I am referring to the section below that I have highlighted in very large print. Hey, there was no license plate number provided so what was Jack supposed to do? Believe a man - a man who is the president of the college that bears his name - telling him he saw Dave with his daughter in a hotel? Not enough proof - even though there were 2 witnesses - Joy and Wendell.
This is smoking gun proof that Hyles cared nothing about any abused member of the flock. He only cared about maintaining the appearance of his ministry and his position of power and influence.
I'm kind of looking forward to seeing Bob Gray's blog reaction to this story.
In Joy Evans Ryder?s mid-1970s church-driven world, skirts had to go past knees, men and women had to be separated by six inches, and a good daughter?s gift to her father was to save her first kiss for the altar.
A father himself, Jack Hyles was nicknamed the ?Baptist Pope? for the sway he held over the nationwide independent fundamental Baptist movement from his power base in small-town Indiana.
His son Dave was tall, skinny and already balding by his mid-20s. He had his father?s eyes that pulled down at the corners. No one would have called him traditionally handsome, but he had his father?s ability to make you feel a part of the in-crowd with a compliment or sarcastic joke. And he could just as easily push you out with a cutting insult.
Dave Hyles had taken an interest in Ryder when she was 14, and it scared her.
One Sunday morning after service, she stood in line to speak to Jack Hyles ? the most important person in her world ? about his son?s repeated calls to her house. The attention made her uncomfortable, she said.
The pastor sat at his desk and took her in for a moment.
?Joy, you?re not special,? he said. ?He does that with everyone. So don?t think he?s trying to do anything with you.?
Not long after, she was raped by Dave Hyles. It continued for two years.
Reached by phone, Dave Hyles declined to comment. The Star-Telegram followed up by sending him a list of written questions. He did not respond. Jack Hyles died in 2001.
At 16, Ryder thought about suicide, fearing she might be pregnant with Dave Hyles? child. She imagined ramming her car into a telephone pole or a tree, killing her and the baby.
She didn?t think about going to police.
?I went to somebody I thought would be my protector,? Ryder said. ?Not my dad, because this shows you how we were taught to think about our pastor, Dr. Hyles.?
Dave Hyles had warned her to stay quiet or he?d get her parents fired. Her father was president of Hyles-Anderson College, a school started by and run from First Baptist Church. Her mother was the school?s dean of women.
To her friends, Ryder looked happy. She was popular, secure in her social status, and had a spot in the church school?s coveted choir, called Strength and Beauty. She liked to run off to the mall with friends every chance she got and had her light-brown hair feathered, Farrah Fawcett-style.
But she was also angry and ready to rebel against the system that entrapped her. She sneaked to movies, wore pants and swiped cigarette packs, all verboten in the church.
At 17, Ryder snapped. She called her parents from a payphone at the church school and told them to meet her at home. She told them everything.
The next time she met Hyles, her father would follow.
He drove behind her to a Holiday Inn, and waited in his car as he watched Ryder walk into a first-floor room and shut the door.
Hotel
Joy Evans Ryder says Dave Hyles raped her when he was her youth director. Her father followed her to this hotel room in Illinois, then a Holiday Inn, when she told Hyles they were done. Hyles has never been charged with a crime.
COURTESY JOY EVANS RYDER
?I?m leaving,? Ryder told Hyles.
He asked what she meant.
?I?m leaving,? she repeated. ?I told my parents, and my dad is outside.?
Hyles pulled back the curtain and saw her father?s car. She says he shoved her against the wall, his forearm pressed on her throat.
?What have you done to me? You?ve ruined my ministry. How could you do this to me???
He let her go and paced the room. Ryder walked out, got in her car and drove home. Her father followed her. He didn?t confront Hyles.
He did, however, go to Jack Hyles, who dismissed the report about his son because Ryder?s father didn?t record Dave Hyles? license plate number.
Her father dropped the subject.
Ryder?s father, Wendell Evans, wished he could do it over, he said 35 years later in a notarized statement provided to the Star-Telegram, taken because Ryder was seeking evidence to take to the church.
At the time of the abuse, Evans? career was blossoming in the church. Pushing Hyles, his boss, on the allegations would have been difficult, he said.
?I mean, Hyles and I were still good friends,? he said. ?We marveled sometimes that our friendship survived this situation.?
But in an interview with the Star-Telegram, Evans was not so forgiving of Dave Hyles. He regrets not calling the police on him.
?I think it?s remarkable that in 40 years, Dave didn?t find time to ask forgiveness from his victims and their parents,? said Evans, now 83.
It was not the first time Jack Hyles heard allegations against his son, nor would it be the last. One woman alleged Dave Hyles raped her at 14 when she attended the church?s high school, years before Ryder. The woman?s 10th-grade teacher also confronted Jack Hyles about his son, only to be brushed off.
Dave Hyles? ministry wasn?t ruined. Instead, he got promoted.
A few months after Evans and Jack Hyles spoke about the encounter at the Holiday Inn, Dave Hyles became the pastor at Miller Road Baptist Church in Garland, Texas ? the church his father led before moving to Indiana. Jack Hyles would later say he never recommended his son to any church, but deacons and staffers at Miller Road said their search committee called Jack Hyles about Dave. No one heard any warnings.
Two more women would accuse Dave Hyles of molesting them in Texas. One woman, who went to Hyles-Anderson for college, said she tried to tell Jack Hyles what had happened. He told her not to tell anyone else.
Then, she said, he kicked her out of his office.
