[APPLAUSE]
Child molester or pedophile--
words that mean the same.
Both words spar fear and anger in us.
Experts estimate that there are 4
million pedophiles, or child molesters,
in the United States.
Recent headlines have focused on a shocking story of child
molestation in a part of the country many might have thought
was immune from such horrors.
[MUSIC - "MEET ME IN MONTANA"]
(SINGING) In Montana--
OPRAH WINFREY: Nestled on the slopes of the Continental
Divide, Boulder, Montana is a ruggedly traditional community.
It is the image of the American West come to life, with horses
nearly everywhere and enough cows and cowboys
to make this place look like an ad for a Marlboro commercial.
But the 1,200 people who live here are not cardboard cutouts.
[CHURCH BELLS RINGING]
They are real, honest people clinging
to the conservative values which have allowed this community
to endure, but those values did not prepare
this community for the horror which has
shaken its very foundation--
a 30-year history of pedophilia in its school system.
It's pretty hard when you're raised in Montana to cope
with these kind of things.
Maybe if I'd have been raised in California,
I could have handled it better.
OPRAH WINFREY: It is especially hard when the perpetrator is
an award-winning teacher, much loved in the community,
as Douglas Marks was.
RON JESSOP: I did like the guy.
I didn't like what he did.
And Doug Marks was a great teacher.
There's no doubt about it.
And people did not want to recognize
the fact that he did this.
He would buy kids athletic shoes
that needed them for school or if they needed a coat.
He would take them on trips.
I've been told that he's even helped pay
for students' college expenses.
Nearly everything he did-- all the way from painting
of the school in the summertime to helping kids out with
new pairs of basketball shoes--
was for the ultimate end of his own sexual gratification.
That's my opinion.
OPRAH WINFREY: In a plea bargain,
Marks pled guilty to four separate counts of child
molestation, but the actual toll of victims
could be much higher.
County Attorney Rich Llewellyn, at the sentencing,
stated that he has established 45 people
who he believes to be victims.
Victims in the community themselves
estimate there could be hundreds of victims, up to 400 victims.
I feel a great deal of guilt, shame, and remorse.
Remorse, if there is such, is remorse only for the fact
that he's in trouble.
It has nothing to do with what has happened to the victims.
As I've indicated, they've got to live with this
for the rest of their lives.
OPRAH WINFREY: Shane Beaupre says he was one
of Marks' victims 25 years ago.
Last year, according to Beaupre, his own son became
one of Marks' last victims.
CONNIE BEAUPRE: I couldn't understand why he
wasn't involved with his son.
I understand a lot more now than I ever did because I just
didn't know what was happening with Shane, what had
happened with him, and what he'd been
carrying with him for 25 years.
I want you to welcome Shane Beaupre and his wife Connie
to the show.
[APPLAUSE]
This is a really shocking story.
I read about it last Monday in "USA Today,"
but your entire community of Boulder
has been living with it for quite some time.
For about 35 years, I'd say, yeah.
About 35 years, and the question everybody
I know wants to know is how is it
an entire community, an entire town,
could hold this secret for so long?
Well, most of the individuals that were victims,
a lot of them wouldn't make a statement because of being fear
of their own peer pressure, fear that society
wouldn't believe them.
This man was a pillar of the community.
He was too big of an object in my generation, 25 years ago,
to knock down.
So what grade were you?
So is it like--
so that reason that it's being predicted
by a lot of the people who were victims
that it could be up to 400 different men, boys and men,
is because--
is this one school in the community?
Is it just one school, and he's one of the main teachers?
Ones grade school, yes, and one high school.
OPRAH WINFREY: OK.
And so what grade was he teaching?
He taught eighth grade.
OPRAH WINFREY: And so everybody who goes through eighth grade
has to come through his class at some point.
SHANE BEAUPRE: That's right, and then
he would start out with the basketball,
and my generation would start out
in the fifth and sixth grade and then seventh and eighth.
So he would have an opportunity to get a group of boys
at that time to go on out of town trips with him.
OPRAH WINFREY: Mm-hmm.
And that was at the time when everybody
was streetwise to him, and we would
learn young in life, as we came up through there, to avoid him.
Avoid his class or avoid him--
Well, avoid him from his physicalness
of trying to touch you.
When did it first--
do you remember, Shane, when it first happened to you?
Well, I guess he was teaching in Clancy when he had
left the high school, and I was in Clancy at that time for one
year.
OPRAH WINFREY: And Clancy's near Boulder?
Right, like 15 miles away, and at that time,
he had started the hand on the back, down the shoulders--
you know, the touching and that was not more than a hand touch,
but it was something that was felt funny to me.
You know, it wasn't a fatherly touch or a motherly touch.
And you were in the fifth grade, the sixth grade?
SHANE BEAUPRE: I was in the second grade at that time.
In the second grade.
And then about a year after that, we
moved to Boulder, and then from the third grade
on I went to school in Boulder.
So then I wasn't subject to him until I got up
into the fifth and sixth grade and started playing
little boys' basketball.
OPRAH WINFREY: Mm-hmm.
And that's at that time is when living five miles out
of town on a ranch that he knew my mother was working late
and that he would always offer these rides home.
That's when he would start touching the leg
and touching the shoulders and trying to gain that confidence,
you know, that he was all right, and I was all right.
And I started avoiding it and riding
my bike five miles to practice and back home again.
OPRAH WINFREY: Mm-hmm.
And just the general hiding out from him
and trying to stay away, as all the kids did.
OPRAH WINFREY: Mm-hmm.
So was the word among the boys, stay away from?
That was sort of the street thing?
SHANE BEAUPRE: Mm-hmm, the street thing, sure.
OPRAH WINFREY: And that was 25 years ago.
Mm-hmm.
OPRAH WINFREY: And so were you ever
physically sexually assaulted or physically sexually molested?
In general, it was just those touching types, yes.
OPRAH WINFREY: Mm-hmm.
There was other instances where kids were a lot more
severe than what I was.
OPRAH WINFREY: Mm-hmm.
So you have a teacher that's feeling on you and everybody
else knows that this teacher's-- well, all the other kids,
all the other boys know, stay away from Mr. marks
because he's strange that way.
You grow up and get married, and your son
goes to Mr. Marks's class.
You say that it happened to you also.
SHANE BEAUPRE: Mm-hmm.
And you grew up.
You got married.
You married Connie and had your own child.
Four of them.
Three girls and a boy.
And when you found out your son
was going to Mr. Marks's class, what did you think?
Well, we had been out of town for several years
working construction.
And when we did come back to Boulder,
and knowing that they were all going to go to that school
and he'd be subject to Marks, I made a statement to them
at dinner one night that to beware
of him, especially to Zach.
OPRAH WINFREY: Would did you say?
I didn't go into general about the background of it.
I just said Doug has a problem with touching kids, especially
boys, and stay away from him, and
that if at any point in time he ever touches you, let me know.
And I carried on a little aggressive
there toward Zachary on the fact that making statements
that I'd probably go up there and physically
do some bodily harm to him.
Well, evidently it stuck pretty hard,
because when the incident happened,
they were scared to tell me.
And I think that was what happened in a lot of cases,
that kids were just flat scared to tell
their fathers and mothers.
OPRAH WINFREY: Because you were scared to tell yours?
SHANE BEAUPRE: Yes.
And then your son was scared to tell you.
SHANE BEAUPRE: Mm-hmm. - How did you find out about it?
I had the Sheriff's office tell me
as I was walking out of the courthouse one day,
and he said that he had allegations
that Zach had been touched by Doug and that they wanted to--
OPRAH WINFREY: Zach is your son?
--yes, and they wanted to take testimonies,
statements, and videotape him with a social worker.
OPRAH WINFREY: Mm-hmm.
And so at that point in time is when I had found out,
standing there looking across from the courthouse
at the school.
And of course, my first reaction was, well,
I'll go over and kill him, and Dawson saying, no,
let me go through the legal system here,
and we'll fight it the right way.
So how did your son come to tell the Sheriff
without telling you?
He, I don't believe, told the Sheriff.
I think it was through the school officials
that he got the notification.
OPRAH WINFREY: They did an investigation?
Yes.
Jenny told-- her son was also touched by Doug Marks,
and she told the Sheriff.
So as far as you know, your son was just touched.
There are other people who say that there was
more than touching going on?
SHANE BEAUPRE: There was a lot more gruesome details and a lot
more severe, severe victims.
How has it affected the way you dealt with your own life,
your son in particular.
Well, not knowing up until probably
two or three years ago, that I was
neglecting not only my girls, but I was
very much neglecting my son.
About three years ago, he made statements to his mother
that he'd like to have a little brother, that Dad
was always gone; Dad was always busy;
Dad was always doing this.
I never had much involvement.
And through his years growing up,
Connie basically did all the raising.
And I was either working or hunting or doing something
else and never really involved.
I know I never had the physicalness-- the hugging,
the touching, the kissing, you know?
And is it because you think of what happened, do you think?
SHANE BEAUPRE: I guess it was a psychological block in my head,
and it took this time of this evolving out to where you
realize that you were a victim.
And until I really understood that, I guess,
is before I come out of my shell.
Connie, you just knew that he didn't spend a lot of time
with his son? With Zach?
Well, I was real confused about it because I didn't know
that this had happened to Shane until about a year
and a half ago.
I had no idea.
And I was so confused why he wasn't more involved with Zach,
you know, from the time he was born because he was so proud
of him.
And we've talked about it since this has all come out,
and we both think that that's the reason why he probably
didn't was because of that. You know, it felt strange.
OPRAH WINFREY: Now, this has all come out.
I can't imagine what it's like living
in a community with 1,200 people and something
like this happens.
Is the town now split between people who think you
should have shut up about it?
SHANE BEAUPRE: In general, I suppose they are, yeah.
And then people who are now coming forth and say,
yeah, it happened to me?
SHANE BEAUPRE: Mm-hmm.
And I think there is a lot of guilt there.
I think, you know, there was--
that long a span and that many kids involved,
there had been a lot of other parents
that in the back of their mind they knew too.
OPRAH WINFREY: They knew?
But 25 years ago, none of them said nothing either,
and so this generation just keeps going one
after another, after another.
OPRAH WINFREY: But the kids kind of tried to protect themselves?
SHANE BEAUPRE: Mm-hmm, sure.
Like you said, the street word was
stay away from him if you can.
But this was a teacher who then, with this kind of thing
going on, with the word--
you know, street word being stay away from him-- who took boys
on trips, who slept in the same bed with the boys,
and who was allowed to continue this kind of activity.
CONNIE BEAUPRE: Mm-hmm.
OPRAH WINFREY: Why?
There's a glitch in the legal system, isn't there?
I think the scales of justice were way tipped over.
OPRAH WINFREY: If you'd heard that your son was going
to be sent on a trip with him, would you have stopped
it, done something about it?
SHANE BEAUPRE: Oh, most definitely, yes.
I would've never allowed it.
OPRAH WINFREY: You would not have allowed it?
No.
But you knew he was in his classroom?
SHANE BEAUPRE: Mm-hmm.
I think the biggest thing is, is that the psychological grasp
that this individual had and the capability over this period
of time, that he controlled not only children, schools,
society, legal systems, the courthouse, all the way
up to the state capital in Montana.
He had affiliations with these individuals.
OPRAH WINFREY: But didn't he control it
because everybody kept quiet?
Isn't that why he had the control?
In general, yeah.
But his psychological grab that he had on everybody
that people just didn't want to bring him down,
or people just didn't want to believe it.
OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah.
They just know what you're saying isn't right.
OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah, because even in some of the interviews,
I was shocked to hear people say things like,
he's a great teacher.
He's a pedophile, but he's a great teacher.
SHANE BEAUPRE: I don't agree with that.
CONNIE BEAUPRE: No.
I think every move he made was for his pedophile.
CONNIE BEAUPRE: Yeah. OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah.
Whether his actions were good or bad,
I don't think he ever did a good thing in his life
for a kid that wasn't with a motive there.
OPRAH WINFREY: He did it, you think-- you think--
to get next to the kids?
SHANE BEAUPRE: Yes.