Portraying the ‘Unspeakable’ : Docudrama details a real case of abuse in day-care center

CHARLESTON, S.C. —  A routine look for a TV movie on a frantic schedule. Pale faces, sleepless eyes. Some crew members, feet up, yawning, thumbing through paperback mysteries. Then scurrying, setting up the next scene. The director chides the cast to “hearse and then rehearse.”

On the men’s room door, the sound crew posts the normal instruction:

Do Not Flush When We Are Rolling!

A smart aleck scrawls subtitles: (Do not roll if you are flushing).

(Also, do not eat any rolls in Flushing, N.Y.)

Bored little-boy actor Joe Mazello III, 5, with a shock of strawberry-blond hair and round, little-boy knees, waits doggedly for his dress-up courtroom scene. He rolls up his tie into a ball and lets it unravel. He sticks out his tongue at nobody. He puffs out his cheeks.

But the movie work-a-day scene belies this particular shoot, which has one of those unspecific titles that ring deadly, “Unspeakable Acts.” It’s another one of those reflections of unspeakable human behavior that docu-television has embraced.

These particular acts represent the first of a horror genre to come to script form--multiple child sexual abuse at a day-care center.

Bits of gracious old Charleston, with its anachronistic city smells of horse-carriage tours, are standing in for a tranquil, green southwest Miami suburb with the mellow name of Country Walk. That’s where the story actually happened. There were perhaps 50 victims, some as young as 18 months, one the son of the perpetrators (changed to daughter for this movie to protect the boy). The offenses were so repugnant as to defy comprehension.

Francisco Fuster Escalona was sentenced to six consecutive life terms in prison. Wife Illiana, who pleaded guilty, was given 10 years.

The case blasted into the national consciousness about the same time as the McMartin Pre-School hoopla, now in its third year of prosecution, the longest criminal trial in the world--with many more months to go. (It beats the Hillside Strangler trial--two years and two days, relates the Guinness Book of World Records.)

The Country Walk case, which lasted five weeks in court, claims its own distinctions: the first successful prosecution on multiple child sexual abuses and, very possibly, the prototype on how to manage such complex and disagreeable matters.

And this movie version, scheduled for airing by ABC in November, has a distinction--righteous fervor.

It starts with Linda Otto, who developed and produced the heralded missing-child docudrama, “Adam.” She insisted on directing on this occasion, her first behind the camera on a major project.

She speaks of her motivation with disarming candor: “I was one of those one-out-of-three women who was molested as a child,” she said, the anger in her voice rising. “I feel that no matter what, that my goal, my real goal with this film, is to make a difference for all those women and all of the one-out-of-six men who were molested as little boys and all the children who this is happening to now, so that at least children will be viewed differently within the overall system itself so that they don’t get raped twice.”

Child psychologist Joe Braga, who with his wife, Laurie, also a psychologist, were the heroes of the prosecution and now are heroes of the movie (they’re played by Jill Clayburgh and Brad Davis), was moved by the mood on the set: “They (members of the crew) come up to us and say, ‘I haven’t told anybody about it, but this happened to me as a kid.’ I’ve had others that have come up to me and said, ‘This happened to my kid.’

“I’ve had others come up and say, ‘You know, I usually work on these (movie) projects as just going to work, but I feel really good about this one because I’ve got little kids.’ ”

The plot plays out the legal trickeries of the case and the anguish of the families--but effectively centers on the Bragas, the specialists in child development who were brought in by the Dade County prosecutors to talk with the children. The Bragas knew nothing about the case, much less about any sexual abuse (not their field) and were expecting only a couple days of consulting.

They sat on the floor of one office with bright toys, with a TV camera set up in one corner to record the interviews. The children came in one by one--and the Bragas ended up making 49 videotapes.

Jason, played here by little Joey, was the first one to face the psychologists--and, as it turned out, was the most forthcoming and fearless of the victims.

As portrayed in the film, they invite Jason to play with the toy truck. They ask him if he knows why he came here today.

“Um,” Jason comes back, in what we learn is ironic understatement, “we’re just having trouble with the baby-sitter.”

It was the Bragas’ casual and careful manner with children (“I talk good 3- and 4- and 5-year-old,” said Joe Braga) that unraveled the terrible dimensions of the case: oral sex on children (one child had gonorrhea of the throat), naked ring-around-the-rosy games, drugs administered to children, excrement rituals, devil prayers, killing of animals, terrorization, etc.

The Bragas were popular figures--and loving images--on the movie set, holding hands, sharing a plastic foam cup of noodle soup, Joe taking photos and home videotapes, Laurie ready for a summons to each scene to lend actress Clayburgh selected pieces of her jewelry--”They wanted some personal touch.”

In the Florida case, the couple was originally viewed with skepticism, as some sort of hippie hangovers. They normally wear ‘60s Dressup--jeans, T-shirts, festive vests, perhaps “Miami Vice” warm-up jackets. Of course, there are suits and other solidly middle-class fare for solemnities such as court appearances and formal photos. Joe has richly graying hair wrapped into a pony tail; Laurie has deep brown hair that has grown to the back of her knees, and around the set Joe would help her brush it out and then twist it into a braid.

Whatever their unorthodox image for the notoriously straight world of criminal investigation, they exude commitment and went on from Country Walk to consult on “literally hundreds of cases,” for which they work unpaid through a nonprofit foundation that is funded from their own savings. The Bragas say they haven’t taken any money for consulting since the Country Walk case.

For 10 months in 1987-88, they consulted the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office on “McMartin,” which around this movie was a profane word.

Director Otto didn’t want to be quoted on the McMartin case. Producer Joan Barnett noted, “Anybody who’s been close to it knows that it’s been a bad mess. That didn’t happen here (in the Country Walk case). They didn’t allow that to happen.”

On mention of McMartin, the Bragas look at each other and smile at some private joke. Then they shared the joke: “Well, we refer to it in our own way--as a root canal,” said Laurie Braga.

Just what went wrong?

“With every bit of candor I can give you, I’d be very happy to talk to you, but I feel limited in my freedom to be able to comment at this time. It would not be appropriate.”

As for a Hollywood version of McMartin, there is only vague talk about TV projects. Veteran writer-producer Abby Mann has a contract with Random House for a book on McMartin and then, he said, he hopes to do a feature film.

Mann, who wrote “Judgment at Nuremberg,” “The Marcus-Nelson Murders,” “The Atlanta Child Murders” and the current HBO miniseries “The Simon Wiesenthal Story: The Murderers Among Us,” said he and wife Myra already have done “hundreds of hours” of interviews for the project.

Mann said he couldn’t reveal whose rights he has contracted, but in the past he told Times reporters that he has contracts with the five former defendants and oral agreements with the current two defendants.

CBS is shooting a movie in Los Angeles on a fictional case of sex abuse in a day-care center. The movie, “O Do You Know the Muffin Man,” is produced by Jon Avnet and Jordan Kerner and directed by veteran Gil Cates.

It has to do with the so-called Tiny Tot Pre-School, which is run (we eventually learn) by child molester-Satanists. A police officer learns that his 4-year-old son has been molested and terrorized by his teachers--then later discovers that his 14-year-old son, who has become rowdy and obnoxious, likewise was abused.

It comes to a sensational trial involving a self-serving prosecutor and a loathsome defense attorney who tries to destroy the children on the witness stand.

The Bragas, who stayed in Charleston for the whole four-week shoot before returning to their Florida home, had good vibes for “Unspeakable Acts”--because they feel a film such as this can change the public’s perception of child abuse.

Said Laurie Braga, “One of the actors was saying that a lot of times on issue-oriented television, what happens is that people watch it and turn off the TV with a sigh of relief and say, ‘Now this problem is taken care of. I watched this so now I don’t have to worry about it.’ ” But, her husband put in, “This is not a disease of the week here.”

Laurie Braga was summoned to the set; they needed her jewelry.

Joe Braga went on: “It’s hard for people to absorb that 98% of the people walking the streets of America cannot understand why someone would want to have sex with a baby or a 3-year-old or a 7-year-old.

“But 2% of the people walking the streets of America think day in and day out about their next sexual object being a child! Two percent of America’s population--4 million people walking the streets of America who are rapists of children!”

The cycle of victims and victimizers continues. Trust and intimacy are destroyed. The fabric of the family and the fabric of society is ripped--but film can change perceptions.

“It (film) has this dramatic effect to the people who will not watch ‘Geraldo’ do exploitation on child abuse,” he said. “I mean, you have Geraldo (Rivera) on the one hand doing at least 10 child molestation shows a year and looking for any angle he can get, and the attitudes, frightfully so, that people have.

“On the other hand you have an occasional film like ‘Something About Amelia’ (on incest) and, hopefully, ‘Unspeakable Acts,’ and that stays with the fabric of people’s consciousness about the issue.”

In the beginning there was the “bible,” the Herculean 592-page book about the case, “Unspeakable Acts” (Congdon & Weed), written by Jan Hollingsworth, a former Miami TV news assignment editor.

She befriended Country Walk parents and pored through “a couple hundred thousand pages of (trial) transcripts.” As each deadline approached for segments of the book, she worked around the clock, fueled by Cuban coffee: “Burns holes in your stomach.”

Even during this incubation period, her agent (now former agent) badgered her with offers from at least 25 producers. The agent kept calling with offers and sending contracts.

Hollingworth was reluctant: “In selling rights to the book, I was essentially selling the rights to a story that had been entrusted to me.”

Joan Barnett, a former NBC executive in movies, happened across “Unspeakable Acts” in a bookstore and, knowing of Otto’s interest in the subject, bought it for her frequent collaborator.

Author Hollingsworth, who has a son, now 11, had known Linda Otto’s name from the “Adam” project, because those events happened in south Florida. Otto related, “I called Jan and she said, ‘I wonder what took you so long.’ ”

The project was put together by Otto’s husband, Alan Landsburg, who has a curious record ranging from “That’s Incredible!,” “Jaws 3-D” and “Porky’s II: The Next Day” on the one hand to celebrated TV movies such as “Adam,” “Bill” with Mickey Rooney and “Quiet Victory: The Charlie Wedemeyer Story.”

Within the confines of the often-maligned craft of network docudrama, how accurate could this story be told? The language alone is, well, offensive to the public sensibility. Would ABC flip?

As Landsburg relates, “The first script had gone off--as best as I can put it--on flights of dramatic invention.”

He sent the writers to Florida to look over the scene, meet the parents. The next version had even more invention. Landsburg set about to write the script himself.

Then to the network: “Their first response was, ‘We are afraid this film cannot fit under the standards of ABC.’ ” Arguments went on: “Standards and Practices (the network censor) felt that in principle the possibility existed that this (movie) could panic parents of children in day care and cause major problems,” Landsburg said.

“And my answer to that was that I would be ecstatic to the extent that it would make them (parents) look at the day-care center more carefully and be able to ask their kids the questions that would be important.”

There followed two to three weeks of what is politely referred to as “negotiations.” (Said an ABC publicist on said meetings, “We would not wish to comment.”) The network demanded considerable documentation for this project, “far beyond any docudrama which they did,” said Hollingsworth, who was in and out of Hollywood to help sweat out the script.

Recalled Landsburg: “Very frankly, there was a scene that we always considered the Fred Allen Gorilla. You know the story. Fred Allen, when he dealt with Standards and Practices, had an obscene gorilla joke in his script, and each week he would put it in and argue for it until all other arguments went away.”

In “Unspeakable Acts,” there was an actual question posed by one of the little victims to her mother--was it all right to eat excrement. Landsburg used the slang term.

“We knew it was trouble, but we had a frame--that was the hardest we would get in terms of language and explicitness. That was the barrier line that we wouldn’t cross,” Landsburg said.

“I don’t think we would have left it in (it’s out of the final script). We just had to have boundaries for ourselves when we write a script. We didn’t want to put a lot of (bad) language in kids’ mouths, while (we wanted to be) absolutely real.”

The line was cut. Landsburg, referred to by associates by the mildly affectionate name of “Big Foot,” said perhaps only 300 to 400 words were changed during the discussions with the network.

Charleston is ancient by the standards of most of the country. The County Courthouse is circa 1792. Across the street, City Hall was built in 1801, following the Beef Market Fire of 1796.

Across the street again, the Federal Courthouse, a grand edifice of red marble staircases and rich brass fixtures and gratings, has been on respite, awaiting refurbishing. (Remodelers even found the original marble quarry in Italy.)

The main floor Post Office is still operating and displays the roster of Charleston postmasters since Jan. 12, 1694. Also prominently portrayed is a photo of the “Charleston Stamp,” which the pre-Civil War postmaster ran off when the Union stamps couldn’t be used and the New Confederacy hadn’t printed its own yet.

But on the second floor, there was a contrast in centuries. Hollywood had taken over. It was the Dade County Courthouse and a drama was being enacted about what some people call a secret epidemic of the 20th Century.

Director Otto said: “You have no idea. I go to cocktail parties and dinners and people seek me out because I have a reputation of advocating for children . . . and people disclose these things to me. They say, ‘I’ve never told this to anyone.’ Men and women in their 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s! And I say, ‘You never told anyone until now! And you just told me?’ And they say, ‘That’s right.’

On incidents of multiple child-abuse cases, David Finkelhof, professor and co-director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire, conducted a study counting only “substantiated” cases, meaning that an agency such as social services affirmed that abuse was done.

He extrapolated that in 1983-85, there were as many as 550 cases of multiple abuse, involving 2,500 victimized children, out of the 229,000 day-care facilities in the nation serving 7 million children.

He computed that reporting of sexual-abuse cases “has gone up on an average, I’d guess, of 25 to 30% a year for the last 10 years.”

Patricia Toth, executive director of the National Center for Child Abuse Prosecution, reported the arrival of this “new” specialty: “We have a network now of over 800 prosecutors across the country who have identified themselves to us as specializing in child abuse prosecutions.”

Likewise, requests for background information for a growing roster of available defense “expert witnesses”--about 30 now, she estimated--have become common in the last year, said Toth.