Authorities won’t give basic details about sex assault at South Heidelberg mental hospital

by Steve Reinbrecht

I want to know more about a sex assault reported last week at Wernersville State Hospital. That’s a serious crime, especially at an institution, run by the state Department of Human Services, that treats residents from the region with serious, persistent mental illness. 

But officials are mum.

People who live near the hospital in South Heidelberg deserve to know what is happening there. I want to know that residents are safe and being cared for properly and that state tax-funded programs are being managed carefully. Officials should want to prevent rumors by providing facts authoritatively to the public, so folk don’t rely on scurrilous Facebook posts and blogs like this one.

Details were scarce in the Reading Eagle story Sunday. A female victim said she was fondled for several minutes about 4:30 p.m. Thursday, the Eagle reported.

That the newspaper calls the victim a “female” suggests she is a child. If she were 18 or older, why not write “woman”? Of course, the Eagle does love cop-speak.

The state police are handling it, South Heidelberg Police Chief Barry Whitmoyer said. The state police will not release more information until the investigation is over, Trooper David Beohm, a state police spokesman, told me. That could be a week, two weeks, a month, six months or a year, he said.

Should residents be worried about a sex molester loose in the area, I asked. No, Beohm said, if that were the case, state police would have released a description. So they have a suspect?

They never release suspect information.

Hospital CEO Shirley Sowizral referred questions to the state Department of Human Services office. In response to my message, department Director of Communications Kait Gillis sent this in an e-mail Monday:

“The department takes all allegations seriously and we are cooperating with authorities on the investigation.”

She spoke to me Tuesday, saying that only the state police could release details.

I called the state police’s Office of Press and Public Information in Harrisburg. The woman who answered said troopers never release more facts until the investigation is over. When I asked why, she said it was the rules. Are the rules in writing? I asked. They are not public, she said. When I asked her name, she said “Diane.” When I asked her last name, she hung up.

So here we have Diane, Beohm, Gillis and Sowizral – three public-relations officials and the other a CEO, all paid with state tax dollars -- but none can give even basic facts about a sex crime in a state institution. In fact, they all seemed surprised that someone would ask these simple questions.

I’m not looking for the victim's or the fondler's names. I’d like to know at least whether the victim was a resident or staff member, and whether the attacker is a resident or staff member. Police should have nailed that down by now.

Wouldn’t these officials expect calls from reporters about an event such as this and have some answers ready? No, they know the media have become toothless, ceding power over information to the people in power. That lets people we're paying to provide us with information stonewall us with impunity.