw him sentenced to 17 years in jail for sexual battery of a juvenile.
PBS News Hour documents her accusations being reversed.
De Leon or PEOPLE did not reply to statements made by the investigator who questioned Cadle and had her jailed for allegedly lying to police and Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd.
For Cadle, she hopes her narrative will inspire other young victims of child abuse.
Regarding the authorities she ran across that let her down, she adds, “I want them to understand what they did and to clearly see where they messed up, to truly see what happened and fix it. Because no child should ever have to go through anything that I went through.”