The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Decades after alleged sexual assault by teacher, Conn. woman comes forward
Anna felt “special” when she met Pamela Goodpaster. Then a sophomore at Joel Barlow High School in the mid-1970s, Anna remembers being unwittingly drawn to an exclusive “entourage” of student-athletes who were invited to the home of Goodpaster, a teacher and coach at the Redding high school, on the weekends. Goodpaster, in her 20s, would also give the students rides home from campus during the week.
Anna, whose real name is being withheld to protect her identity given her allegations of sexual assault, and a few other students followed Goodpaster around, idolizing her throughout their high school careers, she recalled. Anna eventually made the “inner circle,” where she says Goodpaster showered her with even more attention – inviting her over to her house on the weekends. This led to Goodpaster letting Anna stay over, she said, and touching her in “affectionate” ways.
A pattern of inappropriate sexual contact began following Anna’s sophomore year after she turned 16, she said, and would continue through graduation.
Today, decades after Anna graduated from Barlow, her feelings about Goodpaster are far different.
“Seeing her picture makes me physically nauseous,” said Anna.
Ashamed of her experience, Anna kept the alleged details of her encounters with Goodpaster – including Goodpaster pulling over her car while driving Anna home to “fondle and molest” her and Anna spending many nights in Goodpaster’s bed – largely a secret for decades. Meanwhile, Goodpaster’s career advanced, eventually being inducted into the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference Hall of Honor, a recognition reserved for elite athletes, coaches and administrators.
But in 2020, Anna came forward and her inquiry prompted an investigation
that was conducted by an attorney hired by the local school board. Then-school superintendent Rydell Harrison also made the local police chief aware of allegations that Anna had been “sexually assaulted during the summer following her sophomore year and continuing through graduation.”
“My difficulties as an adult are directly related to Ms. Goodpaster’s abuse,” she wrote in an email that prompted the investigation. “Years of therapy, difficulty with relationships, underlying depression and unhappiness are all part of surviving sexual abuse. I continue to experience all of it.”
The investigation, concluded in 2021, determined Goodpaster “engaged in inappropriate conduct with a student in the 1970’s.” Police did not take action without a formal complaint filed by the victim and because of the number of years that had passed.
It was not until the 1990s that the state passed a law that considered any sexual contact between a student and a school employee sexual assault. State law considers a relationship between an adult and 15-year-old to be illegal, while 16 is the age of consent.
A Freedom of Information Act request for documents associated with the investigation yielded only three records: a copy of a letter sent by Anna to the CIAC alerting the organization to allegations of an inappropriate relationship, a message from the then-school superintendent to the local police chief and a letter from the superintendent to Anna.
Documents with findings and conclusions do not exist according to past and present school district superintendents, but Harrison said in a 2021 public meeting there was enough evidence in the investigation, conducted by a lawyer, to conclude Anna’s allegations were accurate.
“As part of his investigation, the investigator for the district interviewed the alum who reported inappropriate conduct by Ms. Goodpaster. The investigator concluded that the alum was credible,” Harrison, the superintendent when the investigation was conducted in 2021, said in an email. Harrison resigned at the end of the 2021 school year for other opportunities.
“As part of the investigation, our attorney spoke with the complainant and also the respondent, which would have been Ms. Goodpaster, in order to determine the level of credibility of the complaint,” Harrison continued.
That student, Anna, spoke with Hearst Connecticut about her experience at Barlow with Goodpaster and the long-term effects it had on her.
Goodpaster could not be reached for comment, despite several attempts to reach her over the last year. Her honoraria at the high school, including a scholarship for community service named in her honor, and place in the CIAC hall of honor have since been stripped.
The investigation
Anna had been speaking with her adult daughter in 2020, discussing overprotective parents. It was then that Anna said she felt it was the right time to bring up her past, discussing her history with Goodpaster for the first time with her daughter.
That conversation led to Anna’s daughter looking up Goodpaster online, leading her to learn about Goodpaster being honored by the CIAC in 2017. Anna remembers her daughter asking what she was going to do about it.
Anna wrote an email to Glenn Lungarini, the executive director of the CIAC, through the organization’s website about the conduct in mid-November of 2020, telling Hearst Connecticut she was inspired by the #MeToo movement. Still, she expected nothing to come from it.
“Ms. Goodpaster was my gym teacher and also my gymnastic, volleyball, and tennis coach starting when I was a sophomore,” she wrote. “Ms. Goodpaster paid a lot of attention to me. I met her the first day of gym class when she challenged me to a hurdle race after school. I accepted the challenge. The attention I received from her increased daily and before long I was invited to her house on the weekends. By the end of my sophomore year, I was spending every day and most weekends with Ms. Goodpaster. She invited me to a summer camp in New Hampshire for 10 weeks which I accepted.”
Anna said she had a tough home life that made her vulnerable to Goodpaster. She said her mother was overwhelmed caring for her family, which led to a hostile home life and a distant relationship between them at the time.
Anna went on to state that Goodpaster “invited me into her bed and into a years-long intimate relationship from which I felt powerless. I spent almost every night that summer in her bed,” in the email. She added that Goodpaster would drive her home and sometimes pull over to “fondle me and molest me.”
“Ms. Goodpaster took advantage of my young, naive emotional state. I was lonely, scared, vulnerable and trusting,” she wrote in the email. “This was a devastating violation of my wellbeing, trust, and normal high school life. Ms. Goodpaster’s sexual misconduct stole my high school years from me and continues to overwhelm my evasive happiness to this day.”
Anna accused other teachers of knowing the relationship was ongoing, but added she chose to not come forward or even address it publicly as an adult.
“I would have brought this to someone’s attention sooner if I didn’t feel such shame and guilt,” she wrote.
Lungarini forwarded the email to Harrison shortly after, who opened an investigation. When asked if the emails between ER-9, the CIAC and the complainant, Anna, were considered as part of the investigation, Harrison said they were and helped determine the validity of the claim, resulting in the removal of Goodpaster’s honoraria at the school.
Harrison filed an “oral report” with the state Department of Children and Families (DCF) and alerted Redding police to the accusation two days later. DCF was unable to disclose any information about the complaint because it involved information under its child protection records, which are non-disclosable under state law, a department spokesperson said.
Harrison also sent the email to Redding police chief Mark O’Donnell, stating that a former Joel Barlow High School student alleged that she was sexually assaulted by Goodpaster following her sophomore year through graduation and that despite Goodpaster no longer working within the district, he felt it was important to share the information.
“I don’t anticipate DCF taking action since the alleged victim is no longer a minor, so I wanted to be sure I notified you as well,” Harrison said in the email to Redding police. “Given the sensitive nature of the allegations and the fact that Ms. Goodpaster worked at JBHS for over 40 years, I wanted to be sure that I report this information directly to you.”
O’Donnell said his department documented what Harrison sent but has not investigated because nobody lodged a formal complaint and because of the statute of limitations. The statute of limitations for sexual assault is hinged on three things under Connecticut law – the victim’s age, if there is DNA evidence and the specific crime in question. He added that the victim did not have any interest in filing a complaint, which Anna confirmed.
“Right now it’s an accusation from a former student from the ‘70s against the former athletic director,” O’Donnell said in an interview. “It’s just an accusation. We don’t know if it happened on school grounds, at a house, any of that stuff, it’s just that she wanted to make light of it and she [Goodpaster] wasn’t the person she was portrayed as.”
A letter
Before confronting the CIAC, Anna sent Goodpaster a certified letter in the mail in July 2020 seeking acknowledgement and accountability. The letter was shared with Hearst Connecticut and a source close to the investigation confirmed the letter’s details.
Anna said she wrote about how the alleged assault has burdened her for decades, making her life “unbearable.” Anna even recounted how her pain and resentment pushed her to try and take her own life one night.
“As stories of betrayal of trust and sexual abuse play out around the world, the reminders of what you did to me are constant,” she said in the letter.
“The churn in my gut and my head were unbearable. You stole years from my life,” she added. “You hurt me in ways that I can’t articulate because the hurt is so deep and part of my DNA.”
Goodpaster responded to her in September with a two-paragraph letter that Hearst Connecticut obtained a copy of from Anna. Sources close to the school investigation confirmed both Goodpaster and Anna acknowledged receiving and sending letters, which were discussed with the investigator, although a physical copy of the letter was never collected by the district.
“The envelope did not have a return address so I searched the internet for your address and hope that this letter reaches you,” Goodpaster wrote to Anna.
“I would like to meet with you at your convenience. Perhaps it would be helpful to have a counselor present, one that specializes in sexual abuse. I will pick up the cost and can find a counselor if you wish.”
The two, however, never met up.
‘Stigmatized into silence’
It’s been decades since Anna has attended Barlow, but the impact from her years there remains.
Reflecting on it in the email to the CIAC, Anna wrote that Goodpaster “took advantage of my young emotional state. I was lonely, scared, vulnerable and trusting.” Anna said in an interview she was the “neediest” of the girls that clung to Goodpaster because her home life and being made fun of at school made her vulnerable.
“I think she smelled it like a pitbull at the first scent of blood,” she said.
Jessica Eckstein – professor of communication studies and director of women’s studies at Western Connecticut State University — speaking in general, said it is “exceedingly difficult” for a victim to come forward about their abuse because they often face “institutional re-victimization” when speaking out – things such as people questioning why they weren’t more careful or why they didn’t say anything sooner.
“Most people probably tell someone (usually someone close to them) very soon after it occurs. But for whatever reason, it stops there,” she said.
It’s not a matter of people not speaking up, but rather us not hearing about it because they’ve either been “stigmatized into silence” about it or don’t have sufficient support, Eckstein explained.
“There’s also an assumption that — even if they did come forward and put up with all the official, legal and social obstacles to their experience — these victims should be ‘moving on’ after a specific period of time,” she said. “We assume they should/ would be ‘over it’ if they tried hard enough... which is obviously false.”
Summer camp
The summer she turned 16, following her sophomore year, Anna traveled to a summer camp Camp Robindel – in New Hampshire with Goodpaster. She would attend again after her junior year of high school.
Goodpaster was the head counselor at Robindel and brought Anna along as a counselor in training the first year. The camp remains in existence, although officials working there now did not comment on the 1970s allegations having not been around at the time.
At the camp, Anna said she felt homesick and isolated. When she felt alone she would go to the head cabin – Goodpaster’s sleeping cabin and office – and sit on the steps.
“She always invited me in. I can remember sitting on her couch, and she invited me into her bed,” Anna said. “And she woke me up in the middle of the night and started getting sexual.”
When she laid in Goodpaster’s bed during the middle of the night, Anna said she stared off into the distance at a red light on the PA system in the cabin.
“It’s like watching a fire when it’s dark out,” she said. “You just keep staring at it.”
She stared at the red light until the morning sun rose and it was all over.
But even when camp was over and Anna returned from Robindel, she said the abuse persisted and she believed others knew what was happening.
Nat Greenfield, who was the camp director at the time, recalled Goodpaster serving as head counselor, running programs and hiring staff. He said he was not aware of any issues at the time but had since heard about the school board’s investigation through a former camper and staff member.
“I never received any complaints in particular [about Goodpaster]. She was a very good employee,” he said.
Even after Anna graduated, she said Goodpaster continued to contact her. Anna added that Goodpaster occasionally reached out to her during her freshman year of college, but eventually the calls stopped coming.
One former teacher who lived with Goodpaster in the 1970s neither confirmed nor denied if she knew about the misconduct, but was surprised at hearing Goodpaster’s honoraria was revoked due to inappropriate conduct with a student.
Angela Marshall, a Barlow alumna from the 70s who was part of the entourage she called “Goodie’s kids,” said Goodpaster was never inappropriate with her but knew she was with at least Anna.
“It was something as kids we always knew something was happening but we had never talked about it,” she said.
She remembered sleeping over at Goodpaster’s and Anna was the only one who would sleep in Goodpaster’s bedroom during the night.
“I feel bad that as a child, I didn’t have a voice to speak up and challenge what I saw going on. I just didn’t have that voice,” she added.
Long-term impact on Anna
Even as Anna went on to marry, have children and solidify a career, the damage she suffered as a teenager infiltrated her evolving life, she said.
She felt guilt and shame. She became confused about her sexuality and struggled with relationships. She blamed herself for years until she finally realized it wasn’t her fault.
“It was her taking advantage of her position to overpower me with her influence,” Anna said.
“The 70s was a different time. There was no awareness of the damage of sexual misconduct. In teacher-student situations, there were no laws. There was no mandatory reporting. It wasn’t on their radar,” she added. “If it happened, it happened. Nobody seemed to care.”
Eckstein said it’s possible the effects of sexual assault never go away but become merely “managed” over time. The effects manifest in a variety of ways from physical marks to posttraumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety to longterm identity attacks.
Anna said telling her story has not been ill-willed. She did not intend to ruin Goodpaster’s life or reputation, but rather wanted to free herself of the burden she’s been carrying.
“She was a legend, and for good reason,” Anna said, adding that most had no idea what was going on after school hours.
“It was more than just locker room stuff, pats on the back or saying something out of turn, or spending time on the weekends having fun with people. I meant physical violation and put me in emotional turmoil for a good long while that revisited me to this day.”