'He deserved worse than what he got': Circleville doctor may have abused 150 patients

Note: This story contains graphic descriptions of reported sexual abuse that may be offensive to some readers or painful to survivors.

Black polyester pants.

Paula Reichelderfer hates them.

The way they look and even the stale way they smell.

She looks away if she sees a man wearing them.

When Reichelderfer was 5-years-old her doctor trapped her between his legs.

Dr. Ray Carroll pulled down her pants and molested her for about 10 minutes.

She was trapped, almost paralyzed between those polyester pants.

“I remember just trying to wrestle my way out of there,” said Reichelderfer. “I was 5 years old; I didn’t know what was happening. It would be almost 30 years before I really remembered what happened. And that I wasn’t the only one.”

Reichelderfer’s only visit to Carroll’s office in Circleville was in 1964.

It wouldn’t be until decades later that she and other women would go to the State Medical Board of Ohio, describing the sexual abuse they suffered as Carroll’s patients.

By the end of 1993, at least 17 women had come forward and filed formal complaints, according to state medical board records.

But victims said a medical board attorney at the time told them the board had received complaints from around 150 victims. Carroll, a long-serving Pickaway County coroner, specialized in internal medicine, meaning he treated both children and adults as a primary care doctor.

As was common practice, the additional complaints may not have been investigated if then-board investigators felt they didn't need them to make a case against Carroll. Current board leaders said state law prevents them from being able to confirm whether there were more complaints filed against the doctor.

Carroll was finally stripped of his medical license in April 1994 and never was allowed to practice medicine again.

The case is just one of many where victims feel they didn’t get justice.

As Carroll was sexually abusing dozens of patients over the years, so too was Ohio State University Dr. Richard Strauss. Both men continued seeing patients even after as they racked up sexual abuse allegations over the decades and their misconduct became "open secrets" within their communities. An independent investigation would reveal that Strauss sexually abused at least 177 students while he worked as a physician at OSU from 1978 to 1998.

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These are also the kinds of cases that caused Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine to publicly say the medical board didn’t do enough for decades to protect the public.

There was public outrage when word spread around Circleville about the sexual abuse allegations. After the medical board's proceedings, someone threatened to bomb a school in 1995 if the doctor didn't face criminal charges.

But Carroll died in 2007 at age 86 and was never criminally charged in connection with the sexual abuse allegations.

While Carroll's abuse was wide ranging, he would often conduct what were later viewed as unnecessary pelvic exams, according to board records.

He asked multiple girls and young women in his care if they were planning to have sex. He then proceeded to tell them their vaginal openings needed to be widened and so he used tools in his office to penetrate them, according to some of the formal complaints.

“He got off easy,” said Reichelderfer, now 64. “The consequences for what he did to all of us should have been much worse.”

'Learn from what happened'

It had been about 15 years since Paula Reichelderfer was trapped between her doctor’s legs as a little girl.

Then the day after she gave birth to her son, Ray Carroll entered her hospital room.

Carroll told Reichelderfer that he would be the one to administer anesthesia for a planned tubal ligation.

“I didn’t really remember anything at that point but I didn’t like the sight of him,” Reichelderfer said. “I was not letting him put me to sleep."

That would be the last time Reichelderfer would ever see Carroll.

But it would be another 13 years before the mother of two boys would have a clear recollection of her abuse.

It was 1992 and a nurse who used to work in Carroll’s office was invited to a family dinner. The dinner conversation soon turned to the stories about Carroll in the local newspaper. Some women had come forward to the state medical board and told of their abuse.

In that moment, Reichelderfer said the memory of what Carroll did to her came flooding back into her consciousness. Her mother had died and Reichelderfer never spoke to her about the abuse. When her father realized what had happened at this dinner he stormed out of the house in angry rage and never brought up the subject again.

The next day Reichelderfer contacted the state medical board and soon realized she wasn’t alone.

She told a medical board investigator about the abuse and would be listed as Patient 8 in the case being built against Carroll,

She read through each of the 17 victims' accounts.

And knew there were likely many, many more.

She is angry he wasn’t caught sooner.

“My hope is that we learn from what happened to me and all the others," she said. "And the people in power do more to stop doctors like him.”

Sisters and survivors

Judie List Sweeney was simply listed in board records as Patient 2.

Her identity and those of the other 16 women who came forward against Carroll was concealed in medical board investigative records.

List Sweeney remembers the first red flag about Carroll.

She was around 10 or 11 when Carroll began sexually abusing her.

He almost always had her undress during appointments and didn't offer a gown or sheet for her to cover up with. One time Carroll ran his hands down each side of her body.

“I remembered my shirt being off and he ran his hands down my sides,” she said. “He sighed and that’s why I remember it.”

List Sweeney and her siblings never missed an annual physical and always visited the doctor whenever they felt ill.

List Sweeney said her parents did not accompany her to the exam room. Medical records corroborate that Carroll usually examined the children alone, a practice doctors told the state was inappropriate but one that allowed Carroll to abuse patients in private.

Around a year after Carroll inappropriately touched List Sweeney, he began conducting pelvic exams on her. She was just shy of 12.

Carroll pulled out a tray of instruments in various sizes. He used them to stretch List Sweeney’s vaginal opening and insisted it was medically necessary for her to be able to have sex someday, she said.

That first pelvic exam seemed like it lasted forever, said List Sweeney, who is now 64.

“I was in writhing pain and I bled,” List Sweeney said. “It wasn’t until I was way older that I realized he had broken my hymen.”

List Sweeney told her younger sister Marilyn (List) Williams what Carroll had done and it turned out she was one of the doctor's victims too. Williams was 10 when Carroll started performing pelvic exams.

“I remember thinking, huh, the dentist didn't have me taking off my clothes, why does Dr. Carroll?” said Williams, now 62, known at the time to the medical board as Patient 5. “It wasn’t until even like high school that I thought it was definitely molestation.”

As Carroll did with Williams’ sister, the doctor said he needed to widen her vaginal opening. At least once, Williams said Carroll used his fingers to do so.

Years later, Carroll performed lengthy breast exams of Williams. He also commented on how one of her breasts was smaller than the other one.

During one breast exam, Williams told the medical board that Carroll asked her: "Well, does that feel good?" He replied to his own question, saying something to the effect of "someday it will."

Carroll became the topic of slumber parties in Circleville, both Williams and List Sweeney said. Girls would discuss the mistreatment with each other, often expressing how weird it seemed but not fully understanding that it was sexual abuse.

By the time List Sweeney was 16, she came across an article in Reader’s Digest that outlined when young women needed to begin having pelvic exams.

The article armed List Sweeney with new knowledge to confront Carroll. At her next appointment, Carroll said “drop your pants.” List Sweeney refused.

“There's no reason for a woman to have a pelvic exam until at least the age of 18,” she told Carroll. “He kind of muttered, ‘Who do I think I am?’ and then it never came up again.”

Years later in 1987, List Sweeney was living in Cincinnati. At a professional conference, she ran into an old friend from Circleville who asked if she had been a patient of Carroll.

When List Sweeney told her she was, the friend said she, too, was abused and that they needed to do something about it.

The two looked into having criminal charges filed against him, but List Sweeney said the statute of limitations had expired.

Today, Ohio law allows victims of childhood sexual abuse to file a civil lawsuit until they’re 30 years old. Adult victims of sexual abuse have a one- to two-year window during which they can file a civil claim in Ohio.

Criminal charges can be brought until a victim turns 43, with an additional five years granted if DNA is found after that.

Five years passed without List Sweeney doing anything further, but she could never quite get Carroll out of her head.

List Sweeney said she was one of the lucky ones because Carroll's abuse barely affected her life. At most, it may have prevented her from dating much until her early 20s.

She didn’t think there was anything more to be done and hoped that Carroll would just retire.

Then in 1992, List Sweeney saw an episode of "Primetime Live" that examined accusations of sexual abuse against the Rev. James Porter. Porter was eventually sentenced to 18 to 20 years in prison for sexually abusing 100 boys and girls in Massachusetts.

As the church’s sexual abuse scandal made headlines, List Sweeney began talking to friends more about Carroll.

Months later, a friend’s husband who worked in the medical field told her that unlike the court system, the medical board had no statute of limitations.

“That was all I needed to know. So I wrote my letter,” List Sweeney said.

To her surprise, she was actually the second survivor of Carroll’s abuse to contact the board.

She reached out to women she knew who were treated by Carroll and asked them to write letters. Many of them did, including her younger sister.

At first five women came forward. Then 12, and finally the number of accusers grew to 17, board records show.

List Sweeney said she was told law enforcement looked into Carroll in the 1970s but never charged him with a crime.

An attorney for one patient wrote a letter to the board asking for Carroll to be stripped of his medical license. The letter stated the board failed to take action against the doctor in 1973 when it may have received its first complaint.

Carroll, however, was the Pickaway County coroner and List Sweeney and others said they believe he was protected.

Carroll’s abuse was so widely known that List Sweeney said it became something of an open secret in Circleville. One of List Sweeney’s family members would sometimes walk into a local coffee shop and utter Carroll's name just to see how many people would say something.

“People would say things like: ‘He deflowers women’ and ‘He's the finger doctor,'" List Sweeney said.

After the medical board began investigating Carroll, the doctor said he planned to retire and that its proceedings against him were therefore moot.

Ohio’s attorney general at the time, Lee Fisher, was determined to make an example of Carroll though. Fisher wrote a letter to the board saying its members couldn’t allow Carroll to “simply retire” and said he could not do so unless he admitted to the allegations.

List Sweeney, Williams and Reichelderfer testified at a February 1994 hearing that ultimately resulted in the permanent revocation of Carroll's license.

List Sweeney felt like she needed to speak out against Carroll, especially for those who were too afraid to come forward. In the years since, she's been asked how she didn't realize she had been abused sooner and why it took so long to come forward.

But it was a time when sexual abuse was hardly discussed and there was a lack of public knowledge. Still, those questions have weighed on her.

“I’ve always carried that with me,” she said.

How to get help and report sexual abuse by a medical professional

▪ To file a report, call your local police or sheriff’s department.

▪ To file a complaint, visit the State Medical Board of Ohio online , or call the board's confidential complaint hotline at 1-833-333-7626.

▪ Call the Ohio Sexual Violence Helpline at 844-6446-4357.

▪ For a directory of rape crisis centers in each of Ohio's 88 counties, visit the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence online.

▪ To speak with someone confidentially, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 or chat online.

▪ For more information on child sexual abuse, visit the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network online.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Circleville doctor may have sexually abused 150 patients over decades