Free House of Secrets by Lowell Cauffiel Page A

quiet community if it were not for an interstate going through the township, an industrial park, and a good sized mall,” Goe would later say. “As a detective here, the upside is you get to handle everything.
     
    The drawback is you’re not sharp on any one thing because you’re not specializing like big city departments do.” On March 19, a couple hours after sunset, Goe met Anne Greene and Machelle Sexton at the D.A.R.E.
     
    office. Machelle Sexton sat down at a small desk, Anne Greene at her side. Goe had a pen and legal pad. He wanted to hear what the teenager had to say before he committed anything to tape. They began slowly. But within minutes, even Anne Greene appeared lost. Machelle Sexton was generating so many names and nicknames within the Sexton family, it was impossible to keep track of all the principals in the teenager’s story. Goe asked Machelle to break the family down, name by name. Ages would be helpful, too, he said. Her father Ed Sexton was 49, Machelle said. Some people called him Eddie, others Eddie Lee.
    The children all called him Dad. Her mother was named Estella May, or Estella Sr. She was 44. They called her Mom. Most people called her May. They moved on to the siblings. She was one of twelve children, Patrick, 24, Eddie Jr., 23, Stella, 22, William, 21, Sherri, 19, Charles, 16, James, 15, Matthe 14, Christopher, 13, Lana, 12, and Kimberly, 7. Machelle said she was in the middle, the sixth oldest, 18
    months older than Charles and 14 months younger than Sherri. There were more family members. Stella had two daughters, Dawn and Shasta.
    Stella had just gotten married. Her husband Joel Good was living in the house. Sherri also had a baby, an 8-month-old son named Christopher. Goe counted 17 people. “All these people live in the house?” he asked. No, she said, just 15. Machelle explained the layout. Her parents had a master bedroom on the first floor, off limits to all but one of the kids. Young Kimberly slept with her parents. There were three more bedrooms upstairs. Machelle used to share the largest bedroom with Pixie, Sherri, and Lana, but Pixie moved to a smaller room with her two babies, and eventually Joel. When Sherri had her baby, she relocated to the den, sleeping on the couch.
    Charles, James, Matthew and Christopher slept in another bedroom down the hall. The two oldest brothers left home at 18, she said. Patrick and Eddie Jr. were married. Patrick was a half brother, really, born before her parents married. Both brothers lived in Canton now.“Eddie Bug,” she said, still came around a lot. They all had nicknames.
    Eddie Jr. was Eddie Bug. Patrick was Bozo. Stella was Pixie.
    William was Willie Bug. Sherri was Bunny. Charles was Skipper. James was Bird. Christopher was Sugar Tooth. Lana was Angel. And Kimberly was Ground Hog, or just Hog. Her father had come up with them. He’d named Pixie’s daughter Dawn “Cockroach,” or just “Roach,” because she was short. Machelle Sexton said she was Candy, until she began to rebel in her teens. Now her father called her “Diarrhea Mouth.” She figured it was because she talked too much and asked too many questions. An idiot clown. A fairy. Animals and insects and God’s messenger sent from on high. Goe looked at Anne Greene, then back at Machelle. “Your sister’s children,” Goe said.“Where are their fathers?”
     
    “Everyone knows they’re my dad’s kids,” she said. “How do you know that?” Goe asked. “We just do.” She said it like somebody relaying a mundane fact of life, as if she were naming the make of a car someone drove. The interview continued. She rarely responded in more than one or two sentences at a time. Goe asked her about her father’s assault.
    It was in December, she said. Her father told her he wanted to take her for a ride to discuss her future. She was a B and C student.
    Maybe she could go to college, he said. “It was a big deal,” Machelle said. College is a pretty big deal, Goe