winning for the alleged victims of michael terpening

Editorial Opinion July 19, 2012

Michaelterpening.com was built following many requests on various media forums asking Michael Terpening and his friends and family to stop posting the names of his alleged victims online. The media does not do it, neither should the defendant. So we took on this accused child predator.

This website is a place to learn about the Michael Terpening case; a man accused of molesting 5 young people from ages 10 to 17 who prosecutors claim has abused more young men placed in his care but where force or coercion could not be shown for criminal charges. Believe it or not having sex with your 16 or 17 year old foster child is not presently against the law.  This website is also a voice for the young men who've been savaged by the cult like Terpening Followers as the young men's names were splashed on the web by Michael Terpening and his thugs to intimidate witnesses into silence.

These young people are heroes for speaking up. They have protected God only knows how many others from being abused as they've endured the agony of repeated interviews, testifying in court and having their honesty questioned by authorities trying to determine what, if anything, happened when these young men came into contact with Michael Terpening.

Then along comes Michael Terpening and his Terpening Followers to appear on television, comment on websites and create so called recant videos we later found out were scripted by Terpening Follower and Mike's aunt, Jamie Moore Bell.

Imagine a rape victim seeing what the Followers have done to intimidate witnesses in this case. Would she speak up? How many more times would he be raped because he sees what Mike Terpening and his Follower have done to Mike's alleged victims?

This website was created to answer the abuse heaped on victims by the Terpening Followers and the work is bringing real results.

Only days after former Terpening Follower, Jen, interviewed the leader of a local non-profit about their not involvement with outlying Terpening Follower, Laura Adams, the last of four stories Adams wrote disappeared from her so called Village Thinker blog and with it the first, middle and last name of a victim whose name readily appeared in a Google search.

Throughout a more than six month effort Laura Adams slowly removed the stories following contacts with a non-profit who disavows their relationship with Adams cruel brand of activism. On her Facebook page, Adam's cavalier attitude continues, but her monstrous abuse of a kid who came forward to report abuse has ended. Adam's last story quoting the defendant Terpening alleging his victim is a sex offender is gone. The young man, now,  go returns to the anonymity of being Resident A in the DHS Report yanking the license of  Terpening's to operate a group home in Bellevue, Michigan.

Resident A can go look for a job and not worry a prospective employer finds the defendant's allegations on the web. Resident A can live his life without worrying a new friend may Google his name to find what Michael Terpening said about him. AS it should be, it will be his decision whether or not to share his story of what Michael Terpening is alleged to have done to him.

This website, along with our terrific readers talked about what this man was doing to his alleged victims and we ended the cyber reign of terror on those young men. We've published more than 100 stories following the saga of Michael Terpening as our readers visited the site more than 12,600 times since January 8, 2012.

The result is stunning. Today, while the so called Justice for Michael Terpening Facebook page savages the prosecutors, this writer and others connected with the three criminal and one family court case the victims are no longer being named. Terpening supporting blogs have come and gone as we've examined their abuse and exposed their dishonesty, but these outlets no longer name the victims who will testify against Terpening.

When a now former Terpening Follower reported bond violations we passed the information to authorities. Within days Mike returned to jail for violating the conditions of his bond being released after about 2 weeks with a bond almost doubled outfitted with an ankle bracelet to keep track of Terpening's whereabouts.

We continue to report facts and expose the amazing dishonesty of Michael Terpening and his Terpening Followers. Yet, Mike's Facebook page is finally silent. The so called Justice for Michael Terpening page is unquestionably weird and paranoid but it can do no harm to the people it targets.

I want to thank our readers who follow our work. When we reached out to business leaders last week in Battle Creek and Kalamazoo they made phone calls on behalf of Resident A that got results, and people took another look at their relationship with the so called Village Thinker, Laura Adams.

Most of all, I want to pause to remember 5 young men who are heroes for stopping what prosecutors allege to be a sexual predator whose predation reaches all the way back to a 13 year old little girl in 1995.  Their speaking up changed lives. If the allegations are true a sexual predator has been stopped and if found guilty faces a lengthy prison term. protecting God only knows how many young people who will now never meet Michael Terpening.

This story has been updated, current comments are found farther down the page!