Camp Gagnon - I Stabbed And Killed My Childhood Abuser

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

Clark Fredericks is a motivational speaker, author, and advocate who survived horrific childhood sexual abuse by a former Boy Scout leader and Sheriff, Dennis Pegg, in New Jersey. Today, Clark joins us in the tent to discuss his upcoming book “Scarred: A Memoir of a Childhood Stolen and a Life Reclaimed” which will be releasing on July 29. Clark walks us through the timeline of childhood tragedy, vengeance by stabbing and killing his abuser, recovery, and advocacy. Welcome to Camp 🏕️.“Scarred: A Memoir of a Childhood Stolen and a Life Reclaimed” will be available at all major retailers starting July 29, 2025. You can also pre-order your copy now through Amazon or Simon & Schuster.Shoutout to todays sponsors: Cymbiotika, Odoo, Magic Spoon, Evil Goods, Morgan & Morgan, and Bluechew.Cymbiotika: Go to https://partners.cymbiotika.com/CAMP for 20% off your order + free shippingOdoo: odoo.com/CAMPMagicSpoon: https://magicspoon.com/campEvil Goods - Subscribe and save 30% off on beef tallow! : Evilgoods.com/CAMP👕🧢 GET YOUR CAMP DRIP HERE: https://campgoods.co/🏕️ Get Today In History Email Here (Free): https://camp.beehiiv.com/🎟️ 🎫 Comedy Tour Tickets Here: https://markgagnonlive.comTimestamps:0:00 Intro1:40 Clark’s Childhood6:45 First Time Meeting Dennis Pegg12:48 Stranger Danger16:16 Tactic’s Used By P3dos21:20 The Sunfish Experiment24:17 Dennis Forcing Wrestling Matches With Clark33:40 Dennis Get’s Clark Drunk & Takes Advantage36:31 Getting Sexual Abused By Dennis40:46 How Different Is Life49:58 Dennis Taking Prisoners Home To Abuse Them54:46 Advice For Parents Who Suspect Abuse1:00:00 Struggles In College and Adult Life1:10:55 Other Traumatic Events In Clark’s Life1:16:08 Seeing Dennis at a Bar1:18:48 Clark’s Obsession With Fire1:20:40 Going Into Debt With The Mob1:40:24 Killing Dennis Pegg1:53:05 What Could Have Been Different? + Dennis’s Other Victims1:56:07 Dennis Continued To Abuse Kids1:58:11 Immediately After Killing Dennis + Getting Arrested2:15:17 Finally Accepting What Happened 2:25:40 Trauma Produces More Trauma2:27:49 Earning Respect In Prison2:33:41 Getting Out of Jail + Coming To God2:46:39 The Manipulation of Abusers2:50:56 Anyone Can Be An Abuser2:52:29 Advice For Abuse Victims2:53:58 Clark Reconnecting With The Love of His Life

I go up to his door. We got into a violent fight. He slipped in the blood that was both of ours on the floor. And I looked him in the eye. And I said, it's not so fun. Little boys now, is it, Dennis? And I split his stroke. This is Clark Fredericks.

He's an advocate, an author, and the most badass Boy Scout of all time. He became known as the man who stabbed and killed his childhood abuser. He writes that from 8 to 12, he and several others were sexually and psychologically abused by their Boy Scout leader and sheriff's officer Dennis Pegg. But this story isn't one of vengeance. It's a story of redemption. Clark will tell us about his childhood trauma. He will also explain how to keep your kids safe from abusers.

And if you yourself have childhood trauma, how to deal with it and cope in a healthy way that doesn't lead you down the same destructive path that Clark has followed. This is your opportunity, dude. So my advice would be open up lines of communication, you know, no matter how upset or you know, disappointed you are with your child over their destructive behavior, there's a reason for it. Find out what that reason is. This episode is absolutely amazing and Clark is a true survivor.

This is a topic that not many people talk about and a lot of men like to push down. But Clark has been brave enough to share his story, everything he's learned from his healing to meditation, to his spirituality and his relationship with God and ultimately how he's a better person today and an advocate for children that have suffered abuse at the hands of the powerful within their community. So sit back, relax, and welcome to camp. Clark Fredericks. Thanks so much for being here. Mark Agnon. Nice to be here, bro. Thank you so much for coming all the way from Westchester. Yeah, not that. I left with plenty of time and made it here in less than an hour, so it wasn't bad. Well, I appreciate it. Thank you so much. I'm really, really excited to talk for a few reasons,

but I also just want to put a disclaimer to anyone that's listening that this episode might be at moments a little heavier than some of the other episodes we've done. Yeah, there's some heavy stuff, bro. But I think it's good and I think it's productive, but I just want to throw that out there if there's anyone listening that maybe has had experience with sexual abuse or trauma that, you know, to proceed with caution.

But I think that the conversation we're going to have is important for a few reasons. One, I think there are a lot of people that have dealt with sexual abuse that don't know how to cope with it, don't even realize that it happened. They have no idea that the behavior that they're doing in their adult life is a reflection

of what happened to them in their childhood. They kind of think that it's compartmentalized. And secondly, I think it's important for parents and people with kids to know what this looks like and how psychopaths and pedophiles can manipulate children and young teens into doing things that they normally wouldn't do. And like I mentioned before,

myself being, you know, the father now of an eight-month-old. I think about this kind of stuff all the time now, which is terrifying. Just like, you know, one day he's going to want to go on a sleepover or one day he's going to want to do, you know, like a sleepaway thing with the Boy Scouts or want to go with the church group or want to do something that I'm not there. And that brings me a lot of anxiety. And I think through our conversation and through the book that you wrote, Scard, you lay out a lot of sort of the manipulation tactics that abusers will use to coerce their victims. And the survivors of those abuses. So I guess just to start from the very beginning,

can you just explain sort of where you grew up and kind of the town and the lay of the land in the spot where you were? Yeah, I mean, you think rural areas are like isolated from, you know, like the hardcore crime. Like it's more in the populated areas. Yeah. But like it's like a haven for pedophiles, though, you know.

especially back in the time frame I grew up, you know, the 70s. There was so much freedom back then. You know, people nowadays, they just can't believe how kids were allowed all this freedom by the parents. It was, you know, as soon as you could learn how to ride your bike, be gone and be back at dinner time. Right. Like six years old, like there was no cell phones. there was no computers. So the parents didn't want you around the house.

They wanted you out, getting dirty and, you know, doing whatever. Tired and come home and go to sleep. That's it. Yeah. And, you know, I grew up in a real rural area of New Jersey, a town called Stillwater. It just lived at a lake community. So, like, you know, all the kids, you know, would go down to where there was a dam, you know, that separated the lake.

and then from the river, you know, the river started at the dam. And just fishing and there was ball fields, basketball courts, tennis courts, playgrounds, just like everything. You know, so everything, everybody congregated down by the dam area. There was beaches for the lake. And what was your family dynamic like? Like, what did your parents do? What were your siblings doing? Yeah, my father, you know, we were a middle class family.

You know, money, I don't recall ever being a real issue. My father was a salesman. My mother worked at the high school in the library. I had an older brother, older sister. You know, on paper, everything looked well adjusted. My father wasn't a regular drinker, but when he drank, he drank. he drank to get bombed. He got sober the last, when I was like 17.

So the last, I don't know, whatever, 15 years of his life or so, he was sober. And would he get angry? No, no, it wasn't an angry drunk, just getting bombed, man. Yeah, just tossed. Yeah. tuned up watching the game. Yeah, just like, you know, dealing with that. You know, like I said, it wasn't on a daily basis, maybe a weekend basis.

So, you know, and it really wasn't until I was, you know, a little older that you would recognize it and see it. And then my brother was a big, you know, my brother was six years older to me. He was a big partier. And I didn't know at the time, but he had, you know, our abuser was his scout leader, which then became, you know, my scout leader. And that was his, he used the Boy Scouts. He used that dam area at the lake as like trolling grounds. And this guy on paper, he was a lieutenant in the sheriff's department. He was a member of the Kwanis Club.

Kwanis is for the betterment of children in the community. He was an honorary member of Boys Town. Boys Town, I think, is Nebraska maybe. And they've had all sorts of pedophile problems at Boys Town. He's an honorary member. He was a chaplain in the American Legion. You know, here you are a pedophile. a predator and you're the chaplain, you know, giving the prayer to start of each, you know,

session in the American Legion. Yeah, of course. And just if you Google Dennis Pegg obituary, like his family in the obituary listed like 25 organizations he was a part of and the police are all like, those are all his hunting grounds. You know, he's a member of the Audubon Society. I've got so many parents that reached out to me about their kids, you know, in Audubon Society, you know, who were under his care. And it's just, it's a laundry list of hunting grounds for him. Yeah. He was a professional hunter of children, man. Yeah, guys like this are strategic and meticulous.

Like, this is not a happenstance thing. This is a lifestyle built around this type of abuse and exploitation. He's investing years into every kid. You know, I wasn't the only one down at the lake, you know, but he's giving beer to it nine years old. You know, he's a lieutenant in the sheriff's department. He's giving beer to us. Right. You know, nine years old.

Think how little a nine-year-old is. Yeah, it's absurd. Yeah, it's crazy. And as we progress into the story, again, I mentioned this before, but if at any point you want to take a break or you don't want to proceed with specific details, like by all means, you can just flag it. But at what age did you meet Dennis Pegg? My earliest recollection is like, you know, five, six years old. And up until that point, would you describe your childhood as peaceful? No, I had a really crappy start to life.

I was born with a hole in my heart. And I was being monitored for open heart surgery. and like any, I was always getting sick, you know, like pneumonia or bronchitis, and I was always in the hospital. I remember like being in those oxygen tents in the hospital. So, you know, and that's traumatic in itself when, you know, you're constantly in the hospital. And then I spent a month at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City getting my open heart surgery. And, you know, the doctors came to my parents. when I was six and said his hole has grown to the size of a half dollar.

And we have six month window to operate. And this was like a life. This was 1971 when I was six. And this was a life or death situation. And I survived it. And I have cheloid condition where your scars raised up. And this animal like used. this life or death scar, which signified life or death for me, as his way to, like, start

touching me. Right. I've never seen a scar like that. Can I touch it? So my parents were so proud of me for surviving this surgery. They would have me lift my shirt and all their friends would have to give me a quarter. Like, Clark, show your scar, you know. They called it a zipper, you know, because all the stitch marks actually looks like a zipper.

And, you know, so I'm doing this little peep show for their friends and one of their friends was this guy. And like three months after the surgery, I came in the house. It was the summer day. I had the surgery like around April of 71. And I came in to get a drink and watch TV for a minute. And he came to the front door. Everybody's out in the backyard. And, you know, he's like, hey, little buddy, come sit with me on the couch here.

Where is everybody? I'm like, they're all out back. And he, you know, after talking for a man, he's like, hey, I got a quarter to see your scar. And I was like, okay. He gives me the quarter. And I lift my shirt. And he's like, I've never seen a scar so raised up like yours. How about I give you a dollar and you let me touch it?

And next to my father, this is who I respected the most. You know, he wore his gun. He always had his badge and lieutenant in the sheriff's department. And so I'm like, sure. you know, not thinking he's got any ill will about what he's going to do. And he's just rubbing up and down and touching my abdomen. Is your stomach sore from the surgery? And I'm like, no.

And then this had to be our little secret. And he goes, we can't be friends if you can't keep a secret. This has to be between us. Don't tell your parents I gave you this dollar. I'm like, I can keep a secret. And unfortunately, keeping secrets is what did me in with him. Right. You know, pedophiles are stopped dead in their track if you don't keep secrets.

Their whole thing is based on secrets. Right. Whether it's fear, intimidation, gifts, whatever it is. You know, a lot of our family members, like, you know, you'll rip our family apart if you tell what's going on. You know, like, you know, your mother will be out in the street. You know, you kids will be living in a foster home, you know, so, uh, yeah, the secret component is, uh, is, that's a main thing. Yeah, it seems, it's just, especially for a kid, it is so, you know, it's, the, the world is so fragile in, and so sort of, uh, nebulous that the idea of a secret and someone you trust telling you that if you break this secret, everything else will be ruined. That's why you got to tell you're eight month old, you know, when your, uh, child gets a little older, uh,

if anybody tells you, any adult tells you to keep a secret, you got to let us know immediately. Yeah. Because there's no reason for an adult to have a child keeping a secret. Yeah. There's no good reason at least. Yeah. Yeah.

I've even seen this with like my little nieces and nephews. Like my sister will just tell them like, hey, we don't do secrets. In our house, there's no secrets. Yeah. So if someone tells you to keep a secret, just tell them, I can't keep secrets. Sorry. And even if your friends want to tell you a secret, just say, I don't do secrets. Just there's no need to keep a secret.

That's it. And it kind of sort of keeps the whole family honest, to be honest, to be frank with you. Yeah. Because they'll even say stuff, you know, just about the family in front of the kids. And they're like, we shouldn't say that because no one keeps secrets, you know. So it's just it keeps everybody honest. And it also, you know, keeps them away from from predators that are using that tactic and that honesty against them. You know, everything back in the day was stranger danger.

You know, that's all my parents harped on stranger danger because we're going down by the, by the lake, by the dam, by ourselves at six, six, seven years. old and don't you dare get into anybody's car. They never said, don't get into Dennis Pegg's car. Don't get into Dennis Pegg's truck. Your brother's boy scout leader. Don't get into our good friend Dennis Pegg's car. Yeah. You know, they never said anything about that. They just said stranger danger. And this is what we were talking about a little bit before. This idea of stranger danger, I think, was predicated with good intention off of, you know, this, you know, this sort of cultural panic around child abduction and abuse where, you know, vans would come up and abduct kids. And it was so terrifying and awful, you know, you had cases like Johnny Gosh and Eton Pats and these infamous cases that

are just so brutal where these children just vanish. And as a result, the media runs with these stories and they say, you know, be careful of strangers. Sort of, I think, unfortunately, neglecting the fact that I think it's like, what, you said, 95% of sexual abuse cases are from a known person to the family. Right. Whether, you know, a relative, uncle coach or something like that. Yep. So I think that is another thing for parents to be aware of is that, look, of course, have a stranger danger use, you know, sense, but also keep an eye on the people that are

within the sort of inner or close circles. You have to, dude. Like, it's always, and it's, you know, the coach that everybody loves or the priest everybody loves or the teacher everybody. The police department. Who's more safe the lieutenant in the sheriff's department? Yeah. And I think predators also are.

aware of this, which is why they assume positions of high authority. Like, they will become priests and they will become lieutenants and they will take on these positions within the society that have high moral standing because who would ever suspect? And that's my assumption is how, you know, cunning and evil these people are, is that they're trying to find ways to basically wear morality while doing the most, you know, deviant act. They hide in plain sight, you know. And they hide behind their role in the community. Yeah. And like, and like even, even after I got arrested, you know, we'll get into why.

He was, he was a member of the historical society in our little town of Stillwater. And all the old ladies, you know, were quoted in the paper. He would never have done something like that. He was the nicest man in the world. Yeah. During your historical society, once a month. month meeting, maybe. But soon as he left that meeting, it was back into hunting mode. Yeah, of course. And then also, I think this idea that, you know, evil people are evil all the

time, right? Like, I think there is a perception that like, oh, the pedophile is or the abuser is, you know, this guy with a, you know, a creepy mustache in your window and he's got a trench coat. And that's not the case. You know, these people like you mentioned are upstanding their society. They're well liked. They have people around them. They have community. Well, we think, we think evil. is going to be a guy with a tail and a pitchfork and horns. What's evil is a guy masquerading as a lieutenant and a Boy Scout leader and a member of Kwanis Club for the betterment of children in the community who's children? That's pure evil there. And he uses this tactic with you and slowly finds a gap to kind of lower your guard and then exploit this thing that happened to you.

in a way to create contact and keep a secret. Yeah, I mean, pedophiles have to initiate touch at some point. You know, it's like I see people tussle hair, and it just sends a shiver down my spine, you know, like, to the average person, and hey, Billy, you know, it's harmless. For a pedophile, it's, ah, I'm touching them, I'm touching them. And then from the tussle of the hair, it goes to, you know, patting the nids. and then patting the thigh, and then it goes from there. You know, you got to get your potential victim accustomed to touch from you. Like, nothing's out of the ordinary.

You know, and then before you know, you're ensnared in a trap. So he initiates both. He does touch and a secret simultaneously. Yeah, I mean, it's unbelievable without the internet back then, how they, all like came up with devising the same pattern of behavior to get a victim. You know, secrets, touch, alcohol, pornography, boom, molestation. That's like all of them. It was the M.O. It's still the M.O. And they have, you know, like my girlfriend thinks I've got like this six cents to spot. people who are broken or damaged.

Like, because we'll, we'll go somewhere and, like, I'll bring up my story to the waitress, to the front desk person at a hotel, to the, to the Uber driver. And, uh, and sure enough, they'll be like me too. And she's like, it's so bizarre how you can do that. And it's the same thing like with predators. Like, like, I said this in therapy one time. I'm like, how to heck do these predators? You know, it's like we have a beacon light above our head saying,

I'm right for the pickings. You know, I had this open heart surgery scar that made me different from everybody else. And like when you're a little kid, you just want to fit in with everybody. So here I got to scar and I feel different. I'm insecure about it. And this guy like smells blood in the water, you know? And so, you know, I interview people from my podcast, and they are repeatedly abused throughout their childhood into their adult life over and over and over. And they're like, you know, I just don't know how they always found me.

It's just like, you know, we're on that vibrational chart and we're at the bottom. And the predators, you know, can feel we're at the bottom. And they pounce on it, man. Yeah. So what happens from that moment and how do things sort of progress with Dennis? From that touching of the scar? Yeah. Well, I mean, he devoted years. Like, you know, we're talking, you know, the next six, seven years. He's invested in my life, in my brother's life, not knowing.

And who knows how many other kids at the same time, he has at various levels of the grooming process. You know? So, you know, he, the touching of the scar at six, beers down at the lake in his truck at nine. So when you're nine years old. Nine years old. This was, you know, we're down there all the time. is, you know, the summer months, and he's always, you know, coming by, you know, stopping his truck, teaching us how to fish, talking to us, kids for hours, you know, it's like, no adult

should, like, be randomly spending hours with little children. Right. Because, like, why? Right. People, you're just that, not that nice of a person. There's a reason. So if somebody, you know, the coach that really see something in your kid and they're going to take them under the wing and like make them, you know, the star player or, you know, the piano player who's, you know, doing the private lessons and really thinks your daughter can really, you know, be a top-notch pianist, you know. and, you know, be aware.

Like, it's just not normal for adults to be spending so much time with kids. Is this where the sunfish incident occurred? Yeah, it was around that, you know, 8, 9 range. You know, he, he would catch sunfish, you know, when he's teaching us to fish, and he would smash him against the rocks. Or he'd throw it on the ground and pick up. up a big rock and smashing on top of it. And he would tell us sunfish are a worthless fish. This is what you do to worthless things. And one day, down at the dam area, there was a, you know,

a wooden bridge, one lane one bridge that went across the river. And it was, you know, pretty, pretty low to the water. And he stops on the bridge and he yells out his window to a group of us, I got to go up the road for like 15 minutes. I want you guys to catch as many sunfish as you can and save them, and I'll be back. We're like, okay. So, like, sunfish, like, you don't even have to, like, put a worm on, you know, like, they're gullible. Another thing about sunfish, gullible, you know, like, you can just put that shiny hook in and they'll bite on it, at least down by the dam area they would.

And so we catch a bunch of sunfish. He comes back and he's like, I want you to lay them all out on the bridge. He goes, I told you how worthless these are. And he goes, I'm going to run over them with my truck. So, like, you know, we're like his little soldiers, and we put the sunfish out on the bridge. And he goes back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, squishing their guts out, popping their eyes out. And then he, like, has us, you know, pick them up with everything hanging out and throw them into the water.

and that's what you do to worthless things. So whatever, you know, you could take this whole, I've asked all my therapists, you know, like, so, you know, like to get a therapeutic take on it. And, you know, he's equating you gullible little boys to sunfish. And when he's telling you that when he's done with you or finds you not useful, this is, you know, what could happen to you. And you need to stay useful.

Yeah. Or else something bad will happen. Right. Yeah. And what did you think as a nine-year-old seeing like these, you know, innocent fish? I mean, yeah, it's a fish. But seeing that get killed, I mean, what was the feeling? Yeah, it wasn't.

You know, like, we just went through the motions to do what we had to do. But, you know, like, we're like, oh, gross, gross, you know. Like, you know, we didn't go into more. like thought process than than that like other than just gross now at this point you know you have known him for you know three-ish years his standing within the community was still solid he had a good reputation there's no rumors about his behavior up until this point no and how do things progress from here progresses to wrestling matches um and he tells me he wrestled he he He sets it up with, I used to wrestle your brother, who's six years older to me, and my next door neighbor, directly across the street, who was my brother's best friend.

They're both six years older than me. I used to wrestle, and they were both in the scouts. I used to wrestle with your brother and with Jeff. And let's see how tough you are compared to them. And how old are you at this point? I was 10. And how is he isolating you? Oh, just he would, you know, like down at the dam, he'd be like, throw your bike in the back of my truck.

Let's go over to the other, you know, the Polanska River went from one end of the town down to another end. The fish aren't biting here. Let's go over to the other side, you know, by the Gristmill Bridge and see how fish are there. And he would always slip into the water and get his sneaker wet or whatever he was, wearing or is, you know, pant leg wet. Oh, we got to go up to my house so I can change. And then get me up, get me comfortable being at his house and, you know, give me a beer while I were at the house. And, you know, how many times that happened? I can't even tell you. You know, like going up to his house and him slipping in the water or whatever. That was really frequent. Yeah, yeah. I mean,

half a dozen minimum. Wow. Yeah, over years. Wow. So, you know, and this was all out of the eyes of my family. You know, like everything's down at the lake. It's not like he's, you know, when he's coming to the house, he's just coming to see everybody and be Mr. Jovial, you know. And it's not like trying to, other than that one time, you know, with my scar when everybody was in the backyard. And he had me in the den by myself. And if you went home to your parents that night and they were like, oh, what did you do today? Would you ever mention, like, oh, I was with Officer Pegg?

Yeah, I saw Dennis and, you know, we were fishing. And they would say, oh, okay. Oh, good, good, good, good. Yeah. Hmm. You know, at 10 years old, you're having a beer, at nine years old, having a beer with the lieutenant in the sheriff's department. How cool is that? Like, why would you want to ruin that?

Like, and he'd be like, you know, this has, everything was our secret. So that was another secret. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, the beers, obviously were a secret. Had you drink? And he would always, you know, have candy and gum to give me and, you know, make sure I don't have anything on my breath. Ah. Yeah.

And so just one of the times going to his house, you know, let's try wrestling. Let's see how tough you are. And, you know, so he would allow me to, like, be the aggressor on top for a little while, I guess, until he got hard and excited. And then it, like, and I've heard this from so many other victims of abuse where, like, the eyes would literally change. You could see his eyes dilate and become dark and just his presence got dark and his everything about him changed. And so many other victims, you know, like people all interview, they'll be like, and then their eyes changed. I'm like, you too? And like, and I've heard that like countless times.

And his eyes change and he becomes the aggressor and not realizing it then that he has a heart on, but, you know, would get me pinned to the ground and then gyrate on top of me. And look, you know, it wasn't until I looked back on it when I was older, like, you know, what he was doing. Of course. Yeah. So, so it progressed to that. And in these, like, wrestling matches, I mean, you can call them that. It's abuse, but when you leave them, did you feel like you were abused? Did you feel violated in a way?

Or did you think, like, oh, that was sort of an awkward, strange thing? Yeah. Because I wasn't putting two and two together with the heart on, you know, the erect penis and what, you know, what he was doing. Right. You know, just like, you know, not trying to look any more into it than like, whatever, you know. So you were still able to operate in daily life without this baggage necessarily on your, on your, sort of your primary conscience. Yeah.

Yeah. It was at 11 and 12, you know, like things progress. You know, like, I said, he's spending years with me just to go from touching the scar to, to now wrestling matches with a hard on. And over that time, he's showing me pornography. When does that happen? He, you know, down at the lake. You know, come in my truck and have a beer. He always had a six-pack in his truck. And he's, you know, he's got this whole scenario where his friend just bought an old farmhouse and they were clearing it out and there was a desk left behind. And he opened up one of the drawers and it was filled with pornography. And I grabbed a handful of them and here, let's look at him. And they're like, okay, cool, you know, like thinking like, you know, oh, I might see some boobs or something, you know. And it's.

It's just polaroids of close-up penises. He's giggling and laughing, you know, and handing them to me. Aren't he so funny looking? And, you know, after X amount of them that he handed over to me, I'm like, where's all the women, Den? He's like, oh, those must have been in the other drawer. I'll grab some of them next time I'm over there. I'm like, all right, you know. And just, you know, so it's testing me.

It's getting me comfortable, you know, seeing penises, I guess. He's telling me how he was always going out west. And he told me how he met the Marlboro man, who was the guy portrayed on the back of the magazines back in the day, always smoking, and the quintessential cool guy. And he tells me how he met the Marlboro man, and the Marlboro man confided in him that he's gay. And he's like, it didn't bother me at all.

You know, he was the greatest guy in the world. We hung out for days out there. So, like, he's taken, like, the most macho, coolest guy in society and making him gay. Right. To, again, to test you to get you comfortable with male and male behavior. But also conflating terminology here to try to make it seem as though your relationship is gay rather than pedophilic. Right. Like, he's using manipulative language.

to make it seem like, oh, yeah, we're just two guys doing stuff. Right. Which is, again, another manipulative tactic. Yeah, like, you know, like, be gay. That's fine. But being gay and going after little boys is like, right, which is like, where you're, that's a totally different thing. And he's intentionally manipulating this language to put a label in your mind where you're like,

oh, this is not pedophilic maybe. He's trying to test you and prime you in that way, which, again, is just further, you know, manipulation. Yeah. And so at this point, he's now done this overt sexual act with you showing you pornography. The feeling you have when you leave that encounter, I'm sure it's probably a little bit. Yeah, just like, oh, that was gross and weird. Yeah.

You know, but I'm like, all right, whatever, he grabbed the wrong pictures out. And that is that another secret? And like, you know, thinking back on it, you know, like, you know, he would tell me how my brother and my next door neighbor Jeff would get so, drunk at his house he'd have to take their clothes off and put him to bed and you know so then i think back you know when i get old enough thinking back like oh or some of those polaroids that he showed me of jeff and my brother you know naked penis you know their penises and uh yeah yeah so uh and so Do you ever speak to anyone about these encounters specifically? Do you ever talk to your brother about it?

No, no. Does your brother ever talk about this guy to you? Does he ever say like, oh, I see you're hanging out with Lieutenant Dennis or whatever? Does he ever have? He doesn't, again, he's not seeing. Right. Everything's down, like, lake area. Throw your bike in my truck.

To the house. To the house, to, you know, just fishing, you know. Yeah, it was just out of the, the, the, the, watchful eye. Mm-hmm. And at this point, still, no rumors in the town. Everything's fine with this guy. No, rumors came out about a year after he had me.

Okay. Yeah. So it leads up to the wrestling around 10. Then it went into oral sex, him performing oral sex on me while jerking off at 11. And is that under the same pretense? Got me to, it was a whole, oh, man. He would set up these skits, scenarios, let's say, where he's like, you know, we're at his house. He gives me a glass of Blackberry Brandy this time with a beer, has me chugged the Blackberry Brandy.

And then says, let's play bumping logs. And he goes, I'll be right back. And, you know, he wore like cargo shorts and he comes back into the room. He disappeared into his bedroom for a few minutes. and comes back, and it looked like he had stuck something in his shorts, not realizing it was his erect penis. And he's stand up. And he, you know, it's summer. You know, I've got shorts on. If you ever look at the 1970s shorts, like they're the gayest looking thing. It was like pedophiles designed them. Like, I googled it for some reason a couple years ago. I'm like, oh, man, look

how gay they look. You know, like it's a pedophile's dream, those shows. shorts. And he pulls me into him. And he's like, your log's not ready. We're going to get your log ready. And he's giggling and I'm laughing. You know, I drank this bottle, a glass of Blackberry. And he's like, sit on this chair. And he goes, no matter what happens, keep your eyes closed. And he's like, don't open your eyes. I'm like, okay. And I'm sitting on his chair. and in a second he slips my shorts down, starts blowing me, and he's got his cock out, um, masturbating. And I opened my eyes. Like it just at a, like what the fuck's going on here. And, uh, he did what he did. And, uh, um, just, you know, whatever, you know, whatever scenario at the end.

You know, he came up with, you know, our secret, you know. You know, the thing was not to minimize, you know, but I'm not seeing him on a daily basis. I'm not getting abused on a daily basis. So, like, it could get spread out for weeks or months, you know, before running into him again. So I can't, you know, I'm sure I saw him, you know, multiple times after that. But the next event that sticks out in my mind is when he, me at 12. And that was the summer. Back then, they opened up a new high school.

And they took the elementary seventh and eighth grade out of the elementary school and put it into the high school. So I graduated sixth grade. and in that summer before going off to the high school to start seventh grade is when he made. And he had this whole elaborate plan he wanted my help with. And we ended up at his house. And again, Blackberry. And it was, you know, it was a summer day. And it seemed like, I don't know, I just have this suspicion he put his heat on because his house was sweltering. And it led to us being on his bed and sweating and taking their clothes off. And before you know it, he's got me in a bear hug. And I'm crying and screaming. And this piece of garbage whispers in my ear. He's got me like where I can't

move and whispers in my ear just another minute, you know, so that he can finish his deed. and he had a coon dog. Coond dogs have a long drawn-out howl and his dog was howling. He had a, you know, a back room. And the dog was just going nuts because of my screams and cries. And we got done, you know, cleaned me up like a great guy and sat me down on his kitchen table, got me another beer. You know, like, you know, like we're just two lovers who just had a nice romantic trist or something and having a beer afterwards. And he brought his dog in who's still howling and brought it right in front of me and said,

I want to show you what will happen to you if you open up your mouth about what just occurred. And he began beating his dog and beating his dog and beating his dog. And I'm screaming and I'm crying and I'm begging him. Please stop, Dennis. Please, please, please, please. Please, please, stop. And he beat the dog, and the dog lay out a heap at my feet. And he goes, you will not talk about what just happened or that will happen to you.

And, I mean, so what am I supposed to do after that? Like, go running home to my parents and open up my mouth about what, like, what just happened. So he dropped me off down at the dam area with my bike. and I took my bike and I ran down the river and I ditched my bike into weeds and I just stood by the river and I was like rocking and hugging myself and crying a little and my mind said we are never going to talk about this. Talking about it is reliving it and we are definitely not going to relive it. and that really like was the worst thing our minds try to protect us and a lot of times they do the complete opposite of what we need like i needed to i needed to talk about it instantly and

instead i i i clamped up and uh i had gotten um that christmas after that summer i got a dirt bike and I began riding dirt bikes at our lake community. There was a track behind our house. And I avoided the dam area. Like I just started riding dirt bikes with older kids at the lake and not going back to the dam area anymore. And that dirt bike became, you know, like my savior, you know, to get me away. What's up, guys?

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Is it... Yeah, everything changed after, you know. I mean, somehow at 11 with the blowjob, I was able to just disconnect from that. But the change everything. It changed. I had been an altar boy in the Episcopal church. Boom, I'm done with God.

You know, like back then, you know, the old crusty ministers, you know, like, you do good and good things will happen to you. You step out of line and you incur God's wrath, you know, during his sermons. And like, what the F could I have done to incur God's wrath for this to have happened to me? that. I did everything right and this is how I get repaid. Yeah. And like, like, you know, I didn't learn a lot later on that we have free will. And free will you can use for good or for evil. You know, it's not like God was allowing this to happen. You know, God can't be, we want God to be the superhero, you know, who's going to save the train from going off the tracks or the boat from, you know, capsizing, you know, or or or or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or. or the Boy Scout from getting, you know, if God is doing all those things,

the plane from crashing and what's the sense of life? You know, like, we're just puppets then. Right. And God is in the sky, you know, controlling everything. So, but at the time, that's what it felt like. Yeah, of course. You know, like it didn't seem like free will. Nobody had ever taught me about free will, you know?

It just seemed like God had let me down. And done with it. And then as far as school goes, relationships with friends. Yeah, school, I realized I was a smart kid and could do absolutely zero and get passing grades. And that's what I did. I did, I let my guard down one time, whether it was seventh or eighth grade. In an English class, we had to write a, the team. teacher gave every student a letter in the alphabet and you had to write a one page short story

using that letter of the that you got a sign to start words as many words as you possibly can. I got to sign the letter S and I still have that essay and I wrote about being a ship, a slave on a ship where the shipmaster is a gay guy who's trying to come into my bunk at night to molest me and I'm beating him with a metal pipe at night. And, like, I got this whole, like, one-page scenario of this going on. And the teacher gives me an A and writes, good job, use more paragraphs next time. Like, just like it's perfectly fine for 12, 13-year-old to be writing about a gay guy's trying to get into his bed at night and beating him with a pipe. I mean, absurd.

No one ever talked about it. No, no, no. And then after that, I was, I was a clam. That was it. Like, was that a, were you trying to get? I can't recall, like how, like, I had forgotten about that essay. And when I got arrested, my mother found it. She went through, like, my childhood stuff.

And she's like, oh, my God, how did I never see this? How did nobody bring this to my attention? She gave it to my lawyer. And, you know, then my lawyer made a copy for me to read. And I was like, I. I'm like, I vaguely remember writing that, you know, just broken and my pain and trauma, poor anatomy, you know. And then as far as your relationships with friends. Yeah, I was, and, you know, this is what a lot of us do, you know, like I just put on a false, a false face.

You know, we have two faces, you know, the one we show the world, the one behind closed doors. The one I showed the world was just like positive, happy, go lucky Clark, you know, Mr. Friendly, sociable. My mother worked in the school. She was in the library. You know, maybe this teacher thought, you know, like, Joan, Joan would obviously know if something was going on. This is just Clark with a wild imagination, you know.

And so the teachers, the teacher's a story. you know, liked me. I was real popular with friends and, you know, my classmates. And, uh, did you have other coping mechanisms immediately after the event? So you mentioned the dirt bike, but were there other, like was music or anything else? Just weed, weed. And, uh, and then it morphed into drinking in high school, uh, alcohol became easy to get. My, my, my, back then they had paper licenses.

When I was a freshman, my brother. gave in the drinking age was 18 my brother you know tossed me his uh expired uh paper license with his day to birth and like nobody even like looked at that it was expired and just i was able to get served wherever and were you angry um yeah but my anger isn't showing in those years you know like the rage is building, you know, like the anger is building. It's, it's, you know, it's like a snowball just starting off down the hill. This pain doesn't diminish as the years go on. It grows. And my rage grew as years went on. And, you know, you think you can just bury it, but it's, it's going to come out in destructive ways.

And, you know, my life just, you know, should have been filled with so much promise. And I just, like, squandered everything and just sabotaged everything, every romantic relationship, you know. So, you know, so the, you know, the high school years were, you know, a drunken blur sports. You know, I played basketball two years. quit the other year, got injured the other year, just gave up on sports. And what was, was that a general apathy towards life? Yeah, yeah, just like not being able to apply myself, just not having that internal fortitude to want to study, to want to excel at sports, just.

Looking back, would you say you were depressed? Oh, God, yeah. I mean, just, it was exactly. exhausting just living that dual life of having, you know, like can't let mom see me at school. Like, like, you know, being goth, wearing goth clothes and, you know, having a frown on my face. And, you know, looking all down and out, got to be, you know, Mr. cheerful, you know, don't want my teachers to know, you know, that something's amiss with me. You got to keep that smile cranked on, you know, same for my classmates, you know. And it's exhausting when you feel the complete opposite inside.

And you got to live that lie. Yeah. And you can't help but wonder if even like the psychological effects or even like the sunfish moment of like this is what happens if you're worthless. And even just that tape playing in your head to other adults, like I'm not going to be worthless. I'm going to be a good kid that does good things. And I know, I'm going to be friendly and be accepted by the group and that will protect me.

and that will make sure nothing like this happens again. And the constant battle to put that on every single day. Yeah. It must be draining. It was draining, man. It was exhausting, you know, like my whole life is, you know, I tell everybody, I live the most exhausting life. Just you become hypervigilant, like later on in life.

Like, my life became peddleton and metal. Like, there was no mindfulness and meditation and sitting calmly and deep breathing. and yoga, you know, fuck no, bro. It was like, we got to outrun this pain and we're going to go full steam ahead and we're going to ride this wave

until it crashes and, you know, let's see what happens. And drugs and alcohol are a great escape for that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you get this thing. The problem with drugs and alcohol is they work. Yeah. They work until they don't.

Yeah, of course. But, but, um, so you get access to weed and you're smoking regularly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. My father, you know, my father are, uh, My father found it in my room. He threatened to send me to military school.

You know, and you and I talked, you know, before we started this, my father, rumors did come out finally about this guy. He worked at the jail as a lieutenant in the sheriff's department. And rumors came out about him taking newly released young male inmates home to mentor them and then molesting them at his house. And how this got out is these young guys would run out of his house in the middle of the night and be hitchhiking through little Stillwater. I mean, Stillwater is exactly what it sounds like. It's, you know, one horse town. And people would pick them up. You know, hitchhiking was normal, you know, in 70s, 80s, 90s.

Now it's like not a big thing. And when people would pick them up, you know, they would say like, this guy Dennis. He offered me to get back on my feet and to help me. And, you know, I woke up in the middle of the night. He's on top of me trying to molest me. And that spread like wildfire through Stillwater. And my father caught wind of this. And he sat me down one day and he said, son, I want to ask you a question.

He said, I'm hearing some disturbing rumors about Dennis taking inmates home from the jail and trying to molest them or I'm molesting them. Has he ever touched you? And I just couldn't bring myself to, like, say it. And I'm like, no, dad, he's never touched me. He's like, all right. And like a year or so later, like when I was around 15, a classmate of mine who had been in the scouts with me from Stillwater, his mother worked at as a waitress at the local Dunkin' Donuts. And my father was in there having a coffee one day.

and she's telling my father how her son, Michael, was repeatedly by Dennis. And my father came home from that and, you know, sat me down again. And this time he said, son, I want to ask you something. And I just want you to know before you answer, you'll never have to go to the police. You'll never have to testify in court. I will handle this myself. And he told me the story about, you know, know, what the mother said about Michael. And he goes, just, just tell me if Dennis has ever touched you.

And, you know, I'll take care of Dennis myself. So, you know, in my mind, you know, my father's saying, I'll go kill Dennis. You know, that's how I took it. And, you know, that's a lot of pressure, like over the next few weeks, you know, like I said no again to him. And then it just like was eating at me, you know, whether to tell them. And I'm like, man, what if, you know, Dennis kills my dad, you know, my dad goes to get them and my dad ends up getting killed and that's on me or my dad has to go to prison. That's on me. And I just kept quiet about it. What is that emotion when you're saying no, but your mind is saying yes? Yeah, like my mind's screaming, like, let's tell him, let's tell him, let's tell him, let's be done with a shit.

And then the words just come out in no dead. And is the feeling fear of retribution from Dennis? Yeah, that fear's been instilled in you. It's also like, do you, you know, like, do you want to be known as the damaged boy now? You know, like, in college, I met the love of my life. And, and, like, she would see me get lost in my thoughts and, you know, ask me like, where did you just go in your mind? And I'd make it out like she was nuts, you know, because I want to be, you know, the cool party animal, hot, sexy boyfriend, not the broken, wounded, you know, damaged boyfriend. You know, the two didn't mesh in my mind.

So if you could just get rid of the damaged one and, you know, we can move on. Yeah, just like, there's no need to tell her about what happened, you know. There's no need to tell my dad, you know, I don't want to open up this Pandora's box. And it's the worst, you know, like my mind told me down at the river at 12. After that, like, we are not going to talk about this. Yeah, this is done. Yeah. And like I let my guard down with.

that essay I wrote and, you know, and that was it, you know. Now, it seems like your dad unfortunately was doing the right thing. Like, I don't think his actions were negligent necessarily. They just might have been sort of misguided in the way that he put pressure on you in that moment. So I'm curious, like, if you had advice for parents that maybe are dealing with a kid that had experienced a predator like this, what should they say instead? Yeah, like I've said how my dad blew it when he found the weed. Like he found a pipe, papers, and a bag of weed in my room at 12 and threatened to send me to military school. Like I already investigated a school down by Philadelphia and this shit ends right now or else your ass is going to be sent off to military school.

Like instead, like this is your. opportunity, dude, like to sit me down and have a heart to heart like, son, why at 12 years old are you smoking this crap? Like, what's going on in your world, you know, that you feel you need to do this, you know, like, talk to me. Instead, it was the, you know, the hardline approach. You know, he's like, I went through this shit with your brother and I'm not going through it with you. You're not putting me through the same stuff your brother has put us through. He goes, So this ends right now or else you're off to military school. So my advice would be open up lines of communication, you know, no matter how upset or disappointed you are with your child over their destructive behavior, there's a reason for it.

Find out what that reason is. My dad didn't do that. So in that, in that aspect, he blew it. Do you think asking a kid straight up like, hey, has this person touched you? Is that adequate questioning in the way? work that you've done with other abuse survivors, or should it be phrased in a different way? Yeah, I mean, that's, you know, everybody asked me, how do you get a kid to open up? You know, and it's just, it's, it's just trust and lines of communication and gentleness.

You know, because if you suspect that kids, something's happened, they've experienced horror. and like you just can't say tell me tell me what happened right it's just like you can barely get an adult to be honest yeah you know so yeah it's just uh it takes patience you know might i just have to say like i am always here for you you know when you're ready if something has happened you can come to me any time there's not going to be any judgment there's not going to be any freaking out i love you i want to help you, let's talk. You know, instead of, instead of the hardline approach, you've got to tell me what happened and I'm going to go kill the guy. Yeah, of course. It's just not going to, it's, like I said, it was just too, that was too much on me, like after what I've already been. I wonder

if art could be a helpful sort of conduit for conversation for kids in this regard, like, taking them through, like, an essay, like the way you did, or, you know, drawing or painting. Well, that's what they do nowadays, you know, like a kid back in the 70s or 80s. would get taken into a police barracks, you know, the state police barracks or the local town cop, you know, into usually a windowless room, concrete, and a desk and a detective, you know, probably with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth. So, you know, what happened to you, kid? You know, nowadays they take you to, like in our town is Ginny's house. It's for abused children and it's a therapeutic setup and it's you know light tone colors and toys and games and

and they they you know get the kids comfortable in there and it's it's a it's a calming place to get them to open up about what happened yeah yeah so i mean that's that's the approach you're going to take yeah yeah it's just yeah i can see why These channels for kids are so important to have space for them to open up, honestly, and not without the coercion or the pressure. You know, you take a kid down to a police station, the fear of, oh, am I going to do something wrong? Am I going to put my parents in jail? Am I going to get arrested for work?

Yeah, right. I mean, that's... It's something I always think that with... You know, you get pulled over by a cop for speeding. Your heart starts racing out of your heart or out of your chest. I put my keys on the hood still. Or, like, I'll put them on the roof. I remember talking to people being like, why do you do that?

Like, I was in, like, a very, like, white suburb of Florida. And I was like, whof, I don't want to mess around. So I couldn't imagine being a kid and having this happen. Yeah. And something I think about with like childhood trauma in general, like outside of even just sexual trauma, but just all trauma, is like, I'm curious if this sort of resonated for you, but I've heard that when children are traumatized, specifically by people that they trust, they don't have the emotional apparatus to look at their abuser or their traumatizer and say like, oh, that's a bad person. Instead, they hold the esteem of that person that did it, and they say, I must be a bad person. I must be someone that's worth treating poorly. And as a result, they create this real negative sense of self.

And they, you know, if their parents are abusive, they say, my parents are good, I'm bad, which is why I'm being treated this way. Instead of having the emotional maturity to say, no, they are broken in this moment or they're doing something wrong to an innocent kid. And that they hold on and sort of internalize all the pain that has happened. them. And I imagine it's probably similar in your case that this thing happens from someone you trust and the rest of your teen years, you just go, I'm bad. I am, you know, I'm worthless. And this thing that happened to me is, you know, my fault and just suppressing all of this emotion. The self-hatred and the self-loathing just like is just like building and enormous, you know, you ask about hate and rage, you know, you're hating yourself, you know. And then the rage

starts, you know, to build over the years. So then you eventually go to college. I go to college, yeah. And college is fine. You have a decent time for those people? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I went to Northeastern University up in Boston and I did great in school. You know, I had school down to a science where I could study for, you know, three, four days and I could be a blackout drunk for three, four days.

And I tried cocaine. the 80s. I tried cocaine in college. Absolutely loved it. Like, just instantly took away all that self-loathing and feeling weak and insecure and just made me feel outgoing and confident and strong and powerful. Met the love of my life back then. You know, Northeastern is a five-year school. We dated, you know, off and on for the five years and then afterwards. And she wanted to, you know, start our lives and get married and start a family. And, you know, I could have sex all I wanted. I could say I love you.

But intimacy, getting married and being intimate and living together and being intimate, I just couldn't do it. And I told her I couldn't do it. And she's just like, why? You know, like, we've been together for so long. What are we doing here? And I just told her, I just can't get married. And she's like, I got to go in a different direction then.

I was like, all right. And, you know, that's the trickle-down effect of what this animal did to me, you know. Had I gotten together with her, though, you know, like, it would have just been a train wreck. You know, I would have made her life hell, you know. So she haunted me for 30 years, you know. So in that moment when you're saying no, you don't have a cognizant feeling of like, oh, because of my trauma and the baggage that I'm dealing with, I'm unable to have intimacy. The feeling in your brain is just on fire. Like, hey, connection is dangerous.

I can't let this person get close. Yeah, it was just, yeah, it wasn't like I've been, I've been abused. I can't have into that. That's not going on. What's going on is, oh, my God, I'm suffocating. I'm starting to have a panic attack. I can't breathe. I'm drowning.

The answer's no. Like I get away. I got to get out of here. You know, no. So that was the experience. And the culture of therapy at this time? Yeah, there was nothing back then. You know, like there was no organizations back then.

Like I just mentioned Ginny's house in my town. There was nothing back. You know, like back then you went to a state police barracks or a local cop shop. There was no organizations. The cops were the only one. This guy was a law enforcement officer. He's lieutenant. So that avenue was cut off.

So there, you know, I tell people nowadays, I'm like, we are so lucky nowadays, like with the internet. Like, you can go on and connect with somebody around the world, you know, have an AA meeting around the world or connect with abuse victims around the world. You know, back when our parents and our grandparents and their parents, like, whatever trauma they had, like, they just had to suck it up and grab a bottle of vodka and get through it. Yeah. You know, there was, you know, therapy was just for the elites in New York City, you know, back then. You know, therapy wasn't for the average Joe. So basically from graduation, for the next 20 years of your life is marred with drugs, alcohol. and a search for a thrill, you could say.

You know, you, you look for the quick fix. Yeah. And, and that was like, as soon as you feel uncomfortable, you got to fix it. You know, like, there is no delaying gratification, you know, for the greater good down the road. It's like, I need gratification right now, immediately. And, and that's what I became. just, you know, looking, looking like a junkie, looking for gratification, instant gratification, anytime, you know, I felt uncomfortable.

And what would sitting with that discomfort bring off? Like, what would that feel like? Just, like, that's what I say, like, you become hypervigilant. You just become on the run, on the go. Like, there was no sitting feeling uncomfortable. Is that that suffocating feeling you mentioned before? Yeah, just, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, Yeah, you're running from that pain.

Like, you're constantly trying to stay one step ahead of it, you know, whether it's from drugs and alcohol, whether it's from sex. You know, like my 20s were just a blur of sex. Like, just one night's dance. Like, I'll prove that I'm a man. I'll get rid of this insecurity. Just if I sleep with enough women, this insecurity, this self-loathing will go away. You know, so, like, I was just a revolving door in my child. 20s and it left me like that's adding more trauma because I'm hurting all sorts of women along the

way just to gratify myself and they're catching feelings for me and I'm just like and you know that was my whole 20s into my 30s you know just doing that you know like drugs Drugs weren't a big thing in my 20s. You know, if we went out, you know, and I'm just saying sporadically, once in a blue moon, and somebody's like, well, let's, you know, let's get some Coke and get a bag of Coke for a night going out. That would be a rarity, you know. I went years without doing cocaine in my 20s. Just sex, though, sex and drinking.

Those were my drugs then. And you were holding a job in that point as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I was going through jobs. Like, I got out of college. My father put up money for me to become a partner in a tire retreading shop. My brother was in the tire business. My father was a salesman for good year.

He thought, oh, let's have all three sons in the tire industry. And so he put up money. You know, so here I got this great education and went and became a partner in a tire shop, a retired trooper or friend of my dad's. And it just imploded, you know, like within three years it was done. Like just my father's relationship with this best friend fell apart. I was stuck in the middle and I just like after, I was like a pawn between the two of them. And I was just like, F this.

And I left. And I got a job on Wall Street. I got a, I was working on Wall Street. living out in Jersey still commuting in. I did that for a couple years. I walked away from that. I worked for a buddy in my grandmother had my grandfather had died. My grandmother had gotten murdered, which is the whole thing we can go into. And each, each grandchild inherited some money. And I took my money to buy a fixer up her house. And my buddy. And my buddy, He was in construction.

So I started working with him in construction to learn how to redo the house. And, you know, he and I worked on it. And when we fixed it up, then I went to work for him for a couple of years doing construction. And then blew that off after a while. And what is that? What is the nature of getting a job, doing it for a few years, excelling and then letting it go? Feeling trapped. and trapped is how I felt at his house.

It's the suffocation again. I was an animal in a snare when I would go to his house. And I would feel trapped in relationships. You know, like, I was the greatest boyfriend for three months. Like, you would have a blast for those three months. But they'd be like, you know, it's just overwhelming after a while. Like, it's, you know, a nonstop party and sex fest. It's like, you know, it would start off great.

And then she says, where are we going? And then it would be like, can we do something normal? And, you know, can we start like, you know, and be like, see ya, you know. And the jobs probably had a similar effect. And the same thing, too, like, I don't want to be trapped in a job. I'm not, I'm never going to feel trapped again, you know. So it was always just cutting and running, cutting and running. You're going to be a partner in this thing and you'll work in Wall Street and you'll be tied to this

and then you'll get your retirement and your pension for 20 years later. And you're like, no. Yeah, I don't think. I think so. I'm not thinking about being tied to anything. You'll take the money you inherited and start flipping houses left and right. Yeah. Right. Because anything that was some type of long-term intimacy, even if it was professional intimacy, was still too much to handle.

Yeah. So, like, and my life has been a nonstop trauma. Like, it's not just the trauma from that. You know, like, I mentioned my brother and my next door neighbor. At 17, when I'm 17, my next door neighbor puts a shotgun in his mouth and blows his head off next door, having been in the scouts with this guy. In my early 20s, my grandfather died when I was a senior in high school. They had a house right on the water down in Naples, Florida, beautiful place. My grandmother, you know, my father and his sister, my aunt, tried to get her to move into like a retirement community.

You know, she's like, are you nuts? She's like, this is paradise. Why would I move out of here? Some guy breaks into their house. She's 80 years old, ties her up, tortures her, kills her. He was in a gay love affair with his next door neighbor. And the guy broke up with him. And he went to go kill her, kill him.

and he wasn't home. And for whatever bizarre, insane reason, he's like, I'll go next door and I'll kill the old lady next door. And the cops, I remember my father saying, like, the cops don't want to tell all that she went through in the last minutes of her life.

You know, they just said, let's just say he tortured her. She was bound, tortured. And we killed. It's how they summed it up. You don't, you guys don't need to know any more than that. And this guy served trial and went to prison.

Yeah, he stole her car. He had walked to the guy's house to kill him. And then, like an idiot stole her car. And that's how they caught him. And he got sentenced to life in Florida prison. What the fuck. Yeah.

So, like, that was a whole triggering event for me as well as, you know, bringing up, you know, So, you know, my, my next-door neighbor, you know, 17, I got my own been trauma I'm dealing with. And then he blows his head off. And I'm thinking, is that going to be my destiny? You know, is that what's going to wait for me down the road? Am I going to get to that point?

You know. Did that seem out of the question at that point? Out of the question? Yeah. No. No, it seemed like this is my fate. That this pain will build up over time and that will be the only way out. This is where I'll get to in life.

Did that scare you? I would say haunted me. It haunted me throughout my life, would be the word. And then these later traumatic events, again, they're traumatic in their own right, but they're also bringing up these triggers for you and bringing up these other feelings. Yeah, like hearing my grandmother's been murdered, you know, my friend murders himself and, uh, you know, Jeff, my next door neighbor is like a brother to me, you know, with the three of a, you know, like they were the older big, big brothers, but, you know,

he was literally like a brother. And, uh, you know, so that was devastating to me. Jeff's, Jeff's death really haunted me. Um, and at any point in the wake of that, did you consider, oh, I, is this something that I should, is worth talking about that this might be something that happened to him. Did it tickle in the back of your head? It was always, you know, like, let's suck it up there, big boy and put our shoes on and go about our business, you know. How did Jeff's death affect your brother? I won't, you know, really know. But my brother, you know, was a hard charging guy his whole life.

But he was able to start a business, become very successful with his tire automotives. Center, get married, have a family. And, you know, one of my therapists asked me, you know, like, Clark, in your 20s and 30s, did you, did you focus on the abuse? Or was it, you know, like, in the peripheral vision of your mind? And I thought, and I'm like, you know, like, I would have these triggering events that would, like, send me into a slide and into a depression. and, but I'm not, I'm not necessarily equating my grandmother's

been murder to Dennis Peg. I'm not, I did equate Jeff's suicide to Dennis. And that, you asked about the rage. That's when the rage started. Like, I just became seething that I equated,

Dennis killed Jeff. And that is where my, up till that point, it was all just self-hatred. Jeff's, death started the rage towards Dennis. Mm. That's when it flipped for me.

Now, at this point, in your 20s and your 30s, you'd never seen Dennis again. Um, yeah, like, uh, occasionally, like, I remember, like, uh, maybe home from college and, uh, going out to a bar with my friends and he happened to be in the bar. and I drove and we had just got her beer and I turn and I see Dennis there and he's like And I'm like He waves to you

Yeah yeah oh yeah Like they have no shame These these predators Like no shame at all And I chugged my beer And I'm like to my friends We gotta go let's get out of here They're like we just got here

I'm like there's no women here We're gonna go hit another bar Where there's women I'm driving You can either stay or we're going You know like very forceful like let's rock and roll like i'm not staying here they're like i whatever bro and you know they chugged their beer and they're like you know busted me like what the fuck dude what the hell and like got to get out of there um i dated a girl in my late 30s and 40s and i don't even recall this but we're

headed to our friend's house um for a party and she said we were at a stop sign and Dennis Pegg came and made the left to come up alongside up the road, you know, by us. And like, I just went nuts and started spitting and punching the steering wheel and cursing. And she's like, what are you doing? I'm like, Dennis. And she's like, Dennis who? And I'm like, Peg.

And she's like, what about him? I'm like, he's a scumbag and he just went by. She's like, all right. all right, calm down. And she says I proceeded to get bombed that night. And, you know, she had to drive me home and stuff. You know, but I don't recall that. I mean, it's strange how even just the sight of someone can trigger those feelings internally,

like your blood running cold, your heart starts to be, like, you know, that sensation just from the proximity to the person that caused this. And I'm sure that's probably what you felt, that feeling of like just a full body rush, anger, all those feelings flooding back in one moment. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, it's like, you know, ripping the band-aid off and, you know, that wound is there, you know, like, I'm keeping a band-aid on everything. You know, but I've never addressed that wound. Right.

You know, so that wound's there. And it's building. Yeah, it's just waiting. One of the things that you mentioned in another interview that in your late teens, you got into, like, pyro and like lighting fires. Yeah, I was when I was younger. Yeah, that's another, you know, like, I lit everything, you know, like, everything on fire. I lit our house on fire. I lit the leaves on fire where like the whole backyard was on fire. Now, I've heard this to be the case amongst people with different types of

trauma that fire becomes sort of a, I don't know, like some type of hobby or some type of thing to sort of like work through anger or resentment. I don't know through your therapy. I didn't know anything about, I never put two and two together until, I mean, you know, this is going to get us a little ahead, but again, when I was in prison, I got therapy for the first time. And I was in a group therapy class. And our therapists said, how many of you have ever played with fire when you were younger? Every hand went up. What is that? And she's like, how many of you have ever shoplifted? Every hand went up. And she's like, those are signs of childhood abuse. And do you know why, or have you read any explanations to what that would do? I did, uh,

I've looked at it a couple times over the years. I can't like, I would be sort of making it up. Sure. But for you as a kid when you were doing it, was there any type of feeling where you were like, oh, this is, I mean, because I think kids sort of play with fire in general, like lighting fireworks and stuff, but I mean, maybe to the nature that you were doing, or like lighting a house on fire, maybe a different level. But I'm curious when it was happening, was there any type of conscious thought?

Like, oh, this feels good to see these things like burning. Maybe it's a control thing. Like you're in control of this. Of a dangerous thing. Yeah. Yeah. And then maybe shoplifting is kind of like this sort of rush. Yeah.

It's something that's bad, but you're in control once again. Yep. Hmm. Yeah. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because you are a grown child. Yes. You're a giant man child and you just love stuff in your face and all the sugary cereals.

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the into the play a little bit more uh yeah like i i bought a harley um you know it you know 31 32 let's say somewhere around there. That's awesome. What Harley? Heritage Softtail. Hell yeah. And I started riding with a bunch of hard partying guys. And, you know, one of the guys was a big Coke doer, and he and I, you know, instantly bonded.

And just, you know, Coke became like, you know, going to strip bars on the Harleys doing Coke, that became like a normal, you know, a normal thing, you know, uh, you know, for a lot of years. I dated it. I got hooked up with a girl I dated off and on for a couple of years living with her. She was a big Coke doer. I had never tried ecstasy. She's like, have you ever done ecstasy? I'm like, no.

She's like, missed our hard partying, biker boy. He's never done ecstasy. He's like, we're going to change that. You know, so then we're buying hundreds of ecstasy tablets at a time. We're buying ounces of Coke at a time. You know, like all our friends party, we might as well get extra, you know, so that we have it for everybody. I'm like, that's a great idea. So it's always there.

You know, when you got a suitcase in your basement with three, four ounces of Coke in it always, it's just that you can hear it calling you. Like it's like come down and do a bump. Feel good. Yeah. Feel good immediately. So, yeah, so those years like quickly became a blur. And you mentioned the boundary thing, which I found very interesting, like how trauma can sort of take away your boundaries, even though you think you have them. Yeah, well, your boundaries get ripped from you.

So then you don't even know what a boundary means. You know, like I would say I had boundaries, but I blew through every boundary I set for myself. You know, you know, over the year, you know, like cocaine. All right, cocaine is a weekend drug only. And then you're doing Coke every day of the week. You know, like, so that boundary just got shot to hell. You know, drinking, you know, is only if you're going out with the guys or on the weekends with your girl and the guys. and most definitely never before work.

And then you're drinking before work, you know, just to get yourself going in the morning. Heroin is only for people on Skid Row in Kensington Avenue in Philly and in New York City. You know, a well-educated middle-class guy will absolutely not do heroin and I'm doing heroin. You know, like, so just nothing, nothing stuck. I couldn't, I couldn't set a boundary that I could live within. Like, it just, they were meaningless to me. Right. You know, because if, uh, if I felt uncomfortable, like, we got to fix this uncomfortable feeling.

And, you know, like, I went, I was never arrested. I had no criminal charges, you know, throughout my life. But I was right there. I was right. You know, I was right on the. edge, you know, like, you know, I was importing steroids, doing steroids, you know, my 30s. And Homeland Security, you know, confiscates package of them. And, you know, I get this threatening letter, you know, you basically get out of jail free card. One get out of jail free card.

And I started like, after all the women, nonstop women in my 20s, I. I started gambling, like going to the casinos, like every weekend. That became my new coping mechanism. You know, like when you would step through the doors of the casino and the sounds and the cocktail waitresses. Cigarettes. And the win or loss, the adrenaline flowing, all your, all your shit just dissipates, just goes away as soon as you would step into that environment. So that was like, that felt like home to me. And, you know, so I'm doing, I'm doing that for years.

You know, that became years of, like, gambling. And that's how I bought my Harley. Like, you know, I came home, you know, like with $50,000. I stopped at a Harley Davidson dealership. I handed the guy $22,000 cash and picked up a Harley a couple days later. Wow. I'm making $700 a week in the tire business. You know, like I eventually, after the construction thing, I'm doing nothing.

I'm unemployed for six months. And my brother comes to me when I was around 30 and says, you know, like, you're not doing anything. He goes, you want to open up a retread shop again? He's like, you and I. He goes, I got my retail store and I'm thinking about a retread shop. And, you know, you and I will do that. I'm like, and I had nothing else going on. I'm unemployed.

I'm like, fuck it, let's do it. You know, so I'm making 700 a week and yet I'm, I'm winning and losing tens of thousands of dollars. I went on this unbelievable run in the casinos. And I don't say this to brag, just like, I just was like fearless when I bet. And I had a suitcase with hundreds of thousands of dollars in it. The casinos. Like my biggest win was I won 152,000. And I had been up way over that.

And then I lost, lost, lost. And then I had 152. I'm like, you know, all right, I'm out. But I was up, you know, quarter of a million. And, you know, then you're getting all the perks. Like I'm going to the suite at Giant Stadium. You're like, you want to go see Giants play the Eagles down to Philly? we'll send a limo up to you.

You know, you don't even have to gamble. Like, I'm like, all right, cool. You know, I'm going out to Vegas. You know, they're paying for my airfare out to Vegas. I had a convention in Palm Springs. They're like, oh, we'll fly you, you know, from Vegas out to Palm Springs. the suites, Biles of Kettle 1, Don Perry,

you know, just whatever you want. Like they would give me shopping sprees in the casinos, like the stores. Every piece of clothing I had back then had like, you know, an insignia of a casino on it. You know, it's just like all my clothing came from casinos. And how do you feel in this window? Just money was meaningless to me.

Like it was just a tool. for me to use to not deal with my shit. Like I had no respect for money and thus why it would come and go, you know? And then I got to the point where I couldn't even wait for the weekends to go gamble because you got a five-day stretch where your pain is like rearing its ugly head and, you know, you're just feeling uncomfortable. So it's like I start sports betting with the mop. so I can do that every day of the week.

And within six months, you know, like my hundreds of thousands are gone. I had two stock things that I had opened up with money. I also got investigated by the IRS Criminal Bureau for money laundering, for all the cash I was putting into my account. You know, a full audit on that. just, you know, like my life is like just, it's just, it's a train wreck. Problem after problem. Yeah.

And, you know, so I'm bankrupt in six months, sports betting with a mob, and I'm in debt to them for $77,000. And how do they collect? And I start getting the phone calls, you know, like, your life's endangered, bro. You're not walking away from this. and then they want me to go rob a bank. Like, you are better off to go rob a bank, and if you get caught, you do 10 years, big whoop. We're going to kill you if you don't pay us. This is what I'm dealing with on a regular basis.

And I happen to be at my brother's tire shop, not the retread shop, his retail store, and his store manager goes, hey, Clark, you got a phone call on line one. I'm like, who the hell's call me over here? He's like, I don't know. So I pick it up. And the guy goes, this is special agent, blah, blah, blah with the FBI. He goes, Mr. Frederick's, I need to meet you at your other store on Thursday at 2 o'clock. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's this about?

I can't discuss anything on the phone, Mr. Frederick. Please be at your Newton store Thursday at 2 o'clock and he hangs up the phone. And I'm like, you know, like I'm partying, you know, and I'm like, I go to the FBI isn't going to like get involved for buying some Coke. Like I'm not, I'm not like doing kilos or anything, you know. I'm like and then, you know, like I'm not putting two to two together with the mob. And the guy shows up and tells me we have a confidential informant inside one of the major crime families. and that informant has relayed to us that there's a hit put on in your life for gambling debt, and we are legally obligated to notify you.

It's just like, great. It's just fucking great, you know. So when I say I skirted, I was never, you know, like right on the edge. Like, and this is like this is how my life got away from me. What happens with this gambling debt? How do you resolve this? I take calls for months, threats, Death threats. They call my father. Tell him, you know, your son's life's in danger. You better pony up for him. I had already gone to my family. I didn't know what to do. So I had called Gamblers Anonymous. And I told the lady on the phone how much I was into the mob and that they're threatening my life. I got going to the, I wasn't going to go to the cops. That's not the type of dude I was. I didn't know what to do. So I called Gamblers Anonymous. And she had the head.

the director, call me back. She's like, I'm going to have Ed Looney call you back. She had Ed Looney call me back. And he's like, you're going to meet me at a meeting tomorrow night. And there's a bunch of hardcore summer ex-mob guys, big gamblers. And I'll meet you there. And we'll go over your story with them and devise a plan. Like the plan was to offer a payment plan, a monthly payment plan.

And they're like, they're going to. to laugh at it. They're going to scream, but you got to stick to your guns. And that's what I did. And they're like, you're fucking kidding, bro. Like, you know, like, I can only afford like 500 a month. And they're like, that's not even going to cover the juice that we're wrapping, racking on to your debt. Like, you're not even covering the juice. The guy's like, if I go to my boss and tell him, you're going to pay $500 on 77,000. he goes, you're going to put my life in danger. I can't even go tell him that. And so this went on and on and on, you know, the FBI's like, you know, this isn't going to go away.

You know, things are going to get worse. Here's my card. You know, you need our help. And one day I get a phone call and the guy just says, you're a fucking dead man and hangs up the phone. And I'm like, all right. So I'm constantly like just looking over my shoulder. You know, I got my shotgun in my truck. You know, I got a bat in my office.

Just, you know, living on edge constantly. And I never got another phone call. And nothing ever happened. And the guys in that gamblers meeting, what they said was the only thing that seems plausible is that their, the FBI's informant probably worked in the boiler room of the, you know, the gambling. And the guys in the, in because I was such a heavy better, you know, like, they gave me no limit. So I could bet as much as I wanted, you know. And they said when you're a better like that, they'll keep, you know, the house always has the odds. So they'll keep your bets to them to themselves and not turn it into the bosses, not put it in the book.

So they're not killers themselves. They're just working in the boiler room. Like the boss has the killers. And they can't go to the boss about you because they probably weren't turn. in your bets. And they've been skimming off the top. They were skimming that. So they can only push you so far, unless they want to try to do something themselves,

but they're not usually that type of person. And it just stopped. And whether these guys got killed, whether they got arrested, what happened? You know, that was 25 years ago. And after, after like six months of just daily, weekly calls, threats, that last phone call, you're a dead man, click. I never heard anything again. Wow.

Yeah. Now, we talk about feeling trapped, right? Those, those were like the worst years of my life, like that period, well, that period from. I mean, that must have been triggering so much. Oh, yeah, yeah, because they, they, they, they made comments. They were going to send guys up to me, you know, uh. And I mean, they're using fear as a coercion tactic and you can't tell anyone and we're going to come get you. Like, it's all the same playbook.

You know, like, I didn't want to die, but I just got to the point of a fuck, whatever, man. It's just like whatever, you know, whatever my life is shit anyway. It's been shit since I was a kid. So whatever, you know, it's like whatever they're going to fucking do, whatever, man. You know, it's sort of the mindset you adopt. Yeah, it's an interesting feeling. heard people say that before. That's not the desire to die. It's just not caring if you live or don't. Yeah. That's what it was. Yeah. And like the drugs and riding fast bikes and, you know,

all of this is kind of the same feeling of like, who gives a shit? Who cares? Yeah. You know, I got buddies who are hell's angels, you know, I'm selling drugs to them. Um, you know, in this, you know, my late 30s, I hurt my back at work. And I got prescribed viking and never had a pain pill in my life. And just instantly fell in love with those things. And, you know, went blew through 30 of them in a couple of days, called the doctor back up. Those things worked great. I feel great.

Then he's like, that was a little quick. I go, you got to get me more, Doc. And he goes, I'll give you 10 more. That's it. And that just like, that was unacceptable. So then I just start buying pills off the street. And thus begins a multi-year pain pill addiction. You know, so I got, it's just going from one thing to another to another to another, you know.

And, uh, we go into my 40s. And I, you know, like I didn't know, I suffered from PTSD, you know, from what happened to me as a kid. and something triggers my PTSD and I fall into this deep depression and uh you know it's just like just like this like it felt like a thick mattress on me just holding me down it's just like you can't get out of this fog it's just this thick heavy fog that's just and I would literally have to talk to myself like a baby to get out of bed in the morning come on Clark swing your legs out of bed you can do it now stand up come on walk to the bathroom come on and uh you know that's when i started drinking before work you know i mentioned that earlier like like i don't know how to

like i have no healthy coping mechanisms um so i'm just like i'm just trying to figure it out on my own like i i am literally depressed to the point of being immobile like all right let's let's have a drink in a morning just to try to get me going. And then it was, let's just do a couple bumps during the day just to keep me energized and going. Yeah. And it's just, you know, spiraled. And I got my pain pill addiction. And, you know, I was like a squirrel gathering nuts. I'd have a drawer of 500 pain pills and still feel like, that's only two weeks worth, you know, like, you know, we got, we got, We got to get, you know, more than that, you know. And I run out of, I get low on pain pills and somebody I go to says, I don't even know why you're fucking with those pain pills to begin with.

He goes, I got some packets of dope. He goes, don't kid yourself. You're, you're doing dope. He goes, it's pharmaceutical dope, but it's dope. He goes, you might as well just do the real thing for $5 a packet instead of, you know, what you're paying for pills. And I was just like, all right. bug it. Give me some packets unless I start doing heroin.

Right. So it's just one thing after another snowballs into another. And we're picking up steam too. Right. And things are not getting better, like I said. The pain is building and the anger is building. And at this point, by the time you're 40, you're now 30 years away from, you know, that sort of initial traumatic incident.

Yeah. How often are you thinking about that incident? I would love one, actually. Oh, right. Are we allowed to do that in a podcast? Thank you, sir. Yeah. How often are you thinking about that incident specifically?

Is it coming up weekly? No, I'm not thinking about it. Like, it's completely removed. Yeah. There's, you know, there's something driving me, though. You know, just uncomfortable. Like, anxious, depressed, panic attack. we got to solve that immediately.

We got to get those feelings out of here, you know. We are not going to let ourselves feel uncomfortable. And, you know, so just doing, you know, like, I'm at the point now where one drug alone isn't enough to, like, take away my shit. Would you call this rock bottom? No, rock bottom's coming up. And what happens then? Rock bottoms when I run into my abuser. It had been at least 10 years since I've seen them.

And take me through that day. I'm in a quick check deli. I don't know if you have quick checks around here. But I'm in a quick check getting a coffee. And the door opens up. And I just, you know, instinctively look up. And it's my... And he sees me.

And he's like, hey. Clark, like yells out in the store. And like, this guy's going to start making his way over to me to hug me, pat me on the back, whatever. And I just go into a panic attack, you know, like my mind's swirling, you know, my heart's racing. I'm sweaty. I can't breathe. Like my vision's like getting funny and all of a sudden I hear a young boy say his nickname that he used to make me say to him when I was younger and I see that boys about the age he hit me at and that was it like everything just like ripped open and I ran out of there we shoulder bumped I ran past him we hit shoulders he's like hey where you go

And I got my truck and I sped out of there and I pounded in my steering wheel and I'm cursing and I'm spitting in my truck yelling motherfucker over and over. And that was that was just like everything unraveled after that. You know, going to work when I was depressed felt like climbing Mount Everest. And with a month after seeing seeing him, I could. couldn't climb Mount Everest anymore. And I just left the family business with my brother. Just walked away. Buying grams of Coke no longer worked anymore.

I'm buying ounces of Coke. And I got free time on my hands. And I got Dennis Pegg on the forefront of my mind. And all I can think every day, is that he's still abusing boys 30 years later, still abusing boys 30 years later. And that just, like, haunted in me. And I spiraled downward for months

and got to the point where I had to go confront him and went to his house one night. I hadn't been back to that house since he put me. You still remembered where it was. Like you could just... Yeah, yeah. He lived three minutes away from me. You know, I didn't know if he still lived there.

And I assumed, so he had a long driveway, parked halfway down his driveway, ran up the driveway. His front door was open. His screen door was shut. There he is sitting there watching TV. And the plan is to just confront him. Yeah. Well, I knew he was a gun nut, but I took a knife with me. you can say whatever reason for taking the knife.

You know, here's a guy who's been children for 40 years. He is the firearms instructor. Every cop, everybody in law enforcement, every year has to get recertified with a firearm. He's the firearm instructor for two counties, Morris County and Sussex. This guy had 36 guns in his house. swords, a dozen knives. If you've been kids for 40 years, wouldn't you have on every chair a holster?

Wouldn't you have under every table a gun? Like, you've got to be like, I've pushed my luck. You know, something's going to happen eventually. So I was prepared to go into that house and get shot. Again, I'm not looking to die, but I just, I just don't care, you know. I'm willing to put my life on the line right now. And I go up to his door. I rip his screen door open.

And I'm standing there in his doorway. It's like 9.30 at night. And this is the part that gets me. But, you know, like we're trying to think that predators, pedophiles are normal or human. They're not human. This guy isn't human. You're a 12-year-old boy and you're whispering in his ear. just another minute so I can make sure I come, you know, and you're beating your dog in front

of him to death to keep him silent. So people view him as human. He's not, that's like, can you get more evil than that? That's evil. That's evil. It's not a human. And this guy looks calmly over his shoulders. I'm standing in his doorway and goes, hey, how are you? And it just seemed like the most incredible thing to say at that moment. Like, get down on your knees and be like, dude, I am so sorry. I know why you're here. I am sorry for what happened. I'm sorry for what I did to you.

I always thought you or somebody else would show up. Let's talk. Please forgive me. I'm sick. I need help. Whatever it may be. No, just, hey, how are you? that was that like set me off like whether i had a plan of action or not when he said that i had a

plan of action i go hey how am i motherfucker let me show you how the fuck i am and that face i kept behind closed doors the face of the smile that i showed the world was gone the face behind closed doors was out. He's seeing the face he made of rage and hate and violence that he instilled in me. He's seeing that on my face. He's the first one to see it. And I raced across his living room. We got into a violent fight. I'm stabbing at him. He's punching me. At one point, I put a knife right through my hand. I sever all the ligaments and tendons in my hand. And the fight really only They lasted a couple minutes, two, three minutes. He slipped in the blood that was both of ours on the floor.

And he was sort of like up against a wall. And I knelt down in front of him. And I looked him in the eye. And I said, it's not so fun. Little boys now, is it, Dennis? And I slit his throat. And that was it. And, you know, I would say I've had two people who have reached out to me over the years.

one female, one male, who said they were abused and said they would never think of doing what I did. Whether they were actual abuse victims or not, I don't know. Every other abuse victim has reached out to me and said, you did exactly what I've dreamt of. And, you know, you can look at their profile on Facebook or Instagram and see if they're liberal or see if they're Republican. and it doesn't matter if they're male-female Republican Democrat. You did exactly what I've dreamt them doing to my abuser. Because the horror of what they put you through is so traumatic. The only thing your mind can think to do, even to score, is to kill him.

But you don't heal from abuse. You don't heal from trauma by adding more trauma to your system. That's it. That's not how you heal. I stopped an evil piece of shit, not a human, an evil piece of shit from ever harming another child. Is that a good thing? Yes. Did it in any way heal me? Absolutely not. You know, like, so like, and I, I've had so many people who have, like, sent me messages. I'm going to go do what you just did or what you have done. I'm going to go do the same. And I'm like, and I'm like, dude, like, don't do it. You know, like, I've been to prison. Like, prison's hell. Like, you're literally, you're, you're literally, they win. They win by dragging your life to the grave in shit.

So, like, had I gotten a life sentence, Dennis Pegg won. He would have won. Like, he would have controlled me from age, let's, you could say six when he first touched me. all the way to the grave. Like, you can't allow your abuser to control you to the grave. You can't. That's the sinful part of it.

Like, you can't. You can't give these pieces of shit that much control. You can't. And by killing them, that's what you do. Like, they're controlling you to the grave by sitting in a prison cell for the rest of your life, being tortured every day in prison. Prison is held, dude. and you just can't do that

because your life does not have to be forfeited just because you were been abused. It doesn't. You can get past it. You can heal from it. You got to address it. You can't keep it to yourself and think you're going to have a normal life.

It's all going to come out. It's where midlife crisis has come from. Like all my therapists are like, you know, like my brother kept it at bay by building a business in a family, but it was there, and it was just waiting to come out. I kept it at bay in my 20s by sleeping with women in my 30s, by gambling, riding Harleys, living fast, Coke into my 30s and 40s, partying, drugs and alcohol. I kept it at bay, but it was there.

It was waiting, and it's going to come out. So you got to address it. Like, I am the face of you have to address your pain, you know? Like, I've done what everybody says they want to do. And I'm, I'm here to say it's not the way you heal. It's not going to, it's not going to work, you know. If you wanted to take a different course of action, of course, you know, sharing the pain earlier, telling your dad when he asked and coming forth with that and maybe getting, you know,

professional help in your childhood, all of those things would have certainly helped. But in the event that you hadn't done any of those things and the only thing you could change was, you know, driving up to that house, what would you have done differently? Would you have gone to law enforcement? Could the law even carry out a case against this guy? Like, what could you have done? But, you know, I have my own podcast and I actually had the prosecutor in my case come on. And one of the questions I asked him, what could I have done different? And he said, he said, statute of limitations had long run out. There's really, legally, there was nothing you could have done different.

Nothing. This guy had gotten out from under a minimum of three cases brought against him by young boys. That one, the mother in the Dunkin' Donuts, her and her son filed charges. he would come, she worked at the third shift. He would come and sit during her third shift, you know, midnight on, and threaten her life, threaten her son's life. You guys are going to pull those charges or your son's dead? You're dead.

And they eventually pulled their charges. Oh, what the fuck. Two other Boy Scouts went away on the jamborees. Like you would mention, like, oh, I'm going to be nervous if my son joins the scouts and goes weekend trip, you know. Two different scouts at different times went on weekend jamborees with peg and came home with hickies all over their body. And their parents, like, saw them with their shirt off. Like, what are those marks? And then, like, it went down below their beltline. And a mother took her son to the state police, filed charges. The father came the next day, recanted those

charges said, I don't want my son labeled gay. The other child with the hickies, the parents filed charges. And, you know, whether it was a week two, three, four down the road, they said our son's too traumatized to testify. We're dropping the charges. So he got out of those. another instance was the state police investigated a case, put together a dossier, took it to the prosecutor's office, and whether it got swept under the rug, whether they thought there wasn't enough evidence, nothing ever came of it. So that's four there. So what comes from the rest of his life? I mean, you know, he continues to be in the police force. He retired.

He retired and became a park ranger, you know. And I gave a speech at a rehab center. And there was like from 18-year-olds up to 70-year-olds. And this afterwards, you know, like everybody's coming up to shake my hand. And this old guy comes up. And he didn't tell me his name, but he said, I worked with Dennis Pegg up at Stokes Forest when he became a ranger after he retired from the sheriff's department. And I went to the state police because he was renting cabins every weekend in bringing young boys to those cabins.

And I just knew what was going on in those cabins. And I went to the state police and said, you got to set up a camp. He rents the same cabin over and over, and he's bringing young boys there with him. And they're like, we can't just go set up a camera. It's not how it works. He goes, and nothing ever became of it. So, you know, like, my friend's wife works, you know, in the sheriff's department. And she sat in on a lot of meetings on Dennis Pegg after I got arrested.

and she said, you know, easily over 100, you know, victims, you know, just from all the various walks of life he was involved in. I mean, it just seems like such an insane cover-up. I mean, I don't know what else to call it. You have 100 plus victims over 50 years? Multiple charges filed, dropped. I don't know if it's, it seems like too many cases to be negligent. It's just like a blind eye got turned, you know. So now immediately after the event where you two confront each other, you're holding a knife.

Is it true? It was the knife. It was like a scouting knife. He gave me that knife. Yeah, like as a Christmas gift when I was younger and he taught me how to, he bought me a stone set, you know, oil stone set to sharpen. and oh I'm sorry he didn't give me the knife he gave me the the sharpening set he gave my brother a knife and it's engraved you know like you know 2J you know from Dennis so the knife that he taught you how to sharpen so he taught I had my same hunting knife from from being a young kid that he

taught me to sharpen and I kept it razor sharp throughout my whole life. So that's one thing he did, he did good was taught me how to sharpen my knife properly. There's something poetic about it. There is something poetic. Right, to kill him with the knife he taught you to sharpen. So now you're standing in his home, the same home that you were, and he's dead. He's dead. And what is the immediate feeling that you have?

You know, that's why I try to tell people like everybody's, you know, people say, you know, did all your problems just dissoning? And I'm like, no. Like, like, no. Like, I instantly said, I'm fucked. You know, because my, my hand is literally gushing blood. I'm covered in blood. I knew this knife wound was going to be my downfalls. You know, you can't just walk into a hospital and not expect the cops to, like, call the hospital, you know, a couple days down the road as they're investigating a murder and be like,

did you have anybody come in with any, you know, odd wounds? So I just knew that was going to be my downfall. But no, like, I didn't, it wasn't, you know, and again, like, people who, who want to contemplate killing their abuser, it is soul hurting. It hurts your soul to go do what I did. It's not therapeutic, you know, like, there's, there's nothing cleansing. it's not healthy it was brutal

it was gory it was bloody it was violent it was a fight to death um and it hurts it hurts it hurts

it literally hurt your soul it's just uh so what is your plan at this point you need to get medical attention for your hand do you just leave what happens immediately after I leave and I call the girl I was dating at the time to come over.

I call my buddy to come over and say goodbye to them. And my mother had just gotten back from Florida. And I sent my buddy up. You know, it's like midnight. I'm like, go get my mother. I'm like, I just took care of Dennis Pegg so he could never hurt another kid. And I couldn't even tell her that night that he had done it. anything to me. And she's like, what do you mean you took care of Dennis Peg? I'm like, I'm like,

let's not, let's not play games. We know what he's all about. We know that he drove Jeff to commit suicide. Look at Jay's life. I go, I took care of him so he could never harm another child. And she's like, why? Why you? And I just, somebody had to, mom. And I couldn't, I'm like, And still, I still am locked in silence. Like, couldn't tell her. And I was arrested the next day. You know, house was surrounded. How do they know it's you?

That's, you know, it's a long, drawn out thing. My mother told my sister. My sister's like, we got to do a well-being check. She had a well-being check done. Domino started falling into place. You know, like maybe Clark's all fucked up on drugs and just talking out of his ass. And my mother's like, he's got a wound that's, you know, severe. And all right.

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Why not just try it? Visit Bluatchew.com for more details and important safety. information and we thank Blue Choo for sponsoring this podcast. All right. Now let's get after it and let's get back to the show. So next morning you wake up, cops down the block. Not instantly, but you know, like all, you know, like pretty, pretty soon after, you know, like, pretty soon after. And I, I just, I woke up and I just like, like, it just like hit me. I'm lying at bed. I'm like, what the fuck have you done, dude? like holy shit man your life is done it's over like this is it life life is caput and i was like wow

you know i allowed that that by not addressing that pain it just it took me straight to shit and uh it's just like in my mind my mind said we can we can we can we can come up with something to get us out of this. Let's just get some drugs and alcohol in our system. So I had a whole bunch of Xanax there. I poured some Xanax out. I had a half of a vodka drink that I made when I went to bed that night. And I put my finger in, swirled it up,

and took a bunch of Xanax and drank that. And then I got up and went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth. And I went out. And I wasn't even paying attention to the windows. I went right to the kitchen to the refrigerator and I poured a glass of wine. And I look out the window with my wine and I'm like, what the fuck is going on? The street was, there was a dozen minimum cop cars out there. And there's cops behind trees and rocks and the shed we had out back and just everywhere, you know, guns out.

And I'm like, you know, like that feeling like, like, wow, it's over already before I can even like contemplate some sort of stupid idea, you know, whether to go kill myself or whatever it would be. Like, it's, it's already done. And I'm like, so I chug that wine. I pour another. I chug half of that. I hear out of a loudspeaker, Mr. Frederick, just come out of your house with your hands up. and I chugged that in a little bit of irony. You know, we need some levity after all this heaviness.

I had seen a state trooper buddy of mine at a bar, a high school friend who's a state trooper at a bar a couple months earlier. And he's like, hey, you want some shirts and hats? I was like, yeah, yeah. So we went out to his car. He gave me a couple state police shirts and a hat. And so I went in my room and I put my state police shirt on. I'm like, this should get me out of this.

Once they see, I'm one of them. Oh, he backs the blue. Yeah. So I walked out and, you know, spread eagle on my lawn and taken away to the barracks, you know. And you had mentioned that when the police had arrested you, that one of the cops actually had said something to you while you're getting arrested. Yeah, this guy, Howie Ryan, he turned out to be an angel. He was a lieutenant in the state police. and he he ran the crime scene.

So the CSI team, crime scene investigation team. And he covered, I think it was, he covers five, six of the northern counties. They, you know, they break it up. So his CSI team was in charge of five counties. And he lived in Stillwater. I'd never met him, didn't know him. and so he ran the CSI at Peg's house. He comes in to the holding cell, I'm in at the state police barracks.

And first words out of his mouth is, you know, I got to apologize to you. And I'm like, what the hell you apologize into me for? He's like, I've heard rumors about this scumbag for a long time. He's like, you know, I can't arrest somebody on rumors. I need victims. I need facts. he's like so I was never able to stop him I was never able to even like come close to arresting him but I've heard rumors over the years and I just want to apologize for never stopping him and I apologize for whatever he went through and I was like all right and at first I felt pretty good you know and then he left the room and I was just like I sat there like every fucking buddy knows about this guy and yet I had to flush my life away to stop him like you can't give a pedoph file 45-year reign of terror.

Like, how is that allowed? Like, there has to be some way to stop them, other than a victim committing murder and flushing their life away. Yeah. And then Howie, you know, he came back in again. They had to take pictures. They got to strip you, you know, look for, you know, tattoos, gang signs, whatever. You know, they got to do this whole thing, you know.

He comes in again. And he's like, look, man, my detectives are in another room with detectives from the prosecutor's office. And they're ready to interrogate you. He goes, your blood's all over that scene. He goes, this isn't a whodunit. He goes, I got you. He goes, but it doesn't mean your life's over. He goes, if you go into that room, though, and just start running your mouth, he goes, your life could be over.

You could fuck yourself and spend life in prison. He goes, so do not go into that room and open your mouth. Request a lawyer and do not say another word. And he asked me three times. Do you understand what I'm saying? I want you to exercise your Fifth Amendment rights and request a lawyer. And I go to him, but I don't even have a lawyer. He goes, I'm going to take care of that for you.

On his cell phone, he called this big lawyer in our county, George Daggett. And George answered. He said, George, I need you to send over a retainer to the state police barracks, like immediately. He's like, for who? And he goes, Clark Fredericks. He goes, what do he do? He goes, it's a murder case. He goes, okay.

And George Daggett faxed over a thing. I am Clark Frederick's attorney. Do not interrogate him until I get there. I will be there. they took me into the room, Howie went out. They took me in the room and I just said, I'm not saying a thing without a lawyer.

And they're like, you really want to handle this this way? You know, you're in a lot of trouble. You know, like, so my advice to anybody who gets arrested, they're not there to help you. You know, speaking can only harm you. They are not the judge. So like when a cop says you talk to me and it'll be good for your sentence, the judge gives a sentence.

A cop doesn't give a sentence. Yeah. You know, so they're just there to get more evidence. I'm going to look guilty if I ask for a lawyer. It's like, you're going to look guilty if you don't. Okay? So ask for a lawyer. Just no matter what you're there for, just keep your mouth shut and let it play out in the courts.

Right. Cops can't dictate what your sentence is going to be. They only gather evidence. So now you speak to your attorney and now you're just waiting in a jail cell. Yeah. And that guy didn't even turn out to be my attorney. I picked somebody else. But and they and a bunch of guys in the barracks like went after Howie.

Like what the fuck you said if Frederick's in there? He goes, I didn't say anything other than he should exercise his Fifth Amendment rights. He goes, how to hell? They're like, how to hell a daggett get involved in this already? He's like, I don't know. That's who Frederick's requested. You know, I placed a call to him. They're like, God, this stinks, Howie.

You know, he's like, go fuck yourself. You know, he had he had two years left. He was the top dog in there. He was trooper of the year for solving a murder case one year. So, you know, the guy wasn't, you know, some fly-by-night rookie. That's awesome. So he's like, go fuck yourselves. But now you're sitting in the same jail.

Now I'm in it, right. That's another irony, you know, like, and they put me into a suicide cell. But it's the same jail that Dennis Pegg. Where he patrolled. Where he was patrolling. Inmates and took inmates home. So what are you thinking now that you're going to? you're in Dennis Pegg's old jail. I am thinking I'm a dead man. Like I heard I heard about him

abusing inmates going back to 13 when my father said something. Nothing ever happened. So here it is all these years later. So I'm thinking he's a protected guy. Like nothing ever like every year I'm thinking like you know like all right they know he's molesting inmates. It can't be allowed that you can take inmates home to to mentor them and molest them. them. Something's got to happen. Nothing would happen. I knew Mike Finari. My father told me Mike Finari had filed a lawsuit. I'm like, all right, Mike's lawsuit will put him away. I didn't know about the Boy Scout Hickey things until later on. And then nothing ever came with Mike's lawsuit. And I'm just like, he'll never be stopped. He's untouchable. So I'm thinking

when I'm in that jail, these guys protected one of their own, even though he was a piece of shit, and they're going to beat the hell out of me. Whether I survive this beating or not, I have no idea. And that's what I waited for in that suicide cell, just like for a gang of them to come in or to take me into a closet room, you know, out of the camera's eye. And it never happened. And one by one guy after guy, you know, like, they have to. to come in and do sell checks every so often. Guy would come in and be like, hey man, I'm hearing a lot of dirt about this guy, Peg. You just got to keep your mouth shut.

Don't talk to any of us. Like somebody tries to get you into a conversation. Just don't say anything to him. And then the next guy would come in. Like, you need anything? Am I allowed a pillow in here? They're like, yeah, you can have a pillow. Comes back with two pillows for me.

next guy would come in. Hey man. You got to let this thing play out. There's a lot of stuff swirling around the community right now. Just hang in there and just don't talk to anybody in here. And that was every guy that came on and came into the cell would say something similar like that. You know, like, hey, man, you know, you're in a suicide cell. I don't want to see anything happen to you.

Just, you know, like just you'll. get through this, you know, just trying to pump me up a little. And I sat there for three and a half years in the county jail. I eventually took a plea deal to, I had 30 to life hanging over my head, first degree murder. And I can't tell you like how that suffocate you, bro. Like it's just, you know, like I talk about that wet blanket feeling. This was like, just a wet blanket. This is the ultimate trapped suffocation.

imprisonment, literally. Yeah, man. Is it triggering a lot of things for you? Yeah, yeah, like, because these guards strip you naked, like, at the blink of an eye. So I'm having to get stripped naked by a guy who represents peg to me. Literally, a police officer. Yeah, a sheriff's officer like he was in the jail. And what is it giving you panic attacks while you?

Oh, it would just, you know, yeah, like, but you just got to do it. You know, it's just like they tell you strip. You got a strip. At what point do you get therapy for the first time? Well, I didn't get actual therapy until I went to prison. Until you were sentenced. Yeah. So for three and a half years.

You're kept in the county jail until you get sentenced. So, but I started, I had people from all over the country sending me books. Because now this is a national news story. Yeah, this was worldwide news. Like, you know, man murders his boy scout leader who he says molested him. You know, it's, I'm on the front page at the LA Times, the Baltimore Sun, New York Post. How does it feel to have this secret that you've pushed down for so long now open to everyone? Oh, it was horrible.

You know, like, you know, but I was forced into it. Like, I couldn't hide from it. Was there any? Like for the world to, this thing, you know, that I, I, I, I, I, I, you know, guarded it like it was, you know, a diamond inside of me. Now it's just like it's out there, you know. Was there any part of it that was liberating that it was just gone? It was tough to feel liberated, you know, when you got this life sentence hanging over you. Like, but I started getting letters upon letters upon letters. And it was from a lot of classmates who said same thing

happened to me, Clark. What? And it was just nothing but love. And, and, and, and, you know, And I'm so sorry. And you're a hero. And you did what I wanted to do. You know, like from all around the country, I'm getting letters. Not just my classmates. You know, like, just everybody opening up to me. And I'm like, and it just started like dawn on me.

Like, what a fucking idiot. Like, I just flushed my life away over something I thought would demasculate me. You know, like make me less than a man, you know. and here everybody's telling me how strong I am what a hero I am uh I love you um just nothing but love and support and I you know your mind tells you people look at you as weak you know forgetting you know people look at you as a pillar of strength for addressing your pain and healing from it That's what they look at, yes. Like, you know, I, I, I just, I interviewed for my thing a retired NYPD officer.

This guy is jacked. Like, he is like pumped daddy. And he was as a little boy by his next door neighbor repeatedly. And he lived in silence. And he became a cop. And he became a functioning alcoholic cop. and he became a womanizing cup and he blew through marriages and hurt tons of women like I did and he stumbled across, you know, a clip of me talking about my abuse. And he's like,

if I'm going to have any type of life, he's in his 50s, you know, retired from the force. It's like if I'm going to have any type of salvageable life, I got to address this thing. And he reached out to me. You know, first it was just with a, a couple short little messages, then it was longer messages, than it was, I want to come on your show, but I'm afraid,

you know, I don't want to be looked at as gay or a sissy or weak. I'm like, dude, it's going to be the complete opposite. You're going to have to trust me on this. People aren't going to look at you as gay or weak or a sissy or a wimp.

People are going to, when you address this and you speak about it, people are going to think you're amazing. And he did. and, you know, it was just an outpouring of love for him. And this woman in his town, this gorgeous woman in his town, reached out to him and said, same thing happened to me as a kid. Can we have a coffee?

And they went and had coffee, and she told him her story, and he shared more of his. And he calls me up, and he's like, dude, I am head. over heels in love. I found the love of my life. I'm like, what? He's like, from your show, he's like, this girl reached out to me. And I'm like, didn't I tell you everything would change, bro? Like, you were so, you know, your mind had, he's like, you were right about everything, man. He goes, my life just completely changed since I addressed this. And, you know, so like, it was totally rewarding, you know, like, and that's just over and over, you know, with the people I've on that have said that. I've heard that the quote said that the things you truly want exist on

the other side of what you fear the most. And that feeling of, I can't confront this. If I say this, it'll be that it's actually the liberation on the other side is you got to go through the fear, though. Yeah, you have to. So I read this book, Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl, Holocaust Survivor. It's an all-time great book. Yeah, it's like everybody, every person locked up reads it. Oh, really? I didn't know it's such a popular prison book. It's big in prison. I mean, good. It's a great book. Yeah. And, you know, in it was a line, you know, I'll paraphrase. Like, when you are faced with a situation, you cannot change. You have to change yourself. And I was like, wow, like my situation, I'm facing life in prison. This may not change. I'm going to have

to change myself to adapt to this. And it was just like a light bulb. And I just read it over and over and And then I read the book The Power and now by Eckert Tolly, which was on mindfulness. You know, I scoffed at meditation or mindfulness earlier in life, you know, like that simply wasn't going to happen. And I just started putting into effect how to take back control of my mind. He gave, you know, gave you tools to take back control your thoughts. You know, the thoughts like 24-7 when I was locked up, you know, just like, our minds hate the present, they want to go past or forward. So it was either going back to the abuse,

back to the murder, or life in prison, life in prison, back murder. And that was it. I was just a yo-yo with those thoughts. And then I just learned to just like be in the moment, you know, practice a mantra, you know, when I would walk. You know, I'd be sitting on the day room and it's just chaos in there on the day room tier. And in my mind, I'm just repeating my mind. I'm just repeating my mantra over and over and over and over and over and over and over, just trying to keep my mind from going to a dark place or going to the future, just like, we're going to stay right in the present here and just, you know, be present. And I did that. I got blessed with a five-year sentence. I took a plea deal, second-degree manslaughter. The judge gave me the minimum. He

apologized on the record for having to send me to prison for a single day, gave me the minimum. I had to go to Newark, New Jersey, to Northern State Prison, right by the airport there. And my very first day there, a therapist came to my cell. And she said, I can't believe you're here. I followed your case when it was on TV. And she goes, I just saw your name come across my computer and I came right over. would you start therapy with me? I said, yeah, absolutely.

And so it took me having to go to prison to get therapy for the first time of my life, which is another irony. And then I joined, she ran a group class for childhood trauma. And she goes, you know, like we would have at most 10 guys in the class. She goes, every friggin inmate in here should be,

every inmate has childhood trauma. You know, but guys don't address anything. You know, what was shocking to me is I'm in my cell one day and our tier ran GED classes which most of the tiers did but at most I ever saw out there was four guys

it was usually two to four and I was like oh you know that's that's all who you know need their GED well we had you know the same guards worked the same shifts all the time and then a couple months down the road the guard who worked that morning shift, the regular guard wasn't there. And this new guy, you know, called out, all right, GED classes. And he started to do a roll call of all the people that should be coming out.

And it was literally every cell. It was a two-tier thing. It was every cell top and bottom. He's calling out 95% of the guys for GED classes. Wow. I was like, all these fucking guys are in here, need their GED. are here because they don't have education, because they had shitty upbrings,

and they're not even taking a free GED while they're here. Like, what a waste. Yeah. You know? That was shocking to me. Wow. Yeah. And so once you start going to therapy,

do things kind of start to click in place? Do you start to kind of see how the behavior was connected to the trauma? Yeah. Like, you know, I, everything you know, like everything you and I just went through, I go through with her. Does it blow your mind? I mean, does it feel like you're exiting the Matrix or something? Yes.

just like, oh, like, man, what the fuck? I'm, you know, I just be like, what the hell, man? Like, everything I did in life was, goes right back to that. Yeah. Like, it just dictated all my behaviors. You know, like, just couldn't commit to a relationship, couldn't commit to a job, drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, not wanting to be trapped. Just, you know, running, running, running, running. and just everything, you know, like, instead of healing, you know.

So I've just been on a healing journey, man. Yeah. And that initial trauma just creates more trauma. I wonder if there's people listening to us that have never dealt with people that have been, you know, had these kinds of childhood abuse stories, that it's not necessarily, oh, everything is because of that one event. It's that that one event caused everything and that that one event caused the lack of intimacy with a relationship. And then the lack of intimacy with this relationship then caused your next relation. You endured trauma from that first relationship.

And then your next relationship, you still had baggage from the first one. And then that created more baggage. And it all compounds. And it creates this debt of trauma that until you start to address the initial thing continues to build on itself. And it just creates this ripple

throughout your entire life that, I mean, is the biggest suffocation of all. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it all comes down. to you have to confront, you have to like finally address the 500 pound gorilla in the room. You know, like, do a little self-analysis. You know, you know, like, just take a step back and figure out why you're doing the things you're doing.

Like, why are you going from one destructive relationship after another? You know, we replicate in life what we knew in our childhood. Right. You're like, I just, I have just so many women that reach out to me who are just nonstop with these horrible relationships because their early childhood was horror. Right. You know, I've heard. Just like, this is normal to me. I've heard it said that we seek the pain that we feel most comfortable with.

Yeah. And that this, you know, if you had an abusive father, for example, like, it's possible that the male relationships you emulate later have that same pain cycle. that you had, you know, early in childhood. And without even being cognizant that, oh, I'm replicating these things that I experienced early on. And it's not your fault that these things happen to you or that you were born to the situation. You're the victim of it, but you have the ability and the freedom to break yourself from these cycles. And that's a very liberating feeling. But to be stuck in it is just without knowing is, I mean, it's a different type of hell.

Yeah, absolutely. So when you're in prison and people look at your paperwork and they see what you're in for, Are they cool with it? You don't go around. Like, you know, you hear this, yeah, there's a, there's a couple loudmouth dudes on, on, you know, YouTube who spout off about their prison life. That's not how it was, for me at least. You know, maybe California is so different. I had sent, I had my article from the front page of our local paper, you know, Frederick's murders, Boy Scout leader, you know, and whatever.

I had sent that to myself to prison when I left the county jail. I gave it to somebody. I'm like, send this envelope to me, wait a day or two, and then mail it to me. and you don't go, you got to go to this place, a central receiving part of the prison to get classified. They got to find out, you know, if you got diseases, if you got AIDS, if you got gang affiliations, they got to figure out what prison best suits you. So I had that and you can send yourself mail there. So I had this envelope sent to me there, which I got while I was there.

So I didn't have, like, people weren't asking me for paperwork. I got this one bunky in prison, though. He's a young blood off the hook. Like, like, just he was a live wire. And he came in to my cell. And he's like, the only 50-year-old white men in prison our pedophiles. If you're a fucking pedophile,

I'm gonna fucking beat you to death right now. And it's like, I'm the complete opposite of a pedophile. He goes, yeah, that's what they all say. And I reached under my thing, and I took out when I said, there you go, bro. You know, my article from the newspaper, he's like, oh, cool, bro.

You just changed it. He's like, cool. And like, so nobody asked me for paperwork. So there was some respect in the prison for. Yeah, yeah, this other dude, he made hooch on our tier. And he made a thing a hooch, and he goes, Clark, you can have all the hoot you want for what you did. I was like, no, I'm good, man. You know, you got to wonder if there's an element.

I think this is actually coming up a little bit now, like within rap music. But, you know, so many people within impoverished poor communities, many of them, you know, black and brown, that get sexually abused, never talk about it. And so I wonder how many of these guys in prison, some of like, you know, the toughest dudes you could. imagine that got sexually abused as kids. Oh, absolutely. And even in prison, never brought it up. Maybe they lived lives of, you know, crime, drugs, gang violence. Well, it's not like in prison, you can't go around, like, showing your cards, like showing your weakness. Right. You can't go, like, in that group therapy class, we all had to take a vow amongst each other that nothing left that class. Like, we could open, openly talk in this class, we could cry.

We could hug. We can't mention a thing outside of these walls. So he could get killed. Yeah. And the therapist is like, you're instantly booted out of here if anybody brings up anything that's mentioned in this classroom. And, you know, so we had to trust each other for that.

And, you know, guys would share, you know, their horror stories in there. And that was the only environment. When I was in the county jail, dude after dude came up to me. you know because like

I got I got like three different papers sent to me but other guys you know say another four to six would get newspapers so there's always newspapers on the tier and they would see

you know my molestation is splashed all over the front page along with murder and guys would come up and sit down next to me I'm here for the same thing like because, like, I'm here because I was molested as a kid. I became a heroin addict and started stealing and started thieving. And then another guy would come up and, you know, just a, but, you know, guys in prison didn't, uh, didn't come up to me and share that in jail. They did, but not in prison, just in that group class we did.

Right. Yeah. So at this, the Newark prison, you serve how many years there? I had to serve a year there. So I did three and a half. I was supposed to do four years, three months. They kept me an extra three months for whatever bullshit reason. You know, I got called down to the parole office.

And the guy's like, you know, when I had like two months to go, he's like, you're not getting out in two months. And I'm like, why? Because that was my 85%. You know, the NER Act, no early release act, you know, 85% was four years, three months out of a five. And he's like, you don't have enough commutation time because you spent so much time in the county jail compared to what your sentence is. You don't have that good time. He goes, so you have a 85% date, but you also have a max date. And he goes, they're keeping you to your max date.

So it was four years, six months, and a couple days. So I had to do an extra three months. And then once you're released, how do you start putting your life back together? Well, I still got three years of parole when I get released. And, you know, they're piss testing you. They're seeing you twice a week early on. And it's once a week, you know, constantly testing you. I instantly became an advocate for getting a new law adopted in New Jersey for statute of limitations when somebody can sue their abuser or the organization that held their abuser.

And I started as an advocate. I sort of like fell into it. I went and saw this high profile law firm. An article came across my phone. Now when you Google stuff, you know, all of a sudden you start getting news articles related to what you Google. So I must have Googled something about abuse or molestation. And this article about these three Boy Scouts in the county next to me who were suing their Boy Scout leader came across and it mentioned the law firm they were using. So I was like, screw it.

I'm going to call this law firm. So I called the law firm. Got in touch with this lawyer, went and saw him. And he's like, the way the law states now, you have no case. He goes, I know some of the advocates working to overturn the law. I know them personally. He goes, maybe your story's so over to top. You can sway some of the senators that are holding this up, specifically Senator Sweeney.

And maybe your story can help get. a new law. So I became an advocate. I went in there for selfish reasons and I walked out of that office representing every abuse victim in the state. And I became an advocate and started meeting with senators. And I got to testify before a grand jury, or not a grand jury before a Senate committee. And in two years, they adopted the new law. Some of the advocates that were working for, over 15 years on this new law. And just it was getting held up. They were getting nowhere. They were getting blocked. And I'm not saying my story, like, you know, was the siding factor. But I'm just saying I only had to work on it for two years with them for us to finally get the new law

pass. What really did it for our state is Pennsylvania. The attorney general did an investigation on the Catholic Church. And it was a bombshell report. And it was just, you know, it was just, just it, the numbers were so astronomical that our attorney general then said, I'm going to open up, you know, an investigation, you know, into abuse in the churches as well. And that sort of forced the hand of the senators that were holding it up. And, you know, they adopted into law. The ironic part is Pennsylvania still hasn't adopted the law. Their report. Oh, wow. For the hand of Jersey, and yet they're still waiting for their law. What was the reaction from the Senate committee when you gave your testimony?

You know what? They gave each person five minutes, and nobody could stay within the five minutes. Of course. And it was a draining all day of fare. You know, everybody's like their one chance to get their story out in front of all these senators. And the senators would have to bang the gavel, like your five minutes is up. And people are crying and screaming. I'm not done yet.

And I'm like, we are losing these senators. I said to this teacher I went down with who was also abused, her and I would drive together. I'm like, we're losing people. I'm like, I'm going to cut my story down. And I just cut my story down to like a minute and a half. And I just gave him a gut punch of, you know, waking up in a suicide cell because I had murdered my abuser. And if you guys don't adopt a new law, you're going to have blood on your. hands and you're going to have a lot more clerks running around who feel they have no recourse

and they're going to take law into their own hands and it's going to be on all of you. That's a good pitch. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, they voted 100% yay. And then it had to go to the full assembly and Senate. And that was voted yes. And then it goes to the governor. and that was, yeah, to the governor, and that was voted, yes.

Wow. And then we had it. Wow. So I worked on that for a couple years, and then I, I stumbled into my first public speaking opportunity. I got released basically the first of 2017. I got released December 30th. So it was like the start of 2017. And I started going to Bible clubs.

at the county jail. And this one guy that came in, I really connected with him. And he wrote me when I was in prison. He's like, you got to come check out our church when you get out. It's a huge church. So I went to his church. And just, you know, I know we're going on for a while.

But real quick, when I was in the county jail, like, I could not pray. Like, if I close my eyes to pray, I would see Jesus naked on the cross, like with his penis, everything, like, and I have to shake my head out. When I would go to pray, I would see sex images from pornography I looked at. When I would go to pray, I would see the murder. I would see his dead body on the floor. When I would go to pray, I'd be a 12-year-old boy screaming, getting, I'd just have to, like, shake my head. Like, it was literally making me insane. Like, I had polluted my mind so. I was so separated from God. You know, I filled my mind for decades with, with rage, anger, violence, sex, drugs, alcohol, pornography, you name it. Nothing healthy, nothing good. It was all

just crap going into my system. And so I signed up for Bible study, even though I couldn't pray. I'm like, you know, this is the last ditch effort here. And I was convinced that the guy teaching Bible study was going to be a right-wing fanatical wagging your finger. You're going to go to hell. dude at me right. And I'm like, this guy's an asshole. I'm just going to tell the guards get me out of here. Like, you know, they'll take you out. And two elevators full of us go down to the floor. And I work myself to the back of the room. So I'm the last one. And I'm watching and he's like shaking hands and he's hugging guys and shaking hands. And he's got this, you know, smile on his face. And I'm like, you phony baloney. And I go up there. And I go up there.

And he hugs me. And I'm like stiff as a board. And he whispers in my ear, I've been praying for you. And my congregation has been praying for you. And I pull away from him. I go, do you know who I am? He goes, I know who you are. I read the papers.

And I go, and you've been praying for me? He goes, yeah. I was like, wow, thanks, bro. He's like, yeah, you got it. And I was like, huh. And we went in there and he later on said, you know, I started off that that meeting. for you. And he went into the whole free will. He's like, you know, a lot of you are here

because people exerted free will in a negative way against you. He goes, we are not puppets on a string where God is saving the day for every calamity or every catastrophe. What would be the sense of life then if God's always going to step in? He goes, God gave us free will. And it could be used for good or for evil. And the person sitting next to you can decide to use theirs for good or evil. And you could be vulnerable and they could use it for evil and something bad could happen to you. It doesn't mean that God doesn't love you. Doesn't mean that God's not weeping over what's happening to you. It just means that God gave us all free will. And it's up to us to how we want to use it. And I was like, and that instantly took that dividing wall I had between me and God down.

and I went up to my cell that night and I instantly started praying. Like it was just removed. Like, boom, I could close my eyes and pray. I literally could not close my eyes without just seeing crap like every time I tried to pray. And how did it feel to be now praying and just to be free? I was like, thank you, God.

Like literally like, and like I wish, I wish I could pray like I prayed in jail. Like it was so raw and it was like, like, like in your face to God. Like, hey, man, I'm in, I'm in shit right now, bro. I need your help, man. I don't, I don't know, I don't know how to go through another day. Like, help me, you know.

And I would, I would literally have to pray for help to get through the next 30 seconds. Like, praying for help to get through the next hour or the next day. That was like, like, I need help just to get through the next 30 seconds. Wow. The next 30 seconds. because I just like I was fighting suicidal thoughts. I was, you know, my molestations on the front page of all the papers. You know, I've always had drugs and alcohol to lean on when I felt uncomfortable.

I got nothing now to lean on. The lawyer I picked, he said, I just want you to get this through your head right now. and we're not going to talk about it again. I go, what's that? He goes, you're not getting bailed out. He goes, I don't even want you to, like, entertain that thought. He goes, one, I don't trust your mental state. Two, you're an addict.

I don't trust you getting out that you wouldn't go back to drugs and alcohol. Three, you murdered someone. I don't think it looks healthy for you to go be seen in restaurants in shopping centers and bar. without a care in the world. He goes, so I want you to stay here. I want you to work on yourself. And every day you're in here will apply to whatever sentence you get.

So just get comfortable in here. I was like, all right, man. You know, so that's what I did. And I would tell, like, all the young heroin addicts would come in and they'd want to instantly get out and they'd be, mom, you've got to get me out of here, man. There's a, you know, I could hear him. And if there's murderers in here. Me?

And I'd be like, they'd hang up. And I'd be like, dude, stop hassling your mother about getting out of here. Just settle in here. Get weaned off the drugs. Think about yourself, where your life's at. And, you know, start working on yourself while you're in here. This isn't that bad for you. And they'd be like, all right, man.

The next day they'd be like, mom, you got to get me out of it. You know, because the drugs are calling them. You know, like the pull of the drugs is so strong, you know. So, yeah, so that was my spiritual, start of my spiritual journey. That guy literally held my spirituality in his hand, Brother Bob. And had he done the wrong thing, said the wrong thing, had he not even explained free will to me? I don't know if I'd be where I'm at today, you know, like faith is a big thing for me. I mean, the story has so much, like, it's crazy that it's real life.

Yeah, like we could sit here for 10 hours. So, you know, that's why people got to get the book. Yes. But the duality is so interesting. Like, you have this evil cop who abuses you. But then you have this great cop that gives you another chance that life and tells you to plead the fifth and gets you a lawyer. And you have these, you know, evil priests that, you know, abuse people, like people and, you know,

your family and, you know, different people in the world. And then you have these, you know, good relationships. figures that, you know, put you on a spiritual path. Yeah. And. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a lot of duality there. It's fascinating. All throughout.

Yeah, we didn't even say, like, you know, like my father ended up dying in 1999. And on his deathbed, he confessed to me that he was molested by a Catholic priest. And I just got to believe that was his last ditch effort trying to get me to open up to him. Like, he had tried when I was younger. He saw my. my life was going absolutely nowhere. And I think him saying that was just his last chance before he died to like, I got to get my son to like get over this hump, man.

Now, if that confrontation with Dennis Peck had gone differently and you actually just confronted him, like in the event that you could have gone back, what would you have said to him? What would you have wanted to know? You know, I have so many people that reach out to me that want to go confront. front-d-abuser, and I just say, no, don't do it. They're evil. They're master manipulators. They're liars. They don't want to heal. They don't want to get healthy. Whatever they're going to tell you is not going to be what you want to hear. They're not going to say, I'm sorry. They never say they're sorry. They can't. They just can't, they can't go there.

Psychopathy. I mean, they're truly. Yeah, they won't do it. And, you know, when I, when I was in prison, my therapist, she said to me, she goes, Clark, I just want you to be aware, the unit you're housed on, one out of three, closer to two out of three guys are there for sex crimes. He goes, and she goes mostly against children. I'm like, what? She goes, yeah. And I go, holy smokes. And I go, let me ask you something. What do you do for them why they're in here? to help them before they get released. And she made no bones about it that she was as liberal as the day was long. This woman was an angel.

She was the sweetest lady, you know, she would say, you know, you can't be a therapist in a prison and not be a liberal person, you know. And so I'm expecting, you know, some feel-good answer from her. And she goes, we do absolutely nothing. I go, what are you talking about? And she goes, Clark, they're liars and master manipulators, and they don't want help. And anything they say to us would just be a lie to try to get their sentence reduced. I'm like, really? She goes, yep.

So I go, they just sit here doing their time to get out and reaffent. She goes, pretty much. She goes, if their case is that horrific, they can be civilly committed. Our laundry guy, nice, nice dude on the tier, did our laundry, slip in my bag of coffee, he'll put some starch in it, have everything nice and folded for you. You know, laundry comes back great. He's telling us, two months, I'm getting out. Next month I get out. Two weeks I get out.

One week I get out. They come, they throw them up against the wall, they shackle them, and they take them away. and we go to, somebody goes to the, you know, guard on duty. They're like, what the hell they take him away for? Like, you don't know what he's here for? Like, no. Like, he did the most horrific thing to children. And he just got civilly committed.

And we're like, no shit. Good. You know? So, uh, wow. Yeah, dude. It's, uh, so yeah, like, people didn't go around with their paperwork. Everybody would lie to you, like, what they're there for. Like, if it ever came out, you didn't even, like, you know, like,

Like, I didn't even bother ask it. Like, you know, so my therapist told me about the one out of three, two out of three. She goes, I don't want people. It's called putting a battery pack on you. She goes, I don't want people knowing why you're here and putting a battery pack on you to go fuck guys up. And I'm like, and I said, I said this to the prosecutor's psych who evaluated me before I took the plea deal. He said, how do I know you get released? And you're not going to go harm anyone.

And I said, I would only be harming someone who had molested me. And I go, and that person's gone. And so that's what I said to her. I'm like, they're not my battle. You know, like I'm not here to just go. If I got a life sentence, first of all, that would be a different thing. Yeah. Because then fuck it, you know.

So I go, you don't have to worry about a battery pack. being put on me. Yeah. So I guess to conclude, if, I mean, if you have young kids, be aware of who they're spending time with, create an open, you know, platform of communication where there's no secrets being held, they can come to you and that you're open and communicative. Yeah, you can't take that dictator approach. Yeah.

You got to talk. If you see them rebelling or, you know, using substances at a, you know, a young age, it's possible that can be a cry for help and be open. It's not normal at 12 years old to start doing drugs and drinking. Right. So see that as an opportunity to speak to them and be open and listen. Yeah. And like, all right, so, you know, if you're a single mom and the next door neighbor is always offering, you know, to help out with picking up Susie or Johnny, beware.

If the coach, you know, just thinks your kid is going to be a star and wants to take them under their win. and, you know, mentor them. Beware if, you know, the priest just, you know, adores your child and thinks they're the cutest and, you know, just I'll drive them home after Bible study practice. Like, no. You literally can't trust anyone.

There's not a troll, a troll living under the bridge who's going to snatch your child. There is a coach. There is a priest. There is a doctor. There is a teacher. There is a cop. There is the next door neighbor. There is the uncle. There is all of those who will. Now, if someone's listened to this that's, you know, 20 years old and had, you know, sexual trauma, never told anyone just like yourself. What should they do?

Well, you got to, you know, I tell people, you know, people will reach out to me and be like, you're the first one I'm opening up to. You got, you got to find someone you trust. You know, people will be like, I don't trust anyone, you know, then I'll call me, you know, reach out to me. I answer all my stuff, man. There's nobody who's reached out to me who hasn't gotten answered, you know. It may take a little time, but you just got to find that person. You know, like once you get it out the first time, then it's like, all right, my world didn't just fall apart. You know, like, and just if you're going to talk to somebody, everybody thinks they got to be a fixer. Just the person you're going to talk to, just be like, hey, can we sit? I got something important I want to tell you. I don't need you to try to do anything about what I'm going to tell you other than listen.

You just need someone to listen. Everybody gets uncomfortable. So if you're listening and you're going to be the one who's the listener, just listen. You don't have to be the healer. Just sit in the mud with the person while they give you their spiel. And if you're the person who is abused, find that person you trust, your best friend, someone. Like, you can't bury this. Like you can bury it and buy yourself some time.

but it's going to come out. It's going to come out in destructive ways. No, there was one person that we didn't talk about. Yeah. And it was this girl that you knew in college that was love your life that you weren't ready to have intimacy with. You weren't ready to settle down with. Yeah. So you, you know, pursued a different path.

Yeah, yeah. Whatever happened to her. Yeah. I mean, I walked away and she walked away and 30 years went by. And she was like a little tickle in my skull. Like, it wouldn't come out every week, every month, every year even. Like, but she would flare up. And I'd be like, man, I wonder what Lisa's up to.

I'd let Lisa get away, you know, like, man, we had a lot of passion. We had a lot of love. You know, now I'm out of prison. I get this law passed. And I'm just like, you know, I'm speaking. working long hours and just like, I either got to get a pit bull or I got to get a girlfriend. And I'm like, I'm at a stage where to be completely intimate with the next person,

I got to put Lisa to bed. Like I can't really try to get into something where I still got this tickle from somebody from 30 years ago. So I'm going to reach out to Lisa and I'm going to apologize for failing her 30 years prior and not being able to commit and not being able to be intimate and I'm going to tell her why. And I found her on Facebook. I sent her a private message laying everything out, the murder, the drugs, the molestation, all of it. and just I needed you to know the full story and it wasn't because I didn't love you. I did and I'm sorry for how everything went down. And, you know, I like to say my thumb hovered over that send button like because I had this fantasy in my head.

And hitting the send button and it doesn't. go the way I wanted to go, that fantasy just gets. So is it better to just keep the fantasy alive in my mind until the day I die or to potentially have that fantasy get blown up and ruined? And I'm like, no, you got to hit the send button. So I hit the send button. And she responded. And I responded and she responded. I responded. And I responded. And I'm like, finally, You know, after two weeks of texting, I said, I want to get a cup of coffee? She lived about an hour and a half away. And we met for coffee and realized we still loved each other.

And that was six years ago. We're still together. And we lived together in Westchester, New York. Sometimes it works out. I mean, truly, a remarkable story. Thank you so much for coming in and sharing it with me. It's, I mean, every which way. I mean, redemptive, sad, unfair, and, you know, ultimately, I think really profound in a lot of ways.

And poetic beyond, I mean, reality, it's truly crazy. This is not just a movie that it's actually something that you live through. Yeah, man. And, you know, for better, for worse, it's a story. Yeah, like, we're touching on stuff, you know, like, you know, in the book, I go in more detail on a lot of stuff. And when does the book come out? July 29th. Okay.

Yeah. scarred. It's up on Amazon for pre-order. You know, head over and get it. And, you know, I just think, like, so many books when I was locked up, like, just like were, like, light bulbs going off in me. And I just think this will be a light bulb, you know, because I sunk to the point where I was held for murdering a lieutenant. I was, I was put into the very jail where he worked for 25 years. Like, it doesn't get worse than that. Like, how much, how much lower do you want to sink? That's like, you know, and just didn't see a way out of it. And yet, and yet I decided, you know, I got to confront this demon finally. And here I am today, you know. Well, thank you so much for doing the show. I appreciate the insights. And yeah, I think the audience will be moved by the story.

And maybe there's some people that we helped out today. Awesome. Thank you so much. Let's do it again. Thanks, brother. Thank you, bro. Appreciate it, man. What's up, people? Quick announcement. If you are a fan of Camp Gagnon or Religion Camp,

I have great news because we're dropping History Camp. That's right. This is the channel we're going to be exploring the most interesting, fascinating, controversial topics from all time throughout all history. Right? You probably know about Benjamin Franklin, I don't know, Thomas Jefferson, Nikola Tesla. Interesting figures from history. And you probably learned about it in school and they were pretty boring, but not here. No. As you know, I was raised by a conspiracy theory. So I'm going to be diving deep into all of the interesting, strange, occult, and secretive societal relationships that all of these famous influential men from our shared past have. So if you're interested, please go ahead and subscribe to the YouTube

channel. It will be pinned in the description as well as the comments. And if you're on Spotify, this doesn't really apply to you, but these episodes will be dropping as well. Just go ahead and give us a high rating because it really helps the show.