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Brett Webber


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http://www.tulsaworld.com/article.aspx/Ex_coach_Brett_Webber_maintains_innocence_18_years/20130714_11_A1_CUTLIN774337

 

Today's Tulsa World had an interesting article on a long-standing story of Brett Webber's sexual assault conviction.  The comments at the end of the story will continue to be an interesting part of this article as well.  Some even reveal details (such as coaching Pauls Valley) that I wasn't aware of. 

 

Brett married Don Calvert's daughter at the time and they still remain married.  The players that I knew from the men's basketball teams in the early 1980's that Brett was the team manager, still find it hard to believe that Brett could have performed the acts he is accused.

 

I don' t know if the full truth will ever come out on this side of heaven, but all will be justly convicted by the ultimate Judge some day.

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Brett Webber was my Athletic Dorm roommate my sophomore (his junior) year, 1981-82.  He was a manager on the men's basketball team, and I was a student assistant in the (at-the-time) Sports Information Department.  The year before that, we were also teammates on an ill-fated JV basketball team at ORU.

 

In addition, Brett and his one-year-older brother Kurt were a year and two years ahead of me, respectively, at Nimitz Junior High in Tulsa.  We played baseball against each other (with their dad, Jerry, as their coach), and we also attended ORU basketball camps together growing up.  Our dads, while not close friends, had good professional ties centered around ORU Athletics, and I seem to recall their mom giving me and my little brother rides home from school a couple of times over the years.  Brett went on to Mason High School; I went to Tulsa Memorial, but when we were reunited at ORU and were each looking for new roommates in the Athletic Dorm, it was kind of a no-brainer.  Or so I thought.

 

I decided to switch roommates again my junior year, and the reason may surprise you:  I felt like I was a bad influence on Brett.  I mean, the dude was like a Boy Scout.  While he was spending his time studying, getting good grades, reading his Bible, and donating his time to Fellowship of Christian Athletes and The Special Olympics, I was barely skating by in my classes, instead rolling into the dorm on weekends around 2:00 a.m., smelling like The Tap Room and The Bull & Bear.  I knew it bothered him, and I seem to recall him giving me a little bit of a hard time about my lifestyle, but I don't remember any ultimatums or anything.  I just figured it might be easier for both of us if I moved on the next year.  I can't remember who he ended up rooming with his senior year; I roomed the next two years on another floor in the dorm, with a baseball student manager who was a little more tolerant of my social agenda.

 

All that being said, I can't say that I ever really knew Brett that well.  He was really quiet, kept to himself, preferring to spend his time away from school and basketball at home with his parents.  He never dated in college; at least that any of us knew about.  I remember when he and Deana Calvert got together, a lot of us wondered if it was the first real relationship for either of them.  He came across as really naive socially:  he didn't totally avoid hanging out with guys and/or girls in groups, but when he did, he was typically on the outside looking in, and he rarely did anything to draw attention to himself.

 

I say all this to try to make this point:  I was completely floored when the Bishop Kelley allegations came out a decade later.  In my mind, there was simply no way the introverted, Bible-reading guy I knew growing up and in college could be the serial sexual predator described in those allegations.  And, to this day I probably STILL wouldn't believe the charges were true, except for this quirk of fate:  I had a co-worker at the time who's wife worked in the office of Tulsa County District Attorney David Moss.  Either during the trial or right after it, she and her husband were over for dinner one night, and I vehemently defended Brett, saying there was no way the guy I knew was capable of doing all the terrible things of which he had been accused.

 

And I'll never forget her response:  she said it was one of the most "slam dunk" cases their office had ever tried.  For each boy they convinced to testify, there were another one or two who refused to go on the record, due to humiliation.  She said, "Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a teenage boy or young adult male to admit to being molested by a man, much less testify in court about it?  We were worried we might not get ANY of the victims to testify; we were stunned at the number who eventually agreed.  And, even the ones who wouldn't testify provided information that convinced us there was no doubt at all in this case.  From all the information we gathered, we were able to determine a systematic routine that Webber used to draw these boys into his confidence.  It was like a script he used to seduce each victim.  Boys who had no relationship to each other, in classes years apart at Bishop Kelley, told virtually the same stories that fit the script.  It was overwhelming."

 

So, I was wrong about the guy.  Dead wrong.  But, I still can't get over it.  Even with all that evidence, it's just hard to fathom.  I think about Brett from time to time, wondering what it's like living in hell all these years in prison.  I wonder about how I lived for a year with a monster and had no clue; and how I was convinced that I was the bad guy in the room all that time.  And I wonder about his victims, and all the lives he scarred with his actions, and I think about how they must have felt the same sort of conflict about what was right and what was wrong when it came to their relationships with Brett, even as he stole their dignity and their trust forever.

 

And, then I read this story, and the same conflicts come back:  for everything he says in the story that makes you feel sympathy for him, there's another statement or fact that makes your blood run cold.

 

I know it may seem obvious to those who never knew him that he's guilty as sin. 

 

But, for those of us who thought we DID know him, it doesn't make it any easier to accept.

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Wow....that's good stuff, OT...you really nailed it.....this case sounds so similar to the Sandusky crimes.....same kind of sinister routine that the ex-Penn State coach used to lure his victims....and it's very sad that the wife continues to defend her criminal husband....also just like Sandusky's wife.....they are just blinded by love and in denial.....these kinds of crimes are really so sick.....let's hope that Webber like Sandusky never gets out.....sick guys like that are never reformed....especially after almost 20 years and he's still claiming innocence..... :puke:

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  • 4 years later...
On 7/14/2013 at 3:14 PM, Old Titan said:

Brett Webber was my Athletic Dorm roommate my sophomore (his junior) year, 1981-82.  He was a manager on the men's basketball team, and I was a student assistant in the (at-the-time) Sports Information Department.  The year before that, we were also teammates on an ill-fated JV basketball team at ORU.

 

In addition, Brett and his one-year-older brother Kurt were a year and two years ahead of me, respectively, at Nimitz Junior High in Tulsa.  We played baseball against each other (with their dad, Jerry, as their coach), and we also attended ORU basketball camps together growing up.  Our dads, while not close friends, had good professional ties centered around ORU Athletics, and I seem to recall their mom giving me and my little brother rides home from school a couple of times over the years.  Brett went on to Mason High School; I went to Tulsa Memorial, but when we were reunited at ORU and were each looking for new roommates in the Athletic Dorm, it was kind of a no-brainer.  Or so I thought.

 

I decided to switch roommates again my junior year, and the reason may surprise you:  I felt like I was a bad influence on Brett.  I mean, the dude was like a Boy Scout.  While he was spending his time studying, getting good grades, reading his Bible, and donating his time to Fellowship of Christian Athletes and The Special Olympics, I was barely skating by in my classes, instead rolling into the dorm on weekends around 2:00 a.m., smelling like The Tap Room and The Bull & Bear.  I knew it bothered him, and I seem to recall him giving me a little bit of a hard time about my lifestyle, but I don't remember any ultimatums or anything.  I just figured it might be easier for both of us if I moved on the next year.  I can't remember who he ended up rooming with his senior year; I roomed the next two years on another floor in the dorm, with a baseball student manager who was a little more tolerant of my social agenda.

 

All that being said, I can't say that I ever really knew Brett that well.  He was really quiet, kept to himself, preferring to spend his time away from school and basketball at home with his parents.  He never dated in college; at least that any of us knew about.  I remember when he and Deana Calvert got together, a lot of us wondered if it was the first real relationship for either of them.  He came across as really naive socially:  he didn't totally avoid hanging out with guys and/or girls in groups, but when he did, he was typically on the outside looking in, and he rarely did anything to draw attention to himself.

 

I say all this to try to make this point:  I was completely floored when the Bishop Kelley allegations came out a decade later.  In my mind, there was simply no way the introverted, Bible-reading guy I knew growing up and in college could be the serial sexual predator described in those allegations.  And, to this day I probably STILL wouldn't believe the charges were true, except for this quirk of fate:  I had a co-worker at the time who's wife worked in the office of Tulsa County District Attorney David Moss.  Either during the trial or right after it, she and her husband were over for dinner one night, and I vehemently defended Brett, saying there was no way the guy I knew was capable of doing all the terrible things of which he had been accused.

 

And I'll never forget her response:  she said it was one of the most "slam dunk" cases their office had ever tried.  For each boy they convinced to testify, there were another one or two who refused to go on the record, due to humiliation.  She said, "Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a teenage boy or young adult male to admit to being molested by a man, much less testify in court about it?  We were worried we might not get ANY of the victims to testify; we were stunned at the number who eventually agreed.  And, even the ones who wouldn't testify provided information that convinced us there was no doubt at all in this case.  From all the information we gathered, we were able to determine a systematic routine that Webber used to draw these boys into his confidence.  It was like a script he used to seduce each victim.  Boys who had no relationship to each other, in classes years apart at Bishop Kelley, told virtually the same stories that fit the script.  It was overwhelming."

 

So, I was wrong about the guy.  Dead wrong.  But, I still can't get over it.  Even with all that evidence, it's just hard to fathom.  I think about Brett from time to time, wondering what it's like living in hell all these years in prison.  I wonder about how I lived for a year with a monster and had no clue; and how I was convinced that I was the bad guy in the room all that time.  And I wonder about his victims, and all the lives he scarred with his actions, and I think about how they must have felt the same sort of conflict about what was right and what was wrong when it came to their relationships with Brett, even as he stole their dignity and their trust forever.

 

And, then I read this story, and the same conflicts come back:  for everything he says in the story that makes you feel sympathy for him, there's another statement or fact that makes your blood run cold.

 

I know it may seem obvious to those who never knew him that he's guilty as sin. 

 

But, for those of us who thought we DID know him, it doesn't make it any easier to accept.

Thank you, Old Titan, for your post about Brett Webber.  Now, more than ever, I am convinced of Brett's innocence after learning that his case was a "slam dunk", the DA's office worried that they might not have any victims testify and then being "stunned" at the number of young adult males who did testify.  

Why on earth doesn't that make his conviction all the more suspect? At my age, I've learned that if it's too good to be true, it probably is.  Why don't we question how it was possible in a few short years,  for nearly a dozen teenage boys to be groomed by Brett, then each be molested in those few years?   In addition to being groomed and molestated by Brett, these boys came forward with "eerily similar" stories.   

In Sandusky's case it took several years and decades for victims to speak up.  One at a time.  In "The Keepers" currently on Netflix, it took two to four DECADES for the  victims to come forward.  

What was it, that made the Bishop Kelley victims different than other male victims, that they come forward so fast and so "slam dunk"?  Statistcslly, they defied the odds of those who come forward.  Many of them don't meet the characteristics of male victims of sexual abuse (low income, single parent households).  Most victims don't usually go on to have distinguished military careers, become college graduates and have success in business and families.  

Here's another million dollar question?  We know that Bishop Kelley is a Catholic institution   Can ANYONE give me another example of a Catholic institurion that has pursued charges against a child molester?  

Can anyone give me an example, other than the McMartin case, where numerous students claimed to be molested?   

Has anyone looked into Ned Turnbull, his cases during his two years on the bench?  At age 32, he was given an incredible power when he left the DA's office, to become a judge. Severel men have been executed after having cases heard by Turnbull.  In his two years, he rock and rolled with his sentencings.   Brett was sentenced to three life terms plus 385 years.  Apparently, being a judge wasn't in Turnbull's heart, and being a DA was - for the moment. Turnbull resigned from the bench a couple years later to run for David Moss' office as District Attorney.  You remember, Moss, age 48, dropped dead of a heart attack in November 1995. Just a few months after Brett's stunning conviction based on he said, he said.  Now, we can't ask Moss his thoughts on the case.  

Instead of condemning this man, why aren't people asking what the hell happened in 1993-95?  

I know Br David Poos raised a few million dollars for BK during that time.  BIshop Kelley High School also avoided lawsuits for allowing the boys to be molested. That's rare!  The school actually profited during that time with $3.4 million pulled in by Poos! Also, incredibly some of the families of the victims have continued to annually donate to Bishop Kelley. 

I'm stunned at this world. I am stunned that people so readily accepted this travesty of justice.  If there is an ORU or Bishop Kelley alumnisr who is an attorney, has a heart, an open mind, and is willing to help Brett.  Please contact me.  I have a lot of information that I would love to share.  

 

 

 

 

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Thanks for your comments, Karnee... TheEagleman doesn't know Webber or anything about this case except what I gave read here but hard to believe that all these kids would tell the same story and subject themselves to the public embarrassment....I agree the interview with Brett and his wife is convincing but Jerry Sandusky and his wife say similar things....I know the cases are different but these predators are always master manipulators....so you really believe all these kids were lying and there was an orchestrated plot to get Webber?...that seems almost impossible....one or two of these kids would slip up somewhere. I would be interested in your reasoning. Do you know the Webbers?...Old Titan's comments were very revealing in that this guy seemed to keep to himself and never dated as a kid...he read his Bible a lot....he was likely very conflicted by what he was feeling....just saying....again I don't know this guy at all but he fits the profile....his wife swears by him and stands at his side even after 20+ years....this interview was 4 yrs ago...is that still the case?.....:|

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I'm afraid a close inspection of the victims does in fact indicate that many of the boys DID come from single-parent situations, where the mother was thrilled to have someone like Brett as a big brother/father figure for their respective sons.

As for all the stories coming together "too quickly" as suggested, I can only imagine it was a natural result of the criminal investigation once the initial charges were made.  Seems logical to assume that, in the course of following up in the first story or stories, the authorities would come across other boys who were mentored by Brett that either admitted their involvement when pressed, or volunteered their stories in response to being contacted, or as a result of hearing about the investigation came forth on their own.

And, let's not confuse being sentenced with being convicted. Brett was found guilty in a jury trial, and following many appeals, no errors were found to suggest his trial was anything but fair. One might argue that Judge Turnbull threw the proverbial book at Brett, but other than from his immediate family, I've never heard anything to suggest that he was railroaded in being found guilty of the crimes he was charged with, or that the testimony from the victims was anything but truthful. 

Finally, I have nothing but the utmost respect for my friend in the DA's office who was so convinced of Brett's guilt. She has absolutely zero ego, with no professional or political aspirations, and who has to this day served at both the state and federal court levels with distinction. I can not Imagine she would EVER have been party to a conspiracy such as suggested. She has always struck me as someone who purely and simply wants to see bad people put behind bars. 

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