Their Screams Were Silenced: A Story of Lies, Sex, Power, Money and Murder In the Midwest

Their Screams Were Silenced:

A Story of Lies, Sex, Power, Money and Murder in the Midwest

Henry J. Moline

Copyright Henry J. Moline

Smashwords Edition

ISBN: 9781311779267

What does President George Bush, former CIA Director William E Colby, Democratic presidential candidate Bob Kerrey, billionaire and second richest man in America and now head of Salomon Brothers - Warren Buffett, and Ronald Roskens, the current administrator of the Agency for International Development, all have in common?

Answer: Franklin Credit Union and a man named Larry King

Chapter One: The Beginning. Who is Larry King?

Lawrence E. King had his humble beginnings September 7, 1944. Who would have believed that just 40 years later Larry, (as he was affectionately known) would be singing the National Anthem at the Republican National Convention, a feat he would repeat just four years later in 1988?

The son of a black small businessman in Omaha, Nebraska, Larry showed early ambition and a willingness to work. At only 14 years old he was an errand boy lugging ice and garbage for the renowned Blackstone Hotel. Be the age of 16 Larry became a full fledged waiter and soon served diners at the Blackstone’s famous Orleans room.

Not content with merely earning money, Larry also took a lively interest in the Arts. He took voice lessons and was featured in many Central High School musical productions. In a newspaper interview regarding his mix of roles, Larry remarked I once played God. Larry continued to study voice at the University of Nebraska and considered a professional singing career. But his very practical father influenced Larry to seek a degree in Business Administration.

But Larry put his patriotism first. He joined the US Air force where served honorably for a full four year term. While still on active duty, he managed to complete a BA by attending night classes at Kellogg University in Battle Creek.

He returned to his home town full of hope and dreams. He was quoted as saying I always had a feeling that God put me on earth for a special purpose.

Larry found his purpose upon return from the service. Although he considered become a Presbyterian minister and was quoted as saying I think I had some qualities that would have suited the ministry and I wanted to serve people and I also enjoyed raising funds, The lad took a job in the management training program of the First national Bank.

It proved to be a providential choice when he accepted the challenge of taking over the management of a failing savings and loan at the age of only 25.

Mr. King soon gained national attention when he became best known as the miracle worker who helped save the Franklin Community Federal Credit Union. It was a tiny savings and loan catering to the needs of the black and poor community. The thrift was on the brink of collapse and had received an ultimatum from regulatory officials.

Larry was an impressive man, tall, good looking, a melodious voice and oodles of charm. He used that charm effectively in an appeal to big time businessman and dignitaries to buy bonds and certificates of deposits to prop up the failing bank. Larry soon became an integral part of that society, providing them with well catered parties and part time workers. With the thrift back to solvency King turned his attention to the food service business.

He began with a catering business (learned from his father) and then gradually expanded into upscale restaurants and supper clubs. He enjoyed a partnership in ALASKA, a wine and sushi bar catering to the yuppies and elite of Omaha.

As yet another restaurant was under construction, Larry intimated I want it to be an elegant place; waiters will wear white dinner Jackets. He was most often seen greeting customers and browsing with the cream of local society at Cleopatra’s a supper club featuring name entertainment.

As his celebrity grew Larry still found time for the little people. He was often seen in his yellow convertible picking up children at nearby Boys town famous in its own right and a big depositor in the now solvent savings and loan. Other times found Larry tending to the needs of street people and cast off youths. He often employed them and also found them part time work with the city’s luminaries often as helpful guests at various parties. It is only natural that this ambitious achiever would also turn his attention to politics.

At first his liberal tendencies lead him to provide strong support for the Democratic Party and George McGovern. Larry became the chairman of Black Democrats of Nebraska. But it was just as natural that a rising star would hitch himself to the Grand Old Party.

Larry switched providing this explanation: To me it’s very logical. If every black is a Democrat, they can easily take us for granted and I believe very much in the ‘hand up’ philosophy rather than the ‘hand out’. Judging Larry by his successes, it was a wise decision.

As a Republican, Larry not only rose quickly in the ranks, but also enjoyed attention and influence at the highest levels. He was on the planning committee for the National Black Republican Celebrity Gala held in Washington before the Inauguration of President Reagan and Vice President Bush. Larry also became vice chairman of the National Black Republicans.

It is no wonder he was known to hob nob with men from the highest levels of Government. He sang at functions for Reagan and also VP Bush. It is no wonder he soon found it expedient to lease a home on Embassy row and found a D. C. Restaurant called Prince’s Palace.

As his fortunes improved Larry adopted the kind of lavish lifestyle befitting his station. He adopted a more impressive wardrobe, bought a new Mercedes and constructed a home in the exclusive Poca Hills where he lived on a heavily wooded 26 acre plot. Of the location he said it’s wonderful to live with nature, this is where I relax.

With thriving business and homes in both Nebraska and Washington D. C. and a habit of throwing big catered parties for luminaries in both areas, it was soon necessary to fly in charted jets. Not wishing to seem shabby among such friends Larry also purchased appropriate jewelry and fine watches.

Unfortunately, Larry’s ostentatious lifestyle caught the attention of the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS. Agents notified additional Federal Agencies. Eventually Larry found himself charged with appropriating about 40 million dollars for his own use. Despite pleading his innocence, Larry was convicted on various charges of bank fraud and served 10 of a 15 year sentence in Federal Prison, the last four in a minimum security Federal Prison Camp. At the time of his conviction Larry was still an active member of the Local Presbyterian Church. Had Larry just flown too high?

The world of the Seventies and Eighties was still racist and elitist. There are some that may conclude that Larry was just a child of the time. A bit of an overachiever and a little grandiose.

The Franklin Community Credit Union was incorporated on December 31st, 1968 by a Franklin neighborhood group because of concerns about a lack of financial institutions in Northern Omaha. It was later to serve South Omaha neighborhoods through its branch office. In August 1970, Lawrence E. Larry King Jr. became the manager and principal executive of the credit union. A companion organization, Community Services Organization (CSO) was started in 1974 to teach clients about money management, to provide advocacy services, as well as to help people in financial crisis.

By December 1976, there was a total shortage of credit union funds in the amount of $400,000. Meanwhile, King was attracting community support for the credit union and adding many prominent individuals to the Board of Directors as well as to the FCU advisory board. Among the members of the advisory board, was Harold Andersen, the publisher of the Omaha World Herald, as well as noted attorneys, bankers and executives of ConAgra, Union Pacific and North Western Bell. When asked, Harold Andersen stated that, as a member of the advisory board, he had never offered any advice to King or the FCU. Andersen also stated that he had no idea what was going on at the credit union and didn’t remember when he had initially been approached by King to become involved in FCU.

Yet, in addition to serving on the advisory board, Andersen did commercials for FCU, raised money for FCU, solicited business for FCU and lavish in showering public praise and endorsements on King and FCU.

At the same time, King was becoming more active in community affairs. He was becoming highly visible in State and National Republican affairs. In August 1984, during the GOP Convention, King flew an entourage to Dallas, to host a lavish party. At the GOP Convention, King sang the National Anthem.

King repeated this affair in August 1988, at which time he chartered three jets and flew his entourage to the New Orleans GOP Convention. There, King hosted a party at a cost of well over $100,000. Again, King opened the Convention by singing the National Anthem.

Although King had started in politics as a democrat (he was chairman of the Black Democrats for George McGovern) he saw more opportunity in the Republican Party. King eventually became a heavy financial contributor to Republican causes and later associated with the Republican National Committee. King was described by friends and cohorts as being incredibly ambitious. With goals of becoming an U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica.

While the credit union was growing leaps and bounds and King seemed to be fulfilling both his personal and political dreams, trouble was brewing over the horizon. While even though it would be several months before trouble hits, but when it does, it will be totally devastating.

In 1981, an anonymous letter was sent to the National Credit Union Association, detailing certain concerns about FCU. A limited investigation was conducted, but revealed nothing. By this time, FCU was operating two sets of books.

However, ultimately, the IRS investigated Larry and his wife Alice’s tax returns for the years 1982 and 1983. King didn’t even fight the charges against him. Ever the politician, King agreed to pay the IRS $72,000 in back taxes. He didn’t seem the least bit bothered by the whole affair. In February 1984, a teller wrote a memo to the Franklin Board. In this memo, it alleged embezzlement and other improprieties at the credit union. The following day, the teller was fired. Copies of the memo were later sent to the attorney and state legislator, Peter Hoagland and to the State Banking Director Roger Beverage. Beverage’s response was, we’re aware of his living beyond his means. However, the department can’t do anything, because we don’t want look like the big bad white guy jumping on the tiny black credit union.

Was King living beyond his means? His salary from the credit union was $17,000 annually. However, King had numerous other business interests. They were: The Carnivale restaurant, purchased in 1987 for $150,000; purchased in 1988 for $52,000 was the Showcase Lounge; Al’s Place, an employee cafeteria at the People’s Natural Gas Company; ALASKA, a restaurant owned by King and two partners; EJ’s Continental Café; the food and beverage service for the Cleopatra Lounge; The King Company, a catering company; and L&M Lawn Service.

Despite his numerous businesses, King was not generating enough money to support his lavish lifestyle, which included a home in Washington D.C., another in Omaha, frequent vacations, and apartments at various locations around Omaha and lavish gifts for his intimate friends.

Credit union audits in 1982 and 1984 by an Omaha accountant revealed nothing. In 1986, the accountant was unable to complete the audit because he didn’t receive complete records. In 1987, a federal team criticized the FCU for its loan record keeping systems. Attempts by the Omaha Planning Director to secure audits for 1986 and 1987 were stonewalled, citing computer problems. Then suddenly, it happens. NCUA auditors were onsite, conducting an examination of Franklin’s books, when it was closed by the FBI and the IRS.

While Larry King was busy building his public image as a successful restaurant businessman and as a civic minded manager of a minority credit union, a glimpse of a much darker image began to emerge. Slowly at first, then with increasing speed and details of the new image of Larry King comes into focus.

Chapter Two: The Storm of Evil Begins to Emerge

It was fall of 1985, a young boy ran away from his home of his adoptive parents, Jarrett and Barbara Webb. When neighbors contacted the Washington County Sheriff’s office, the boy began to make allegations of physical abuse against the Webbs.

The Webbs have been foster parents to a number of children over a long period of time. Barbara Webb is Larry King’s cousin and her husband Jarrett Webb sat on the Board of Directors for the FCU.

Other complaints of abuse by other children in the Webb’s home began to come to light. In December, Barbara Webb asked the Nebraska Department of Social Services, to remove the boy as well as his three sisters from their home.

In January 1986, the two oldest of the three sisters were placed in the foster home of Ron and Kathleen Sorenson of Blair Nebraska. Over a period of the next few weeks, the girls began to tell their stories of sexual and physical abuse by Jarrett Webb. The girls also said that they had seen pornographic videos and pictures in the home as well. Although the oldest, Lisa passed a series of lie detector tests administered by the Nebraska State Patrol, the Washington County Attorney Pat Tripp did not believe the allegations against Webb. He refused to prosecute Webb. Later, Tripp’s successor did file charges. December 1990, the judge dismissed the charges. The judge’s basis for the dismissal was that the oldest of the three sisters was three days older than the minimum age of consent.

March 1986, Lisa began to reveal details concerning prostitution and abuse by Barbara Webb’s cousin Larry King. The girl also revealed going to parties in several cities around the country, to which King has flown them, along with several young boys from Boy’s Town.

This account by Kathleen Sorenson that you read below comes at a high price. This woman who went public to warn all parents and guardians of children of the danger of ritual, satanic abuse and murder gave her life to enable you to know the truth. She was herself, killed because she tried to tell you this truth.

A groundbreaking account of satanic activities in Nebraska came from Kathleen Sorenson, the foster mother who took in Nelly and Kimberly Patterson after they fled from the Webbs (their former foster parents).

Mrs. Sorenson decided to speak out about what she had learned from children in her care. Together with her eldest foster daughter, a survivor of ritualistic abuse, she spoke at public forums around the state, gave radio and television interviews, and appeared on Geraldo Rivera's nationally televised special on Satanism. This is the report Kathleen Sorenson gave on a Christian TV interview program aired in Nebraska in 1989, based on her experience with over 30 children who spent months or years in her home. "We got involved and learned about this subject because we were foster parents and worked with a number of children. And several years back, several of the children began, after a period of time and building up trust, to talk about some very bizarre events that had happened in their past and they were frightening and very confusing. I really didn't know what to think. We went to the police, and we went to social services, and there was really nothing anyone could do. These children we worked with are now adopted, in safe homes, and probably would never have talked had they not felt able to trust the people they were living with.

"There are certain things that are in common in the childrens' stories when we talk about devil worship. There are things that come up in every single story, such as candles. They all talk about sex. Sex is without a doubt a part of every area of this, all sorts of perverted sex. That is what you will first hear, about the sex, about the incest, and it is so hard to believe. But once we get that, we have learned that we can go on and ask and find out and it will involve pornography; that is always part of it. Part of the reason is that they can use that to threaten the children. 'We have pictures we will show the police if you talk.' It makes the children feel that they are in great danger, and they are all very frightened of the law. They talk about the garish make-up that the people in the group wear, they talk about the singing that they didn't understand. Obviously that is chanting, and that has come up in every one of these stories, and none of them call it chanting. There will be dancing. Most often that will involve sexual acts. There will always be a leader and they will be very frightened of the leader.

"These children, from a very young age, and I am talking about children who came out of birth homes, the family they were born to, worshipped the devil. That's all I can share, and I don't pretend to be an expert. All I can tell you is what the children have told me. My husband and I say, we know things we shouldn't know. That's true, and I thought very carefully before I agreed to come forth, because we have heard so much, and it is so ugly, and so frightening, that you hesitate to tell it to people. It's very heavy to know. I don't want people running around looking in their closets and not leading normal lives. You don't want to think you are giving people ideas. I don't want people to say, if a child starts to talk about some of this, 'They probably saw it on that show Kathleen did.' But we're hearing more and more. And it is becoming very, very out in the open, and I think it's time for people to know that this is not fun and games; this is not something that we can laugh at or ignore.

"The children I have talked to have all had to murder before the age of two. That is something beyond anything I could comprehend. But in some way, whether with the help of an adult's hand over theirs, by having them practice, by getting them excited to be part of the adult scene, they do murder. And the evil thing that happens is that they really believe that they want to. They want to do what the older people are doing, and they are praised for that. And that becomes their goal, to be like the adults. There is a little part in them, that natural good, God given part, which knows that it is wrong. But in a group, and in the excitement of everything, they want to do that. They enjoy the sex. Children are capable of enjoying the sex. I didn't know that. Well, why would they fight against it? A child will eat a bag of candy if you give it to them. They will take part in these things willingly. When they get out and begin to talk, it is very difficult for them to realize we didn't realize it at first that they actually wanted to do it.

"They are told they will never get out, no one will ever believe them, that there is no freedom, that 'the law will get you,' they are hopeless before they get someone willing to listen. They are threatened with death. Every time a child is killed in their group, they are told, 'If you tell, this will happen to you.' They have every reason to believe that. So even when they are into the (foster care) system and with another family and begin to feel somewhat safe, they still expect these people to show up on the doorstep. They believe that these people know everything they are doing, everyone they're talking to. One teenager told me that she had been told, that if she ever got married, that they would fool her, it would be one of them and she wouldn't know it ahead of time. They set them up to fail in every area.

"It is very prevalent in the Midwest, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri. Some people have speculated recently that these states are headquarters.

"As you listen to me talk about these things, there will be a natural part of you which will deny much of what you hear, and believe me, we did too. I would like to share this with you, partly in the children's words, so that you can hear the things that they said that nobody could make up, that no child could know. That's what eventually convinced me, along with the deep emotion. The grieving, screeching damages and hurt that they cry out with as they talk. The children I will be talking about, these are all children that I personally talked to. They are today between the ages of 5 and 17. When they talked they were between the ages of 5 and 15. When these things occurred to them, they were between the ages of, well birth, but of when memory enters in, I would say a year and a half to eight. So I am talking about very small children. I am talking about children forming consciences at that time, learning right from wrong. These children do not know. They come out and do not know what is right. They are confused. What they did before, that they were rewarded for, is such a horror to anybody else, that they are shunned. And most often they have been in multiple placements, they will go to a home, they will steal, they will lie, they will hurt animals. One little guy would sharpen pencils and try to stab people. I don't mean poke, I mean stab. People don't like that in their homes. They don't have any idea what it is, they just think, 'We have a weird kid.' Many are sent to psychiatric hospitals where they are labeled psychotics, schizophrenics, and who would want them in. I praise God that He brought so many of them into my life, and through our home, and that there are other families like ours, it is just a movement of the Holy Spirit, the only way I can explain it.

"I will begin with the first stories that we heard, which will seem horrible to you, but are very mild to me, because we have progressed and heard far worse things. The first story is about two little boys who were 7 and 9 when they talked, and they told about sexual abuse at one point, and were very grieved. We talked about good and bad touching and we thought we really had gotten to the bottom of it, and then that afternoon the little one began to cry, and when we couldn't get the answer from him, the older brother said, 'He is probably crying because he was in the room when they killed his friend.' That was the first one we know about. And as they described that, they talked about that particular victim being brought into a room, hands and arms tied, mouth taped, and how there had been X’s marked on his body, on his vital organs. That was bad enough. Within a