Warning: This tale takes care of claims of sexual offense and conversation of self-destruction.
Shelley Trubiak states she experienced in silence for 52 years — however 2 years ago determined she could not do that any longer, after she began having recalls of the misuse by a clergyman she states she experienced while maturing in her tiny western Manitoba neighborhood.
Trubiak, that is currently 66, mosted likely to the RCMP in 2022, setting off a two-year examination that resulted in the concern of an apprehension warrant in August for Constantin Turcoane, that was 81 at the time.
The retired clergyman was billed with rape and sexual relations with an individual under the age of 14, after Trubiak declared he sexually attacked her in the very early 1970s, when she was 12 years of ages and an at his church in Lennard, Man.
“I’ve been afraid and scared — all my life I went through this thing,” Trubiak, that currently resides in Saskatchewan, informed CBC News today. “I have to heal from this, [and] this is the only way I might.
” I simply intend to inform my tale.”
None of the allegations against Turcoane have been tested in court. No trial date has been set on his charges.
Turcoane’s lawyer told CBC News his client denies the allegations and will plead not guilty if the case proceeds to trial. He wouldn’t comment any further because the case is before the courts.
The retired priest, who was living in Regina at the time, turned himself in to police after he was charged in August and has since been released from custody.
Turcoane served as a priest in the early 1970s at the St. Elijah Romanian Orthodox Church in Lennard, a small community near the Saskatchewan border and roughly 300 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg.
The Canadian Orthodox History Project website says Turcoane worked with the parish in 1970-71.
Trubiak said she recalls Turcoane moving to Lennard in the winter of 1969, but doesn’t remember talking to him outside of mass until the summer of 1970.
She said she and her friends were playing hide-and-seek in the cemetery behind the church when the priest approached her and started talking to her. She alleges he grabbed her chest.
” I really did not also have busts at that time, and he was holding me so tight. He made use of to surround me,” Trubiak said. “I’ll always remember this.”
Trubiak alleges Turcoane frequently engaged in unwanted touching and other sexual acts at the church and at his home, where she would sometimes babysit his daughter.
“He constantly made use of to claim, ‘Oh, Father likes you, so this is excellent, this is OK. Father likes you’,” she said.
‘He took my life, my childhood’
Trubiak says the priest told her to stay silent and keep the alleged sexual abuse between the two of them.
A year later, she said she overheard her mother talking to another member of the church about complaints raised about Turcoane being involved in other alleged abuse. She then decided to tell her mother.
The priest was eventually removed from the church.
< figcaption course=" caption-collapse broken down">An undated photo submitted by a community member shows St. Elijah Romanian Orthodox Church in Lennard, a small western Manitoba community. An 81-year-old retired priest who worked at the church has been charged with rape in connection with an allegation of sexual assault over a two-year period in the early 1970s involving a girl who was 11 to 12 years old, Manitoba RCMP said on Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024.
An undated photo submitted by a community member shows St. Elijah Romanian Orthodox Church in Lennard, a small western Manitoba community, where Shelley Trubiak says she was sexually assaulted by Turcoane. (Submitted)
Despite that, Trubiak said she felt like no one in the community believed her, and her family was isolated.
With little support, she said she started to think she deserved what had happened to her. She later tried to take her own life, she said.
“Most youngsters have good memories, excellent memories. I have awful memories of my youth,” Trubiak said. “He took my life, my youth away.”
Her life went into a downward spiral, and she began using drugs, alcohol and sex to numb her pain, she said.
She ran away from her home multiple times, sometimes for months, as she struggled to cope during her teenage years, including after she had a child at the age of 16.
Trubiak says while memories of her abuse never left her mind, she learned how to deal with them through counselling.
In 2016, she moved to Saskatchewan to take care of her dying mother and started struggling with flashbacks.
” I was experiencing so terribly,” she said. “It’s like being infected. I need to obtain this out of me.”
Coming forward a choice for survivors: expert
Experts say it’s very common for survivors of abuse to share their stories years — or even decades — after the fact.
“When a person has actually experienced an offense, such as sex-related physical violence, where selection and permission was removed from that specific, they redeem it when they can make the selection to find onward for their very own course,” said Kara Neustaedter, who oversees a program at Winnipeg’s Klinic Community Health that helps sex abuse survivors.
Neustaedter said coming forward is ultimately a choice, not a responsibility, and people have different reasons for sharing their experiences.
RCMP told CBC News they have not heard from any other people claiming they were abused by Turcoane since charges were laid in August, but more witnesses in Trubiak’s case have since given statements to police, helping with the investigation.
Meanwhile, Trubiak hopes sharing her story publicly will help other survivors of sexual abuse come forward.
“You do not need to bring this hideous things to your tomb,” she said. “Please step forward, not simply for me, but also for the various other ladies.”
For anybody that has actually been sexually attacked, assistance is readily available with dilemma lines and regional assistance solutions using this government of Canada website or theEnding Violence Association of Canada database If you remain in instant threat or concern for your security or that of others around you, please phone call 911.
