Fran’s Day Care case – Dan and Fran Keller – News Article Excerpts from 1991 – 1993
Fran’s Day Care case – Dan and Fran Keller – News Article Excerpts from 1991 – 1993
What the information below shows is that there was no panic or witch hunt and that there was evidence backing the original charges, including one defendant’s confession and the children’s testimony. Media coverage in this Austin newspaper was balanced and did cover both sides of the story, unlike the coverage in the news today.
Information from the news articles:
Fran Keller’s brother Johnson in a separate case was charged with aggravated sexual assault of a 4-year-old and received an eight-year sentence in a plea bargain.
One child in the case was treated in a psychiatric hospital for several weeks after the allegations of abuse surfaced. “His prognosis is he will probably need therapy off and on the rest of his life.” Parents described how their preschoolers’ behavior changed in odd ways.
Perry (a defendant who later recanted his confession): His confession contained graphic details of a variety of sexual acts performed on two children, and it substantiated claims made by the children that they had been threatened and terrorized into not speaking out.
News article excerpts on this page follow more recent information and case updates.
August 22, 2017 case update:
Dan and Fran Keller…will receive $3.4 million from a state fund for those wrongly convicted of crimes.
The couple’s circumstances changed in June, when Travis County District Attorney Margaret Moore filed court documents that dropped all charges and declared the Kellers “actually innocent” under the law. After an extensive review, it was clear that the Kellers’ innocence claim should be supported in the interest of justice, Moore said at the time.
Now adults, several of the children who accused the Kellers opposed the move, according to Moore and family members. (Quotes from Austin-American Statesman article)
https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/frans-day-care/
Here are a few facts about the Fran’s Day Care case:
1. Children’s parents were alerted when children returned home from daycare wearing their under clothing inside out or wearing other children’s underwear and sometimes having wet hair.
2. The children who were old enough to speak reported sexual assaults by Dan Keller and other visitors to the school. The older children also reported assaults on younger, pre-verbal children at the school.
3. The Kellers attempted to evade arrest by fleeing to Las Vegas. They were captured there wearing disguises. Fran has bleached her hair blond.
4. A co-defendant, Doug Perry, a sheriff’s deputy, pled guilty, turned state’s evidence, testified against the Kellers, and received a 10-year probated sentence. Perry is a registered sex offender in Texas.
5. The defense did not retain an expert witness in defense of the Kellers. They only produced a copy of Richard Gardner’s book, Sex Abuse Hysteria, in response to the allegations against the Kellers.
6. The prosecution did not discuss ritual abuse until the subject was raised by the defense at which point the prosecution’s expert witness, Randy Noblitt, explained what ritual abuse is and how it works. He also provided testimony in response to the production of the Richard Gardner book intended by the defense to demonstrate in unreliability of sex abuse claims by children. (The book’s theme is that all people are latent pedophiles and that parents receive vicarious sexual gratification from their children’s sexual experiences).
Fran’s Day Care – Randy Noblitt, PhD (prosecution’s expert witness)
Article at https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/frans-day-care/
More Misinformation in the Media about the Keller Case
June 3, 2015…
(1) The Kellers were never charged with, let alone convicted of, satanic ritual abuse….The only reason those issues came into the Keller case is because the defense brought them up.
(2) Dr. Mouw’s “recantation” did not negate all of the medical evidence of abuse in the case. As anyone who bothered to read his affidavit can see, Dr. Mouw still admits that the original girl in this case had a tear in her vagina. Cathy Young has dismissed this evidence with the wild assertion that vaginal tears are normal in non-abused children, but virtually all research of “normal” genitals contradicts this claim. The Keller case began with a genital injury that Dr. Mouw does not deny. His “recantation” of the other finding strains credulity. It relies on the claim that Dr. Mouw had a clear recollection of this genital exam many years after he testified that he had absolutely no recollection of the exam.
(3) A civil complaint filed by the parents of one of the children who attended the Keller’s home daycare contains the allegation that a “longtime friend and confident” of Francis Keller was told about “Daniel Keller’s abusive habit toward children” (p. 2)…. https://blogs.brown.edu/rcheit/files/2014/05/Keller-civil-complaint.pdf
In sum, there was far more evidence in this case than has ever been acknowledged by those promoting the witch-hunt narrative. The “recantation” by Dr. Mouw made it impossible to retry the case, but a close examination of his affidavit makes it clear that Dr. Mouw is not credible. That probably explains why the appellate court did not exonerate the Kellers. Dr. Mouw’s statement simply does not add up. He claims to have had a clear recollection of the medical exam in this case many years after testifying; but when he testified under oath in 1993 he said that he had “no independent recollection” of the exam beyond his written records.
https://blogs.brown.edu/rcheit/2015/06/03/more-misinformation-about-the-keller-case/
Petition detailing allegations of abuse by Dan Keller and others
A civil complaint filed by the parents of one of the children who attended the Keller’s home daycare contains the allegation that a “longtime friend and confident” of Francis Keller was told about “Daniel Keller’s abusive habit toward children” (p. 2)
https://blogs.brown.edu/rcheit/files/2014/05/Keller-civil-complaint.pdf
Excerpts from news articles before, during and after the Keller trial:
Police find Jeep, weapon belonging to couple wanted on assault charges
Kerry Haglund December 7, 1991
Austin American-Statesman
Law enforcement authorities on Friday recovered a vehicle and a weapon belonging to two day-care operators wanted on sexual assault charges, according to sheriff’s reports. The vehicle was being used by Daniel Bruno Keller, 50, and Elaine Keller, 44….
The weapon recovered was a .38-caliber gun, authorities said.
The couple was expected to turn themselves in to authorities on Tuesday but didn’t appear, Radford said.
The sheriff’s department, fearing the couple may attempt to flee the state, has sent out a statewide bulletin and has contacted law enforcement agencies in neighboring states in hopes of finding the couple….
Day care owners arrested in Las Vegas in sex case
January 15, 1992
Austin American-Statesman
Two fugitives accused of sexually assaulting children in their Austin day care center were arrested Tuesday in Las Vegas, Nev., said Sgt. Gordon Dye of the Travis County Sheriff’s Department. Daniel Bruno Keller, 50, of 11800 Manchaca Road, and his wife, Frances Elaine Keller, 44, were arrested on fugitive charges after Las Vegas police spotted their car and chased them to a hotel, said Las Vegas police Sgt. Jack Ladner.
Both had cut and dyed their hair, and Daniel Keller had a birth certificate with a false name. However, they were still driving a car that was listed in the National Criminal Investigation Computer and a national, all-points police bulletin, said Todd Radford, a Travis County detective….
They will be returned to Travis County to face charges, Dye said….
Fugitives returned to Austin
January 29, 1992
Austin American-Statesman
Two fugitives accused of molesting children they cared for at a Travis County day-care center arrive Tuesday at Robert Mueller Municipal Airport after being arrested in Las Vegas. Frances Elaine Keller, 44, right, and her husband Daniel Bruno Keller, 50, at center with his head bowed, are accused of molesting two children at their Fran’s Day Care center. The couple have been sought since Dec. 3, when they failed to appear in a Travis County court on the charges.
2 officers arrested on sex charges
Deputy constables linked to couple in day-care case
Kimberly Garcia July 9, 1992
Austin American-Statesman
Two deputy constables face charges of engaging in improper sexual behavior with two children, whom husband-and-wife day-care center operators were charged with sexually assaulting last year….
The Kellers were indicted in November on charges of sexually assaulting the same two children at their child-care center. They were arrested in January in Las Vegas when officers saw their car, which was listed in the National Criminal Investigations Computer. Both had cut and dyed their hair, and Daniel Keller had a birth certificate with a false name….
Ex-husband is charged in assaults
Man accused with constable in charges at day-care center
Kimberly Garcia July 10, 1992
Austin American-Statesman
The former husband of a Travis County deputy constable charged with sexually assaulting two children at a day-care center was arrested Thursday on charges of sexually assaulting the same children.
Douglas Wayne Perry, 30, was at Travis County Central Booking in lieu of $50,000 bail, records state. He and Janise White, a former deputy constable who is Perry’s ex-wife, are charged with sexually assaulting a 3-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy at Fran’s Day Care Center in August.
Daniel Bruno Keller and Frances Elaine Keller operated the center in southwestern Travis County until they were indicted in November on charges of sexually assaulting the same children. The center is closed.
A fifth suspect, Raul Quintero, was arrested Tuesday on a charge of indecency with a child by contact in connection with the August incident. Quintero is a Travis County deputy constable who worked with White in the Precinct 3 office….
`I don’t know if the public is ready for this’
Allegations of abuse portray dark side at Oak Hill day care
Pamela Ward
Denise Gamino July 12, 1992
Austin American-Statesman
As the investigation continues, questions surround B.D. Johnson, 40, who is Fran Keller’s brother. Johnson, who has a prison record for two theft convictions and one driving-while-intoxicated conviction from Travis County, was indicted last July in Burnet County in a child abuse case, records show.
Johnson was charged with aggravated sexual assault of a 4-year-old and received an eight-year sentence in a plea bargain, records show. Johnson remains in prison, authorities said.
Law officials also said they believe there are child victims who have not been interviewed and other victims who gradually reveal details about their abuse as they gain verbal skills and receive therapy.
“I’m sure there are more out there we haven’t been able to talk to. We’re still looking for other kids who may have been there,” Oliver said.
More than half of the eight to 10 children at the home when the abuse allegations surfaced were infants or toddlers who could not yet talk, he said.
Oliver said police have interviewed only three or four children because “those are the only ones old enough to talk.”….
“We have experienced almost unfathomable pain and terror,” said the mother of one of the alleged victims, a boy who is 4. What her son endured, the mother said, is “shocking and unbelievable.” She said, “I don’t know if the public is ready for this story yet.”
She said her boy was treated in a psychiatric hospital for several weeks after the allegations of abuse surfaced. “His prognosis is he will probably need therapy off and on the rest of his life.”
Parents described how their preschoolers’ behavior changed in odd ways and how that didn’t seem overly significant, at first.
Last summer, a parent of a 3 1/2-year-old girl noticed the child playing with her underwear and her sexual organs. “She was playing with herself and doing things that little girls just don’t do,” the parent said. “I recognized it, and my parents recognized it.”
The family was puzzled and concerned but didn’t know what to make of the child’s behavior.
Then, one day, “She was playing with herself. . . . She was spreading her legs apart,” the parent said. “She was being kind of coy about it. I said, `Wow, something’s going on.’ ”
Another parent said her preschool-age boy began “talking in bathroom terms and laughing about it.” He also crawled on the floor naked, carrying a pillow and talking baby-talk, and would reach out to play with his father’s male organ. These inappropriate “out of the blue” behaviors, she came to realize, were symptoms of child abuse, she said.
“I want to stress how important it is to notice, notice, notice and listen to the child,” said the parent. Once, she said, her son stood beforeher and “said `I’m gonna cut your head off.’ It occurred to me to say, `Did anyone ever tell you they were gonna cut your head off?’ He said `Yes,’ and was making a sawing motion at his neck….
Hearing for 5 charged in crimes at Oak Hill day-care center begins
Man voluntarily confessed to abuse of children, ranger testifies
Jim Phillips September 29, 1992
Austin American-Statesman
A suspect in the sexual abuse of several children at an Oak Hill day-care center voluntarily confessed, implicating the owners of the center and two deputy constables, a Texas Ranger testified Monday.
Ranger John Waldrip said Douglas Perry, 30, admitted the crimes after he failed a polygraph test in July. Perry has since recanted the written statement he gave investigators, attorneys in the case said. The testimony came in a pretrial hearing for five people charged with abusing children at Fran’s Day Care in Oak Hill….
The hearing is to determine whether Perry’s confession and statements by other defendants can be used against the accused.
Perry also told investigators that White had given a copy of a police report to the Kellers, and that the constables had been questioned about reading police reports about the investigation on their computers, Waldrip said. The Kellers initially had been charged last year; the other three defendants were charged in July.
The ranger said Perry, after failing the polygraph, described sex acts between the Kellers and two victims, a boy and girl. Perry said that White had photographed the sex acts and that he and Quintero also participated, Waldrip said.
Also testifying was Roger Wade, a Travis County sheriff’s deputy, who said that when the Kellers were first confronted with the accusations in August 1991, they denied the charges….
Man confessed to abuse, ranger says at hearing
Jim Phillips September 29, 1992
Austin American-Statesman
A suspect in the sexual abuse of several children at an Oak Hill day-care center voluntarily confessed, implicating the owners of the center and two deputy constables, a Texas Ranger testified Monday.
Ranger John Waldrip said Douglas Perry, 30, admitted the crimes after he failed a polygraph test in July. Perry has since recanted the written statement he gave investigators, attorneys in the case said. The testimony came in a pretrial hearing for five people charged with abusing children at Fran’s Day Care in Oak Hill….
Perry also told investigators that White had given a copy of a police report to the Kellers, and that the constables had been questioned about reading police reports about the investigation on their computers, Waldrip said. The Kellers initially had been charged last year; the other three defendants were charged in July.
The ranger said Perry, after failing the polygraph, described sex acts between the Kellers and two victims, a boy and girl. Perry said that White had photographed the sex acts and that he and Quintero also participated, Waldrip said.
Also testifying was Roger Wade, a Travis County sheriff’s deputy, who said that when the Kellers were first confronted with the accusations in August 1991, they denied the charges.
Daniel Keller said “anyone who did that should be shot and put out of their misery,” Wade said. “He was very adamant about that.”…
6-year-old testifies he witnessed abuse of girl
Jury may begin deliberating molestation case today
Denise Gamino November 24, 1992 Austin American-Statesman
A 6-year-old boy, testifying in court by closed-circuit television, said Monday he saw Frances and Daniel Keller sexually abuse a 3-year-old girl on numerous occasions at “Fran and Danny’s Hate Care” center.
When a prosecutor began questioning the boy about Fran’s Day Care near Oak Hill, the child interrupted by saying, “You mean Fran and Danny’s Hate Care.” He said he called the facility that “because they hated kids.” The boy, who drew on a notepad and sometimes hugged a teddy bear named “Boo” while testifying for 40 minutes in a closed room near the courtroom, said he saw the girl abused with “sticks, fingers, toes and mouths.”
The boy is one of three children who have said they were sexually abused at the Kellers’ day-care home in 1991. He was asked just about the abuse of the girl, who is now 5, because the Kellers are on trial only in the molestation of the girl. Charges against the Kellers in the other two cases are pending….
The boy said the Kellers “tried to touch her in her private parts.” When Brian Case, an assistant Travis County district attorney, asked the boy where the abuse occurred, the child said, “outside, in the house, everywhere (they) owned.”
“First one person went (to touch her), and then the other person, then the other person and the other person,” he said.
Three other adults, Doug Perry and former Travis County deputy constables Janise White and Raul Quintero, have been charged with sexually abusing children at the day care. They have not been tried.
When Case asked the boy what else he had seen, the boy said, “And they like, well, they, hmmm, they took us to a graveyard and dug up this body.
“They made (the little girl) carry all of the bones that they dug up.”
The boy, who is in first grade at a local school, said the Kellers forced children to touch each other’s genitals and showed them horror movies. He also said the Kellers gave him a drug to make him forget things.
“It looked like stomach-ache medicine, but it wasn’t,” he said. “It didn’t stop my stomach from hurting, even for a minute. It made it feel worse.”….
But after the boy completed his testimony, the Kellers’ defense lawyers showed the jury a September 1991 videotape of the boy being interviewed by a woman from the Travis County sheriff’s office.
In the videotaped interview, the boy said attending Fran’s Day Care “was pretty good,” and said no one had touched his genitals and that he never had seen anyone touch another child’s genitals….
“What happened over at Dan and Fran’s?” he was asked. “I can’t remember that,” the boy said.
Later, the interviewer asked: “What about anyone touching on your private parts?” The boy said, “Yeah, yeah, that’s true ’cause I was there.”
Defense lawyers say the videotaped interviews with children allegedly abused by the Kellers show inconsistent stories. They say the difference between the taped interviews and other allegations show the children have been coaxed.
Shipway said the boy’s videotaped interview was different from his testimony because he had been traumatized and threatened in an effort to keep him from speaking up about the abuse. “What he said on the video is that he forgot or did not want to remember those things.”
She said the boy was exhibiting the same type of memory disorder discussed earlier Monday by an expert in ritual abuse, who testified for the state. Randy Noblitt of Richardson, who has a doctorate in clinical psychology, said many sexual abuse victims have memory lapses or feel they are not themselves because they have been so traumatized and intimidated.
Noblitt said he has reviewed law enforcement reports and psychological reports on the 5-year-old girl and believes there are many similarities to ritual abuse. He said he found no evidence to suggest the girl had been coaxed into making the allegations….
Defense lawyers presented their own expert witness, clinical psychologist George Parker of Austin. Parker testified children “are very susceptible to leading questions and suggestion,” and may make statements just to please adults.
But Parker said he did not know enough about the girl to know whether she had a tendency to lie.
Also testifying Monday was Brenda Keele, 23, the eldest child of Frances Keller. She testified that her mother never abused her or her two siblings.
But under cross-examination, Shipway presented Keele with a letter she had written to Frances Keller in November 1990.
In the letter, Keele wrote, “First, I disown my brother because he was perverted enough to ask me, his own sister, to sleep with him.”
Keele denied the incident and said she wrote the letter because her brother angered her by not paying for a car he was buying from her.
Shipway later said she introduced the letter to show “these things (sexual abuse) are patterns. Her (Fran’s) brother is in prison for sexual abuse of a 5-year-old. There are some indications that other of Fran’s family members may have that problem.
Mother says girl revealed sex assault by couple
Pamela Ward November 18, 1992
Austin American-Statesman
The mother of a 5-year-old child and the child’s therapist testified Tuesday that the girl described sexual acts performed on her by Frances and Daniel Keller, a couple who ran an Oak Hill area day-care home.
In the opening day of testimony in the child molestation trial, the mother said her child had experienced night terrors and had become hysterical at bathtime in the days before she confided that “Danny hurt her.” The mother said her child, who was 3 1/2 at the time of the summer 1991 revelation, told her “Danny took his pee-pee and put it in her hole and got glue all inside her and it was yucky.” The woman also said her child told her Frances Keller had put a writing pen in her vagina “lots of times.”
That same day, Aug. 15, 1991, the child visited with therapist Donna David Campbell. The child used anatomically correct dolls to demonstrate oral sex, Campbell testified, adding that the child made biting noises and said, Frances Keller “ate me all up.”
Dr. Michael Mouw, an emergency room physician at Brackenridge Hospital, said he examined the child and found tears in her vagina that were probably less than 24 hours old. No sperm was found.
Dr. Beth Nauert, a pediatrician with expertise in examining child sexual abuse victims, testified Tuesday that she examined the child a couple of weeks after the examination at Brackenridge. Nauert said the child’s vaginal tears had healed….
He said the couple figured out which child might have made the accusation, and that Frances Keller said the child was “a liar, that she lied about all kinds of things, about putting her shoes away, about eating her vegetables.”….
5-year-old testifies in day-care abuse case
Girl’s testimony often contradictory Denise Gamino November 19, 1992
Austin American-Statesman
A fidgeting 5-year-old girl, sitting on the lap of her teen-age sister and chewing on a lollipop, took the witness stand Wednesday and alternately denied and admitted that anything bad happened to her at a day-care home near Oak Hill.
The girl sometimes glanced at former day-care home operators Frances and Daniel Keller, who are on trial for aggravated sexual assault and indecency with a child, but did not acknowledge them. Prosecutors put the child on the witness stand two times, about half an hour apart, but neither period of testimony yielded consistent answers. The child was too shy to be sworn in before spectators, but she became increasingly playful on the stand, and answered one question with “No way, Jose.”
The most incriminating remark the child made, “I don’t know why Fran and Dan hurt me,” was not admissible evidence because the child whispered the statement to her sister and the court reporter was not able to record it.
During her initial 10-minute testimony, the child said she didn’t know anyone named Fran or Dan, was never hurt or touched inappropriately by anyone, and never attended Fran’s Day Care. “I didn’t go there at all,” she said.
But the girl contradicted herself later during an additional 20 minutes of testimony when she was allowed to whisper her answers to Judy Shipway, assistant Travis County district attorney.
“Did you ever go to a day care named Fran and Dan’s?” Shipway asked. “Yes,” the girl whispered.
“Did anything ever happen at Fran and Dan’s Day Care you didn’t like?” Shipway asked. “Yes,” the girl said.
“Did Danny ever do something to you that you didn’t like?” Shipway asked. “Yes,” the girl said after standing up and offering her yellow lollipop to those nearby.
But when Shipway asked the girl to “go ahead and tell them” what happened, she began to get playful. She blew air into the microphone and began saying “Hello, hello.”
Shipway, kneeling next to the child, tried again. “Did Danny ever touch you where you didn’t like?” The child said, “No.”
“Did anyone else ever touch you where you didn’t like?” Shipway asked. “No,” the girl said.
“Did Fran ever touch you where you didn’t like?” Shipway asked. “No,” the girl said.
After more negative answers, Shipway asked, “Does `no’ mean, no you don’t want to talk about it, or no, it didn’t happen?”
“No, it didn’t happen,” the child said….
Parents of the alleged assault victims said Daniel Keller’s brother, who was outside the courtroom, and someone in the courtroom flashed threatening hand signals to the child before and during her testimony that may have frightened her into silence. The parents believe hand signals were used as part of a pattern of ritualistic abuse of their children.
Shipway said she doesn’t know whether hand signals were flashed at the child, but said she is aware that similar tactics have been reported in other ritual abuse cases around the country.
Prosecutors attributed the child’s inability to provide consistent testimony to her age and fear of the crowded courtroom….
But the court-appointed defense lawyers said the child’s testimony showed she had been coaxed into making her previous statements about being abused by the Kellers….
During the afternoon, the jury heard a graphic tale of five adults engaging in sexual acts with two children at Fran’s Day Care.
The details came in a July 7th confession read aloud by Douglas Perry, 30, one of three adults besides the Kellers who have been charged with molesting children at the day-care home. The other two adults charged are former Travis County deputy constables Janise White, who at the time of the alleged assaults was married to Perry; and Raul Quintero, who was White’s working partner.
Perry has since recanted the confession, but he testified in the Keller trial after Flowers granted him immunity. None of his testimony or evidence gathered through his testimony may be used against him when he goes on trial.
On the stand, Perry denied participating in the adult-child sexual encounters to which he confessed, and said he had recanted shortly after confessing….
In a voice sometimes cracking with emotion, Perry read his original account of a Friday evening beer-and-sex party at Fran’s Day Care. He said Frances Keller phoned White and Perry and invited them over. Quintero also showed up, he said.
A young boy and girl were at the home, and White, wearing a constable officer’s shirt, told the children she knew where they lived and said “if they told anybody she would do to them what she was about to do to the doll. Then she tore the head off of the doll.”
Then, according to the confession, a number of sexual encounters occurred: Frances Keller put a pen in the girl’s vagina and engaged in oral sex with her, the girl performed oral sex on Daniel Keller and Perry, Quintero put his finger in the girl’s vagina, Daniel Keller inserted a pen in the boy’s anus, and the boy was forced to perform oral sex on Frances Keller and White.
Jury mulls day-care abuse case
State, defense make their final arguments
Denise Gamino November 25, 1992
Austin American-Statesman
A Travis County jury continued deliberating late Tuesday in the trial of Frances and Daniel Keller, who are accused of sexually abusing a preschooler last year at their day-care home near Oak Hill.
During the six-day trial, prosecutors argued that the Kellers had abused the girl by engaging in several forms of sexual acts with her and threatening and terrorizing her into silence. They presented medical records and testimony about the girl’s torn vagina and psychology reports about her August 1991 outcry, which they said was so sexually vivid it could not have been fabricated….
The Kellers’ court-appointed defense lawyers argued that the girl and other alleged victims were coaxed into making the allegations against the Kellers. They said the children could not be believed because many of their allegations, such as witnessing killings and flying in airplanes, were outlandish.
The trial was highlighted by the testimony of the girl, who is now 5 years old, and by a 6-year-old boy who also was allegedly abused by the Kellers.
While the girl’s testimony from the witness stand last week yielded inconsistent answers to questions about what had happened to her, the boy wavered little Monday in his accusations against the Kellers. He said he saw the Kellers abusing the girl on numerous occasions….
Therapist describes ritualistic abuse claims
Defense begins its case in day-care molestation trial
Pamela Ward
Denise Gamino November 20, 1992
Austin American-Statesman
The focus of a day-care sexual molestation trial shifted dramatically Thursday to a bizarre tale of ritualistic torture of babies, children and cats and graveyard ceremonies.
The therapist who has counseled a child who prosecutors say was abused by Frances and Daniel Keller, the Oak Hill area day-care home operators on trial, was asked to detail for the jury the child’s stories of events while in the Kellers’ care. Donna David Campbell related a string of comments from the child, who was 3 1/2 when the alleged abuse occurred. Among the many stories the girl has told in the preceding 16 months, Campbell said, are tales of candles burning while needles were stuck into screaming cats, the killing of a baby named Rachel and a visit to a cemetery where child and adult bodies were unearthed in the presence of a police officer or sheriff’s deputy.
The child also told her therapist that the Kellers wore white robes when they hurt her, that she saw Easter bunnies and dogs shot, that she took a ride in an airplane and that all the children had to help Daniel Keller dismember a person with a chainsaw.
The therapist’s testimony came at the request of defense attorneys, who began their case Thursday. The prosecution previously interviewed Campbell but appeared to be building a case based solely on sexual molestation. Nationally, prosecutors have had poor success when claims of ritualism were introduced….
A day after the girl testified in court, offering conflicting testimony, the jury watched three videotapes of her speaking with sheriff’s office staff.
The girl gave inconsistent answers when asked what the Kellers had done to her, sometimes showing how they had molested her and sometimes denying they had hurt her. At times, she mixed up the names of body parts.
Also on the videotapes, she was offered candy or a “special treat” for talking about what happened. At one point, the girl’s mother told her she should make the videotape “to help save the other kids and protect them.”…
Kellers deny abusing kids at day care
Two fled Austin because of fear, woman testifies
Pamela Ward
Denise Gamino November 21, 1992
Austin American-Statesman
Day-care home operators Daniel and Frances Keller testified in their criminal trial Friday and denied they ever engaged in sexual acts with children in their care.
Frances Keller, who testified first, burst into tears shortly after taking the stand and answered “no” to all the charges against her. “Well, if you didn’t do any of those things, then why did you go to Las Vegas,” her lawyer, Lewis Jones, asked, in reference to the Keller’s fugitive flight after their November 1991 indictment.
“We were scared, humiliated and hurt,” she said as she blotted her eyes with a tissue. She continued to sniffle as she testified they fled Austin because she believed that she would go to jail and have to pay $10,000 – money she didn’t have – for a lawyer to fight the charges.
Her husband later took the stand and often seemed confused by the questioning. To prosecutors’ questions, he answered “yes” it was a coincidence that his wife dyed his hair on their trip to Las Vegas, and a coincidence that, as police arrived at their hotel, they left behind a steaming bowl of food, belongings and a car and moved to a different hotel.
“So it’s all just a coincidence,” prosecutor Judy Shipway asked.
“Yes,” he replied.
The next question came from Keller’s court-appointed attorney, Dain Whitworth: “What’s a coincidence?”
“I don’t know,” Keller answered.
“Then why are you up there testifying it’s a coincidence if you don’t know what it is?”
“I don’t know,” he said….
The Kellers said they never had taken the children to a cemetery, never had dressed in robes or costumes in front of them and never maltreated, killed or injured animals in the children’s presence….
Defense witnesses on the fourth day of testimony included a next-door neighbor and three mothers of children who attended the day-care home at the time of the alleged abuse. All testified they never witnessed anything suspicious….
Kellers found guilty of sexual assault
Day-care owners face sentencing Monday
Denise Gamino
November 26, 1992
Austin American-Statesman
After deliberating 14 1/2 hours, a Travis County jury Wednesday found Frances and Daniel Keller guilty of sexually assaulting a child at their day-care home, which prosecutors portrayed as a horror chamber for children….
Nash’s 6-year-old son was a key witness in the six-day trial. He came to court with his teddy bear and testified via closed-circuit television, steadily recounting details of how the Kellers terrorized children in a cemetery and the many ways in which they sexually abused a 3 1/2-year-old girl. The Kellers were being tried only for abuse of the girl, who is now 5 years old, but they also have been charged with abusing the 6-year-old boy and another boy….
The Kellers remained in jail all spring and summer. In July, police arrested three other adults and charged them with molesting children at Fran’s Day Care. Arrested were Doug Perry and former Travis County deputy constables Janise White and Raul Quintero. Their trials are pending….
The three were arrested after Perry confessed that the three adults, along with the Kellers, had engaged in a beer-and-sex party during which several children were sexually assaulted by the adults while photographs were taken.
Perry later recanted his confession, but the prosecution instructed him to read his confession last week after he was granted immunity. His confession contained graphic details of a variety of sexual acts performed on two children, and it substantiated claims made by the children that they had been threatened and terrorized into not speaking out.
According to the confession, White tore the head off a doll and told the girl and boy if they reported being abused their heads would come off the same way….
Kellers are given sentences of 48 years
Appeal is expected in child-abuse case
Pamela Ward December 1, 1992
Austin American-Statesman
A Travis County jury handed child-care home operators Frances and Daniel Keller 48-year prison sentences Monday for sexually assaulting a 3-year-old girl.
The defendants stood calmly before District Judge Wil Flowers as he read the jury’s decision. Frances Keller offered a soft “no” when the judge asked if she had anything to say. Her husband, in a voice close to a whisper, uttered “I am innocent,” and moments later proclaimed “We are innocent” as he and his wife were led back to jail…..
Parents who trusted their children to the Kellers said they were pleased at the sentences but would have preferred more years.
“I feel that if ever there was a case for life, this was it, that these two individuals should have had life sentences,” said Carol Staelin, whose 5 1/2-year-old son was committed to a psychiatric hospital after his summer at Fran’s Day Care home near Oak Hill….
When the Kellers were indicted on the eve of Thanksgiving a year ago, they told officers they would turn themselves in after the holiday. Instead, the couple fled to Las Vegas where they were arrested in January.
Charges dropped in child abuse case
Pamela Ward December 4, 1993
Austin American-Statesman
Child sexual abuse charges were dropped Friday against former Travis County Deputy Constables Janise White and Raul Quintero in the Fran’s Day Care case, a decision that dismayed parents….
Prosecutors defended the decision to drop charges pending further evidence. Bryan Case, an assistant district attorney, said that since a grand jury indicted the two Precinct 3 officers, important additional evidence failed to materialize….
Douglas Wayne Perry, another co-defendant, pleaded guilty last May and received 10 years of probation. Perry, who was accused of having a 3-year-old girl perform oral sex on him, gave police a confession – later recanted – in which he implicated the deputy constables. He was married to White at the time. They have since divorced.
Perry told police that he, White, Quintero and the Kellers had engaged in a beer and sex party during which several children were sexually assaulted by the adults while photographs were taken….
Parents decry child abuse case plea bargain
Douglas Perry agrees to 10 years probation in Fran’s Day Care sex abuse case
Pamela Ward May 25, 1993
Austin American-Statesman
Douglas Wayne Perry, one of five people accused of sexually abusing children at Fran’s Day Care, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge Monday and agreed to a sentence of 10 years probation and community service – a decision that angered parents.
“We think it’s a grave injustice,” said Sean Nash, father of one child who attended the Oak Hill area child care home. “This shows clearly that there is no justice for children in Texas.” Last November, child care center operators Fran and Dan Keller received 48-year prison sentences for aggravated sexual assault of a 3-year-old girl in a case that includes stories of ritualistic torture of babies, children and cats, and graveyard ceremonies.
Assistant District Attorney Judy Shipway, who prosecuted the Kellers, arranged the Perry plea bargain. She said it was based on three considerations: “The fact that he confessed and opted to plead guilty” and avoid a trial. “Also, apparently he did not have the magnitude of involvement that Fran and Dan Keller appeared to have. And the main consideration was not to put child witnesses through another trial.”…
Perry confessed that he, White, Quintero and the Kellers had engaged in a beer-and-sex party during which several children were sexually assaulted by the adults while photographs were taken.
A reluctant witness in the Kellers’ trial, Perry read aloud from his confession after being granted immunity. His confession contained graphic details of a variety of sexual acts performed on two children, and it substantiated claims made by the children that they had been threatened and terrorized into keeping the abuse secret….