Ben, Jan and Amy Ebeling Named in Sexual Assault Civil Suit

How many parents know if their teen kids are even wearing underwear?

Or undress and redress them? The parent wouldn’t have just sent the girl to bed?

The length some people will go is jaw dropping.

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I hesitantly offer this: if the 14 year old was a virgin, the act may have resulted in bleeding. And that would be a huge indication a sexual assault took place.

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Agreed.

I think it’s best to move on from this discussion item. If the plaintiff from the lawsuit is following this thread (entirely possible), I can only imagine that it is really uncomfortable for her to read about people talking about her underwear. I don’t think anyone wants to add to her psychological distress… so how about we just move on with the discussion…

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Now that the suit has been filed, what is the timeline? I know Covid dramatically showed things down over the past few years, but is it possible that the courts are starting to catch up?

not that I really wanted to get involved in this line of the conversation, but -

My parents both worked. I often got rides to the barn or they would drop me off and I’d get a ride home. I know from experience that no amount of begging, crying, pleading, tantrum throwing, refusing to go, etc would have ever gotten them to budge from the convenience of having a place to deposit me where I’d be minimally supervised until they had time.

Not everyone is parent of the year. Not every child is close to their parents, especially if those parents are wealthy and believe that money can replace parental attention and support. I can 100% say with certainty that all these scenarios described above would not have taken place between either of my parents and I had 14 year old me been messed up on something when they picked me up from somewhere.

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I remember being a teen. It was second nature to minimize or hide anything unfortunate or illegal that we got up to. I hid injuries. I hid our party antics. I hid everything to do with my emotional life. Now this was the 1970s with a huge cultural gap, parents on one side of the 1960s and teens on the other side. But it’s still true that teens know that adult reactions will often be effectively punitive towards them even if they are victims.

We don’t know anything about what happened right after the incident. It’s likely neither set of parents knew about the sexual assault and the incident was just “daughter got drunk, bad girl.”

Most parents don’t take a drunk teen to ER if they have no reason to believe that drugs or assault were involved.

It is very very common in assault cases that minors don’t come forward with charges until they are adults, and have some idea of the lasting damage the incident caused.

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Really? Wow, I guess I am showing my age. I didn’t know this was SOP for parenting these days. I certainly would have noticed that my teen-aged daughter wasn’t wearing a bra when she left the house, and would have especially been concerned about the lack of support while she was participating in a “high-impact” sport such as horseback riding. I also would have been a bit concerned knowing there would be males around (most of whom absolutely do notice when a female isn’t wearing a bra - and I am not implying that means the males will do anything other than enjoy the view).

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I’m remembering that when I was kid I was TWICE hit by a car and neither time told my parents. The first time I got busted because the driver stopped at my house to see how I was. The 2nd time they never discovered until I told my dad when I was in my 40s.

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That is what I was thinking. What a disgusting thing to do, esp. after the absolutely heinous act of drugging and raping her. And if he truly did sexually assault her in the way she alleges in the suit, then he is a despicable excuse for a human being and his parents ought to be busting his chops instead of trying to protect him from being “outed.” And I have no problem with him - and them - being outed if the allegations are true. Perhaps this story will make other young men stop and think before they foist themselves on some girl.

OTOH, I think that if he didn’t do the things alleged in the suit, then “Jane Doe” is despicable for pushing an untrue narrative. Whatever her motives, if she is not being truthful, she is not deserving of respect either.

I am hoping investigators and authorities can get to the bottom of it and a fair and just decision is rendered. I do worry as others have pointed out that the (apparent) lack of forensics may hamper the ability of her attorney to make the case. It would be so sad if she finally decided to come forward but was then thwarted in the end.

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I will agree that as teens, we seldom share what might get us even more trouble, or take away freedom.

I was 13, and staying out at the farm where my show horses were boarded and trained. We decided to take the ponies out for a trail ride bare back, and I was on the crazy pony (jumped out of the ring with a kid once at a big show). They decided to race, and I couldn’t get crazy pony to stop, so I circled him, he jumped and bucked, and I came off. Trashed my left rotator cuff. I had to hold my left hand up with my right to go to a show four days later, but I didn’t tell anyone. (won the class at the show!)

The last night before the trainer was leaving the area, we all stayed over in the farmhouse. My former groom showed up in my room, jumped on the bed, and drunkenly told me he was going to make love to me. I was 15. I rolled out from him, went around the bed, and opened the door. I told him quietly to get out, or I’d get loud. He did. I didn’t tell anyone (my father would have killed him dead)

So yeah, I get it. But when the kid looks beat up and drunk, and you as her parents actually witness that, I find that more challenging in terms of red flags.

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I have to say that even in these open & internet times, it is very hard to say what any individual 14 year old girl knows about her body, about sex, about reproduction. Or even where and from who she would have gotten this information/education. We don’t know what she understood.

Between individuals, families, even schools and communities, there is so much variation that there is no way to guess. Even the vastly different physical, emotional and mental maturity levels of individual 14 year old girls…

There is also no way to know how much she remembered immediately afterward or even later. Given whatever she ingested AND that this was clearly a traumatizing event. I can easily see that if she didn’t realize the extent of what happened at the time, perhaps as she matured she could have gradually gotten a better understanding of things that helped her piece together what happened.

What BE is reported to have been taunting her with may or may not have been fully understood by her. Or if she understood the meaning but thought he was overstating the situation out of nastiness.

We can’t speculate with any accuracy until she herself chooses to share these details.

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Why are you trying to psychoanalyze why who did what? Trying to solve the case like a mystery? There is absolutely no way to interpret or suggest any conclusions.

I doubt that any boy in this situation is acting like a master criminal. Assuming the story is true, he may not have even thought he did anything wrong, may have told himself it was all consensual. Or he’s just a keeper of trophies.

It does not matter and such theorizing does not tell us anything about what happened.

All this “there would be bleeding”, “the parents would have noticed a clothing change” … these comments trying to ‘solve the case’ accomplish nothing. There is absolutely no way to know exactly what happened with what has been publicly disclosed so far. Even if things like this did happen, there are a million ways the parents would not know any of this.

Imagining some scenario and then trying to analyze it for truth & veracity, or picking out clues and hypothesizing, is not informative in any way.

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Kindly do suggest which topics we should be focusing on.

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I am no tea totaler and I have certainly drank my share of alcohol but the amount of alcohol I have seen at YOUTH horse shows still astounds me. The amount of trainers I see drinking copious amounts in front of clients often children on a regular basis is also crazy to me. People just don’t seem to care though.
I have told this story before but we were youth directors of a major breed state organization years ago. Parents actually wanted the youth to pay for an exhibitor party.
The AQHA Youth World Show allows alcohol in the show facility and the venue sells it. When asked they say well we can’t control it and the facility is ok with it. If High School Rodeo events can be alcohol free then so can a national youth horse show.
I suppose this post may seem a tangent to some but I don’t think it is. The culture of horse shows makes alcohol seem inoculous and just part of being a competitor. To be fair so do a lot of sports, movies and television.
I don’t have the answers but I too would remove my 14 yr old from a barn in which she was given alcohol but my experiences suggest that there are at least some parents who would not.

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I am not sure about the motives behind picking at hypothetical details about what happened night of.

Yes, it’s a good reminder that these incidents are better dealt with at the time.

However nothing in the chain of events points to this being somehow a false claim, or because parents didn’t know at the time that the now adult minor can’t act on their own account.

The fact that it was not acted on at the time s absolutely typical of such things, especially in regards to young teens who have surprising gaps of naievity.

A teen who didn’t normally drink wouldn’t necessarily know that passing out after one drink was unusual and had to be due to date rape drugs.

I can easily see a scenario where boy is presenting himself as clean cut helpful savior. Silly girl got drunk and I had to carry her back up to the barn. All the blame is on her.

As far as parents monitoring their children’s underwear, I honestly don’t think too many mothers pay attention unless there is a wardrobe discipline issue, like you are not wearing that pushup bra or tramp style thong hanging out of low rise jeans. If the kid’s clothes choices are within acceptable range mothers of 14 year olds are just glad they can dress themselves.

I can’t tell if the petite tweens at the barn are wearing bras any given day. Certainly not under layers.

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But that in no way makes the alleged victim’s parents responsible for the assault, while there is a case to be made that the Ebelings’ are in part responsible, due to their lack of supervision. Both minors were in the Ebelings’ control and care at the time of the alleged incident. Had the kids been properly supervised, an attack could not have taken place.

So no, I don’t agree that the reaction of the accuser’s parents is very relevant, particularly since we don’t know how much they were told and when.

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Have you visited any of the Barisone threads? Imagining different scenarios and picking out “clues” is what’s kept them going for almost 3 years. Apparently it’s a hobby for some people.

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And in this instance (a civil suit alleging the sexual assault of a minor) it is in extremely poor taste.

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I think it’s important to note that for a lot of teenagers, especially those investing the time to train and compete, the barn friends make up a huge part of their social circle.

When I think about what I was getting up to with my friends when I was 14, 15, 16 years old, sneaking alcohol in an avocado orchard isn’t much different than sneaking alcohol in the woods behind Kathryn’s house down the street, which we did on an average Tuesday.

I’m not excusing anything that happened. I’m saying that a girl hanging out with her “barn friends” and getting up to teenage things isn’t in and of itself some sort of nefarious situation.

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I guess I was the exception. I LOVED my horses. The other kids? Meh. They were far more interested in their social lives than I ever was.

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