Trouble in East Texas

Cantrell went straight to the police, who dropped the case after two days when the girl initially refused to repeat the accusation. The Texas Rangers took over a few months later, when the children opened up. After a two-year investigation by the Rangers, the children's mother, her live-in boyfriend and five others were indicted in June 2007 on charges alleging that they were operating a child-sex ring out of the Mineola swingers club which, by that time, was defunct. The children testified against their mother, Shauntel Mayo, and her boyfriend, Jamie Pittman, during their trials earlier this year; both were convicted and sentenced to life. Both pleaded not guilty and are appealing.

Another defendant in the case, Patrick Stephen "Booger Red" Kelly, a weekend beer and barbecue buddy of the children's parents, was accused of running the sex kindergarten out of his home in the nearby city of Tyler and burning the costumes and videotapes of the children to hide the evidence. On Thursday, a jury convicted him on a charge of organized criminal activity for allegedly instructing the children to have sex with each other during a doctor skit, for his financial gain. He was given the maximum of a life sentence and a $10,000 fine. Kelly testified that he was innocent and had never even been to the Mineola swingers club, but prosecutors described him and his actions as nothing less than "pure evil."

Not surprisingly, the case has riveted and revolted east Texans, including the elderly residents who live beside the pale yellow stucco building with painted-over windows, where the children allegedly performed for scores of adults. Gene Bright, 83, says he and others "raised hell" and did whatever they could to shutter the swingers club as soon as it was discovered. "But we didn't know children were involved," he says. When Bright and his neighbors found out, it made some residents of this religiously conservative Bible belt town angry enough to talk about burning the building down. "It's hard to believe something like that would happen here in Mineola," Bright says.

Shirley Brooke, 72, lives next door to what was a vacant lot beside the site of the club. She was at a neighborhood meet-and-greet with the building's owner when the landlord learned of the sex club. The owner later testified that she immediately evicted the tenants, who had told her they were setting up a center for disabled children. "That's not good for any neighborhood. Maybe in a rundown, secluded area … but not here," Brooke says.

The question that haunts them still: Why would anyone choose a quiet neighborhood to start a sex club featuring a pedophile act, right next to the town newspaper? Few in east Texas seem to doubt the state's case. But none of the sex tapes the children were allegedly forced to produce weekly have been found, nor have any of the child sex act patrons been identified. But a Texas Ranger, who interviewed the children, said in court that he believed them because their accounts were consistent. "Maybe that's truly how bad the facts are," said Matt Bingham, the Smith County district attorney, arguing in court against the defendant's position that biased media coverage had poisoned the jury pool. But one witness who testified on behalf of the defense, reached another conclusion: The defendants were being railroaded in what amounted to "a Salem witch trial," said the woman, Angel Hendricks.

The idea that Kelly, a 41-year-old married auto-body sandblaster with an 18-year-old son, had run a "sex kindergarten" out of his home, right under the noses of his wife and neighbors, who have not been charged in the case, is ludicrous, his relatives said. His 22-year-old niece April Corrao told NEWSWEEK that her uncle had never acted inappropriately toward her or any other children. Kelly's sister Latricia Fulkerson, 44, of Tyler, said "it's all lies. I know my brother, he didn't do stuff like this. It's been horrible."