Survivor of notorious New Orleans child sex abuser priest speaks out for first time

The clergy abuse survivor who helped prosecutors secure the only conviction against anotorious child rapist and retired Roman Catholic priest in New Orleansis still hoping that authorities file criminal charges against his former high school principal and everyone else who enabled the clergyman.“Everybody that had any part … needs to be held accountable. Period – period,” Neil Duhon, whose rapist wasLawrence Hecker, said in an interview with WWL Louisiana and the Guardian, the first and only time he’s ever revealed his identity to the public.Referring to theCatholicarchdiocese ofNew Orleans, the institution that employed and protected Hecker for decades and kept doing so even after the cleric admitted he had preyed sexually on minors throughout his career, Duhon added: “I hope they get some type of criminal charge.“You know, they are responsible for all of this.”New Orleans clergy abuse survivors say they’ve lost confidence in case’s judgeRead moreAnd Duhon, who is now 65 but was about 16 when Hecker raped him in 1975, had particularly harsh words for a judge who handled part of his ordeal. New Orleans criminal court judge Benedict Willard delayed Hecker’s trial date for more than a year before recusing himself on the day that jury selection for the case was to begin. Only by handing the matter over to another judge did Willard finally clear the way for Hecker to plead guilty in December – shortly before the priestdied.Duhon called Willard “a coward – a coward. That’s it.”The hours-long interview Duhon granted a pair of outlets whose reporting aided Hecker’s successful prosecution provided the most detailed account yet of the stand he took against one of the Catholic church’s most inveterate abusers. Hecker’s prosecution also showed how theclergy molestation crisis roilingthe US church for decades was not yet over.As Duhon told it, he was a freshman student at New Orleans’ St John Vianney high school – which catered to boys interested in joining the priesthood – when he met Hecker in 1973. The school, which has since closed, required students to essentially help local Catholic churches with their masses and other services. And Duhon was assigned to do that at a church adjacent to St John called St Theresa and colloquially known as Little Flower, where Hecker introduced himself to him.Hecker left Little Flower – which has since closed, too – in about 1974. But during the summer of the following year, Duhon saw him again at one of the weekly pool parties that the Notre Dame seminary, an institution in New Orleans that educates and trains priests, would host for St John students.According to Duhon, Hecker recognized him and asked if he was still working at Little Flower. Duhon said he was.Days later, after finishing his mass-related duties at Little Flower, Duhon was exercising on a weight bench set up in a room attached to the church bell tower. Hecker appeared unannounced, offered to give him pointers that could help Duhon earn a spot on a wrestling team being started at St John, and eventually put him in a headlock.‘Why you fighting, Neil?’Duhon tried to force himself free of Hecker but couldn’t. He said he suddenly felt Hecker’s penis inside of him. As he tensed up, Duhon said Hecker’s arm came across his upper chest toward his neck. Duhon said he lost consciousness and woke up alone.The shadows cast in the room were much longer than he remembered them, suggesting hours had passed. Duhon said he soon realized he had semen on his backside. His mind raced as he removed his gym shorts and underwear, changed into his trousers and rushed to his bus stop. Along the way, he said he suddenly realized he was carrying the soiled clothes and – overcome with disgust – threw them in a garbage can.Duhon said his mother was the first person he told about his rape, when laundry day arrived the following Friday. He said he disclosed the attack to her after struggling to give an answer when she asked where his gym shorts and underwear were so she could wash them.View image in fullscreenA photo of Neil Duhon while he attended New Orleans’ St John Vianney high school.Photograph: Courtesy of Neil DuhonHe said his mother said nothing but appeared to be in shock. Duhon said he was never sure whether she disclosed the rape to his father. But his parents soon decided he would not return to Little Flower and instead would work a newspaper delivery route with his father.Not immediately realizing that he was traumatized, Duhon said he returned to St John much more combative than he had been before. One priest and teacher, Luis Fernandez, had the habit of using a lengthy stick to strike students who were sleeping, talking or inattentive. He hit Duhon with it one day that year, and the pupil snatched it away, igniting a heated confrontation that got him sent to the office of the principal, Paul Calamari.Clergy abuse survivor begs Louisiana not to release child molester: ‘It’s just not right’Read moreCalamari initially punished Duhon with detention. But later that same day, Duhon was standing in the lunch line with a friend and began arguing with him over something he can no longer remember. They ended up in a fistfight. Teachers sent Duhon back to Calamari. Duhon recalled the principal saying: “Ah … you’re fighting now. Why you fighting, Neil?”As he remembered it, Duhon didn’t mince any words and immediately told Calamari that Hecker had raped him. Duhon said Calamari’s reaction was to angrily ask who else the boy had told.“My mom,” Duhon recalled saying, which prompted Calamari to summon the boy’s parents and meet with them without their son present.Ultimately, Duhon recalled agreeing to undergo treatment from a psychiatrist in lieu of expulsion over the fight with his friend and confrontation with Fernandez. The sessions – which Duhon suspects were paid for by the school – focused on managing his anger problems and what Calamari called “fantasy stories” instead of addressing his rape at the hands of Hecker, he said.“We never talked once about that,” said Duhon, adding that the sessions went on for months.Duhon said he eventually graduated from St John, burned his memorabilia from the school and threw his class ring into Lake Pontchartrain. Despite everything, his mother wanted him to become a priest, and he enrolled briefly at St Joseph seminary college north of New Orleans. Yet he said he intentionally tanked his studies and withdrew, having concluded he was not comfortable around priests and felt “hypocritical” pretending he was.Duhon later served in the US navy and coast guard. And he served as an emergency medic and police officer, first inLouisianaand then in north-west Ohio. He got married, started a family in Ohio and tried not to think about St John.‘A pedophile ring’But that became impossible beginning in 2018 when, amid its efforts to manage the fallout of the worldwide Catholic church’s clergy abuse crisis, New Orleans’ archdiocese released a list of priests and deacons whom it had judged to be credibly accused of child molestation.Hecker was on that list in connection with reported abuse that had nothing to do with Duhon. Another person on that list was Calamari, who became a priest after Duhon’s rape. Carl Davidson, a priest who worked at St John and had successfully recruited Duhon to join a choir there, was on the list, too.Robert Cooper, who taught at St John while Duhon was a student there, would be added after a 2020 investigation by WWL Louisiana and a reporter now at the Guardian.Not on the list was Fernandez, whom the reporters also investigated later. After the archdiocese filed for bankruptcy protection in 2020 in an attempt to limit its liability from lawsuits prompted by the abusive conduct underlying the list, the church quietly canceled most of Fernandez’s retirement benefits. The priest, who moved to Florida, later told the Guardian that a church attorney told him he lost the benefits because of a credible child molestation accusation, though he correctly said he had never been put on the New Orleans archdiocese’s credibly accused list.View image in fullscreenNeil Duhon when he was about 15.Photograph: Courtesy of Neil DuhonDuhon noted that the credibly accused list’s publisher, Archbishop Gregory Aymond, worked at St John at the beginning of his career alongside all those clergymen. Looking back, Duhon said it was as if his high school education unfolded within the clutches of “a pedophile ring”.“I actually feel [that] as an adult now looking back,” Duhon said.Louisiana state police troopers would arrive at a similar suspicion after Duhon was put in touch with attorney Richard Trahant, who frequently represents clergy abuse survivors. Duhon – with Trahant’s help – reported Hecker to law enforcement in June 2022, formally accusing him of rape, a crime for which he could be prosecuted no matter how long ago it occurred.Duhon immediately realized how grueling the ensuing process would get. For example, immediately after Duhon described passing out as Hecker began raping him, an apparently inattentive investigator filling in that day for a co-worker jabbered: “There’s no penetration.”“Yep – this is over,” Duhon recalled saying irately as he got up to leave and considered abandoning his complaint.Yet he calmed down and continued cooperating, though there was little progress for several months.In June 2023, the Guardian reported on a printed copy of a confession Hecker provided to his church superiors in 1999, in which the priest admitted molesting or sexually harassing several children other than Duhon. The Guardian provided the confession to WWL Louisiana in August 2023, and journalists from both outlets confronted Hecker on camera.Hecker told the outlets that his written confession about “overtly sexual acts” with underage boys was accurate and authentic. Nonetheless, he insisted that the children were “100% willing” despite their legal inability to consent.As part of the New Orleans archdiocese bankruptcy, the judge overseeing the proceeding – Meredith Grabill – was provided that confession. But as she weighed whether such information about Hecker should remain secret because of confidentiality rules governing the bankruptcy or be accessible to the public, she indicated she would “destroy” documents “that this court received” pertaining to the self-admitted child abuser.Duhon, after learning about that during his interview with WWL Louisiana and the Guardian, said Grabill has “got to get [her] head examined”.“A judge squashing that … is absolutely ridiculous,” Duhon said. “It’s just ridiculous.”The media outlets were also able to report ona video depositionthat Hecker gave during civil litigation stemming from a separate complaint against him. The video was confidential but obtained by the outlets. In it, Hecker outlined how New Orleans’ last four archbishops had helped him avoid all accountability over the course of decades.We need to hold the archdiocese accountable. Their secrets cannot stay secret any longerNeil DuhonHecker alsotestifiedabout collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of retirement benefits after he retired in 2002, in effect on his own terms.In September 2023, just two weeks after Hecker’s on-camera confession to WWL and the Guardian made national headlines, the office of New Orleans’ district attorney, Jason Williams, obtained a grand jury indictment charging Hecker with rape, kidnapping and other crimes against Duhon.The case was the first time Hecker faced consequences for his crimes. It was randomly allotted to Judge Willard.Hecker turned 92 shortly after his indictment. And over the next year, Willard repeatedly postponed trying the case over questions about whether Hecker – at his advanced age – had the mental competence required to withstand trial.‘Felt free’Doctors determined that Hecker had dementia but fit the constitutional criteria to legally stand trial. It seemed that Hecker would be tried in late September. And Duhon flew in from Ohio to be the star witness, one of nearly a dozen victims of Hecker whom prosecutors had lined up to testify against the clergyman.Yet on the morning of jury selection, Willard suddenly recused himself from handling the case, citing nothing more than a clash of personalities with one of Williams’s prosecutors.Duhon, through Trahant, released a media statement saying Willard’s waffling on the bench offered an example of why many rape survivors decline to ever come forward.It wasn’t immediately clear how much more time Willard’s recusal might cost Hecker’s prosecution. But the judge who took over the case, Nandi Campbell, set a trial date for 3 December. And Campbell made clear the trial would go forward that day barring the death of Hecker, who by then had turned 93.Neil Duhon speaks to WWL Louisiana and the Guardian exclusively after helping bring down one of the worst Catholic clergy abusers New Orleans has ever seen.On the morning of the trial, as prospective jurors gathered outside the courtroom, Hecker suddenly pleaded guilty as charged. Campbell imposed a mandatory life sentence a little more than two weeks later.But first, she held a hearing during which Duhon addressed his rapist. It was the first time Duhon had seen Hecker in person in half a century.Duhon directed his words at Hecker, saying that he couldn’t wear trousers without underwear to this day without thinking of the rape.“My whole aspect of church changed” because of that attack, Duhon said to Hecker, as a weeping Campbell listened.Duhon also said he would never forgive Hecker – not that the priest asked for it when Campbell gave him the chance to address the courtroom before he was sentenced.Hecker served eight days of his punishment. He died early in the morning of 26 December of natural causes as he awaited transfer to Louisiana’s maximum-security state penitentiary, infamously nicknamedAngola.Duhon got emotional reflecting back on his reaction when he first got word of Hecker’s death.“I actually felt free,” Duhon said. He said he regretted that he had lost both of his parents before ever experiencing the relief Hecker’s death brought him.Still, “my feeling [was], ‘It’s finally over,’” Duhon remarked.But he also feels the case isn’t totally resolved. Duhon said he was aware that his case spurred a broader investigation into Hecker’s former employer.Statements sworn under oath in April 2024 by the Louisiana state police investigator who built the case against Hecker, Scott Rodrigue, allege that authorities already have probable cause to suspect that the archdiocese ran a child sex-trafficking ring responsible for the “widespread … abuse of minors dating back decades”. That abuse was illegally “covered up and not reported” to authorities, Rodrigue’s sworn statement said.Calamari was questioned about Hecker as part of that investigation. And he admitted he was a child molester, according to Rodrigue’s sworn statement. However, Calamari has not been charged for, as Duhon put it, sending an underage boy to therapy without alerting police that the child had been raped.And neither had any of Hecker’s other superiors – who Hecker acknowledged in his deposition had coddled him despite knowing he was a serial child molester.Duhon said he decided to shed his anonymity to lend weight to his plea for Rodrigue and his colleagues to complete that investigation, no matter the political and logistical hurdles that may complicate their efforts.“We need to hold the archdiocese accountable,” Duhon said. “I mean – their secrets cannot stay secret any longer. [They] really can’t.”In prior statements, archdiocesan officials have said they are cooperating with the state police investigation. They have said that they “hope and pray [Hecker’s] death will bring closure and peace to … survivors”.Duhon furthermore said he wanted to openly tell his story as a demonstration of strength to his fellow survivors.As he put it: “I’m Neil Duhon. I was sodomized [and] choked unconscious by a priest named Father Lawrence Hecker.“I couldn’t say that with my name attached to it prior to his death. But now … to publicly say this, I feel that it just sets [me] right.”In the US, call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline on 800-422-4453 or visit their website for more resources and to report child abuse or DM for help. For adult survivors of child abuse, help is available at ascasupport.org. In the UK, the NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, or Bravehearts on 1800 272 831, and adult survivors can contact Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International