Trials And Troubles In Happy Valley

On a quiet street in Columbia River valley, 180 miles east of Seattle, Pastor Robert (Roby) Roberson's East Wenatchee Pentecostal Church of God House of Prayer sits back from the road, its yard cluttered with old buses and vans. At one end of the low-slung building stands a food bank for the poor; makeshift slides and swings are out back. It seems to be just what it looks Like: a hardscrabble church doing God's work. And it looked just this way on the recent spring afternoon when police raided the church to arrest Roberson and his wife, "Sister Connie," on 22 counts of allegedly raping and molesting children--both at the pastor's house and during Friday-night Bible classes.

If police and prosecutors are right, Wenatchee, an apple-growing valley of 55,000, is home to dozens of incestuous pedophiles tangled up in a kid-swapping, adult-led sex ring. But if you believe the accused, charges against Pastor Roby-a 50-year-old mechanic who found Jesus 12 years ago--cap a renegade cop's conspiracy to frame innocent people on horrific sex charges. "At this point," says Rufus Woods, editor of The Wenatchee World newspaper, "the only thing that surprises me is that 'Hard Copy' hasn't opened a bureau out here."

It would be a smart move for any tabloid. Aside from Roberson and his wife, who both remained in jail last week, 19 others, including the church's bus driver, have been charged since January 1994 with engaging in group sex with children. Last year the state investigated a local clinical psychologist for allegedly overprescribing Prozac after he put 600 patients on the antidepressant. (The BBC produced a documentary on the incident entitled "Welcome to Happy Valley. ") And Wenatchee has recently suffered a handful of grisly murders, unrelated to the purported sex ring but equally unnerving:

Last summer two 12-year-olds were clambering around the banks of the Columbia with three handguns, firing at rocks and trees. They came across a migrant worker who was camping there. The drifter threw a rock at the boys; they reloaded and shot him 18 times.