Prosecutor says woman ‘found her voice’ while defense attorney says stories of abuse are ‘false memories’

Two women took the stand Tuesday in the trial of a man who was on McHenry County’s most wanted list when arrested in Canada in 2017.

One of the women testified that Robert Gould, 56, currently out of jail after posting 10% of a $500,000 bond and living with family in McHenry County, began sexually abusing her when she was 3 years old during baths and the abuse became more intense as she got older.

Gould is charged with three counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a child younger than 13, a Class 2 felony; eight counts of criminal sexual assault, a Class 1 felony; and 10 counts of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child, a Class X felony, according to the criminal indictment filed in the McHenry County courthouse.

Gould is accused of physically and sexually abusing and assaulting two children over several years in Island Lake and Woodstock beginning in 2001.

In opening statements, Assistant State’s Attorney Sharyl Eisenstein said one of the women, who began seeing a trauma counselor in 2016, could not initially speak of the abuse and had to write it down for the counselor before “she found her voice.”

Gould’s defense attorney Dominic Buttitta Jr. said the stories both women tell are “pseudo memories” and “false memories” based on “bunk science” created by a “poorly trained therapist.”

He said the women were encouraged to “piece together flashes” of memory. He said they told police that they had no memories of being sexually abused until “working with” therapists in Canada, Buttitta said.

Counselors diagnosed both women with post-traumatic stress disorder. After telling the counselor of the abuse, the 23-year-old woman, the first to testify Tuesday, said she reported it to police in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The abuse happened more times than she could count and lasted until she was 15 and moved away to Canada with family, the woman testified, speaking quietly while knitting, something McHenry County Judge Michael Coppedge had allowed because it was a comfort to her.

It began as tickling and as a game, and Gould told the child not to tell anyone because it was a secret, Eisenstein told jurors.

The abuse intensified over the years, both women testified, and often came to involve physical abuse, choking and threats with a knife. The first woman said she would tell Gould to just kill her but then he would threaten to hurt her siblings, make her watch and then kill her, she said.

Buttitta said, regarding both women’s allegations, that there is no corroborating evidence, medical or psychological records, or trauma journals “ever obtained.”

“This is a case about mental illness and struggles to separate dreams and reality,” Buttitta said in his opening statements.

He challenged both women as to the difference between flashbacks and memory and to statements they made to police that they had “dissociated” from the alleged abuse.

The now 23-year-old said she “blocked a lot of this out” and it was hard to recall details unless “I push myself into flashbacks.”

Both women testified that they would remember the beginnings and endings of the abuse but block out the middle.

One of the women recalled being about 6 or 8 years old the first time she was sexually assaulted. She testified that she remembers she was wearing her favorite Snoopy nightgown and woke up the next day bleeding and in pain.

She described dissociating, being outside of her body, during the assaults, or in a car, but rather than driving the car, it was as if she was in the back seat. The woman said she always had a hard time verbalizing anything, and when it came to the alleged abuse, she had a method of “putting it in a box” to deal with another day and time.

“My mind was like a filing cabinet,” she said. “I was like ‘I’ll deal with this when I get to a place where I can.’”

When asked if she wished it was a dream, she replied, “It would be better than being a reality.”

The second woman to testify Tuesday, now 25, sobbed through most of her testimony and spoke just barely above a whisper. Details she provided of the alleged physical and sexual abuse and assault were similar to the other woman’s.

She described the abuse starting with fondling as a young child during bath time then becoming “increasingly violent” and painful as she got older.

He would grab her and say they were going to “play a game.”

“There was nothing I could do to get him off of me,” she said.

Like the other woman, she also could not put a number on how many times she was assaulted

She said she attempted suicide twice and was hospitalized. She first reported the abuse to child protective services in 2016 and then to police in Halifax, Nova Scotia. When Eisenstein asked why she didn’t report it sooner, she cried and said, “There was no one to tell.”

“What he did to me I carry in every waking moment,” she said.