Unpardonable Sins

The day after a fresh snowfall in a small New England town, Robert McQueeney boundled up his four and a half year old sone and three yoear old daughter and took them tobogganing.

He lovingly remembers his sone, frightened, but determined, riding the toboggan down the hill by himself for the first time. Three weeks later, McQueeney was in handcuffs, accused by his estranged wife and a therapist of raping his son on the same weekend that he had gently coaxed him to make his first toboggan ride. After two house in a jail cell, McQueeney was released on $5,000 bond.

His parents brought him home in a daze. He faced up to forty years in prison. During the next two and one half years, McQueeney spent nearly every cent her had and his parents sold their home in order to defend him.

Finally the case came to trial. Not only was he found innocent, but the jury cheered and hugged him after the verdict. McQueeney's ordeal illustrates what happens when a nation is caught in the grips of two equally heinous crimes: the first is an innocent child molested, the second is an innocent adult arrested.

The psychological repercussions of both unpardonable sins are devastating.