Richard Kruse & The Dumpster Divers

Debbie Kruse, beleaguered wife of Richard Kruse, the accused child molester from Albion, called the other day. In a chipper voice Mrs. Kruse thanked us for plac­ing photos of her husband and an appealing dog side by side. "My husband is a Shar Pei! Thank you, that was a nice addition to the original article. I could have tweaked it a little bit, I'm a writer myself. But thank you anyway. I don't know why that article made me feel so good, but just to see Rick and that adorable little dog side by side kind of put things in perspective a little bit. Any time you'd like to talk to me, ask me any questions, I can direct you to some websites with lots of death threats for my husband and my family — no, not my family, I'm sorry, I'll take that back — where my husband is receiv­ing some very ugly death threats. This is the very inter­esting time in our lives. I guess."

I guess so. This poor woman has our sympathies. Been married to this guy for years, perhaps not knowing that his Lolita yearnings had overpowered him. Mrs. Kruse clearly believes her husband is innocent. Maybe he is, but from what I can gather the case against him is air-tight, that under the auspices of teaching little girls water skiing, he allegedly molested the unprotected ones.

Mrs. Kruse is certainly correct about newspaper comment lines, the reading of which is known among local newspaper reporters as akin to dumpster diving. Most of the on-line nuts writing in their views of Mr. Kruse not only assume he's guilty, they want to kill him before he even gets to his first court appearance on Fri­day, December 3rd.

Interestingly, though, Kruse is also defended on these same comment lines by a young woman calling herself 'Tanner,' who then absorbs a ton of gratuitous abuse for herself, simply for saying that she thinks Kruse is innocent. Tanner writes on Tuesday, November 16, "I was on the water ski team since 3rd grade. I am now in 12th grade. Through ALL of my years with Mr. Kruse he has NEVER touched or done ANYTHING wrong with me or any of the other girls. He has helped us when we were in need, taught us how to do amazing activities on water, and brought us nothing but happiness. You guys do not know him. He has never touched me or anyone else inappropriately, he has never talked to us vulgarly or done any sort of lewd conduct. When we would camp at the lake he would feed us, talk with us, tell stories. We would sleep in our OWN tents. So before you start talk­ing smack about him, do your own research. You can't always trust the media." Tanner then adds, "I have had detectives come to my house too many times because of all these judgments, all these assumptions. It's ridiculous. Looking from the outside in, I can see how strange and taboo it is to see an older man with a bunch of girls. I would be suspicious too. But since I am an insider, you all are bogus. This 'rape' is bogus. He would never do that. I've known him for almost 9 years. I was just a little girl. Now I am a young adult and he has made an impact on mine and the others girls lives, FOR THE BET­TER..... Try talking to all of the girls' parents on the team. It's not just us girls. Our families come camping with us as well. We even had a sponsor come camp with us. None of you know how MUCH he has done, LET ALONE what he HAS done for us."