HURRICANE – A weekslong investigation culminated in the arrest of a Hurricane man Thursday on 12 first-degree felony counts of aggravated child sexual abuse and other charges.
Detectives have been investigating allegations against Paul Brady Whitlatch, 54, of Hurricane, for the past few weeks, according to a press release from the Hurricane City Police Department, and established probable cause to arrest him. Detectives have been conducting interviews and gathering evidence, based on reports that he inappropriately touched children on multiple occasions.
In addition to the alleged child sexual abuse, Whitlatch allegedly threatened to harm himself and a another person with a loaded gun, according to the press release, and also allegedly made threats regarding what would happen if police were contacted.
Whitlatch was arrested Thursday morning and booked into Washington County’s Purgatory Correctional Facility on 12 first-degree felony charges of aggravated sexual abuse of a child; one third-degree felony count of aggravated assault with a weapon; one third-degree felony count of witness tampering; and one class C misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct.
He is still in custody as this report is published, according to bookings information.
Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
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Without proposing to pass judgment on the allegations in this news report, it should be noted that scientific studies based on legitimate empirical evidence do not support the mass hysteria and moral panic that currently surrounds all sexually expressed child/older person relationships, which are invariably cast as “child molestation/child sex abuse/pedophilia.” As masturbation and homosexuality were demonized in the past, these irrational emotional responses are based on ignorance and fear, and are promoted by agenda-driven “victimological” academics who argue that all such relationships are intrinsically pervasively harmful. But is this supposed harm intrinsic to the interaction, or does it instead result from the social hysteria that occurs when such a relationship is discovered? Also, there are no legitimate data supporting intrinsic harmfulness, and no credible pathway or mechanism for such harm has been demonstrated. For further discussion, see http://www.shfri.net/mech/mech.cgi
There are indeed some people who trick or force children into unwanted sexual interactions. But there are vast differences between consensual sexually expressed child/older person relationships and unilateral “child sexual abuse” by an older person. For a scientific journal discussion of these distinctions as they apply to boys, go to http://www.boyandro.info
For more discussion of “pedophilia” in a scientific journal, go to http://www.shfri.net/ppp/ppp.cgi
For an even more in-depth discussion of these issues, go to http://www.shfri.net/myths/myths.cgi
Vernon, you are as sick in the head as this crazy scum bag child molester.
Vernon, get help.
Consensual or not that kind of “relationship” is, was and forever will be WRONG! Why????? Because they are CHILDREN! CHILDREN DO NOT HAVE THE COGNITIVE CAPABILITY OR EXPERIENCE TO MAKE THAT KIND OF DECISION! Just because a CHILD says he or she understands something DOES NOT MEAN THAT THEY ACTUALLY DO! Children are easily swayed in one direction or another. There have actually been CRIMINAL CASES where a crooked D.A coerced children into believing something happened to them when it did not because THEY WANTED SOME KIND OF NOTORIETY! If you don’t believe me, you can google it. Children are easily swayed, ESPECIALLY when they want to please someone or get something like a toy. Because children don’t understand, they are easily swayed. Children are easily swayed so we, the adults, protect them and one of the ways that we have done that is to instill harsh criminal penalties for other adults who might “disagree” and try to prove it.