Estimated read time: Less than a minute
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Desperate Housewives' Teri Hatcher reveals that an uncle who is serving a 14-year prison term for child molestation sexually abused her when she was 5 and until she was 8 or 9 years old.
In the new Vanity Fair, on stands this week, Hatcher, 41, says she shared her story in 2002 with Santa Clara County (Calif.) prosecutors investigating molestation charges against Richard Hayes Stone, then 64.
A 14-year-old victim of Stone's had committed suicide in January 2002, and without Hatcher's testimony, prosecutor Chuck Gillingham tells VF, the case would have been dismissed. Stone pleaded guilty to four counts of child molestation.
About the sentence: "Even though it wasn't to my crime, it was because of my crime -- and that made me feel really validated. It made me feel that I wasn't crazy," Hatcher says. "Somehow it might be easier to accept that you're crazy and you made it all up than to admit that it happened. But I knew he would not have gone to prison if I hadn't come forward."
To see more of USAToday.com, or to subscribe, go to http://www.usatoday.com
© Copyright 2006 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
