In all these studies, the most powerful finding is that adults are highly likely to taint an interview when they go into it already convinced that a child has been molested. When that is so, there is only one “truth” they are prepared to accept when they ask the child to tell the truth. Like Susan Kelley, they never accept the child’s “no”; “no” means the child is denying or repressing or afraid to tell. The child can do nothing to convince the adult she has not been molested.
