Philadelphia Daily News from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 8

PAGE 8 THE PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1995 Ke'shaun's mom to face charges Hollywood questions vs. Disney answers i f-i i i fti a wini MMfiir mat portrays his victim as the bad guy. You see what I mean. Still, Nathan Winters was utterly devastated by this incident in which he was molested by Salva a man, who, as his director, pre- sumably had power over his career as an actor too. Whatever penalty Salva paid pales in comparison to the price Winters has paid, and presumably will pay for the rest of his life.

Surely, Winters has Earlier, Vanderhorst said Ke'shaun had been taken by a woman from the Department of Human Services. DHS said the agency did not have the boy in custody. According to police sources, Vanderhorst took a lie detector test, but the results were inconclusive. Because police don't know what happened to Ke'shaun and can only go by Vanderhorst's story the charges against her will be related to abandoning rather than harming the boy. Police have been conducting follow-up interviews in the neighborhood around Vanderhorst's apartment, at 17th and Master streets, checking bars and crack houses where Vanderhorst sometimes went with her son.

People questioned at the crack houses said they hadn't seen Vanderhorst with Ke'shaun since mid-September, police said. Detectives have also searched alleyways and vacant lots for the child. Hi 1' if In her latest story, she sold youngster by Joe O'Dowd Daily News Staff Writer A woman whose young son has been missing for two weeks was expected to be charged today in his disappearence. Tina Vanderhorst will face charges relating to the abandonment of 2-year-old Ke'shaun, police said. Meanwhile, they said, the mother has given detectives a third explanation for her son's mysterious disappearance.

This time, Vanderhorst says that on Sept 25 she sold her son to a woman for $500, all in $20s, according to Capt. James Brady. She said she bought cocaine with the money. Last week, Vanderhorst told detectives about the woman, but said she simply gave Ke'shaun to her after the woman said she would care for the boy. i 4-HOUR PROCEDURE By LANCE GOOBERMAN, MD CERTIFIED MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF ADDICTION MEDICINE CONFIDENTIAL 1-800-978-0808 by HC1 Frost Free MTX14CYTX Adjustable shelves Recessed Door Handles 399 Reg.

439" ONLY 1 5 PER MONTH YOUR CHOICE GAS OR ELECTRIC TI6 Full Size 30" Black Glass Oven Door Reg. 329- tjmm ONLY $13 PER MONTH 0 alt Disney's latest movie, "Powder," opens today. And with it, the real world of moral ambigu ity invades Disney's film world of moral certainty in which Evil is clearly defined and Good is inevitably victorious. The writer-director of the movie, Victor Salva, is a convicted child molester who videotaped himself having sex with a 12-year-old boy. That boy is now a 20-year-old adult who picketed the movie's industry screening in Los Angeles on Monday, urging people to boycott the film.

"Please don't spend your money on this movie," Nathan Winters urged in leaflets he and five supporters distrib uted to the audience of Hollywood insiders. "It would just go to line the pockets of this child molester." The controversy over the movie is compelling not only because it involves a clash of principles, but because it's hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. OK, we know Salva is a bad guy the most demonized kind of bad guy you can find, a pedophile. Salva confessed to having oral sex with Winters in 1987 while directing him in "Clownhouse," an obscure horror film that is not in stock at your local video store. And we know that Nathan Winters, the innocent victim who was permanently damaged by a sexual predator, is the good guy.

Winters said the incident scarred him forever and his mother told reporters that he has been suicidal in recent months. But then things get a little complicated. Salva served 15 months of a three-year sentence to state prison and was paroled in 1992. "I paid for my mistakes dearly," he said in a statement released Tuesday. "Now, nearly 10 years later, I am excited about my work as a filmmaker and look forward to continuing to make a positive contribution to our industry." And so it can be argued as film company executives now are so frantically doing that Salva paid his debt to society and has the right to proceed with his life.

"He paid for his crime," said the executive of the company that made the movie for Disney. "What happened eight years ago has nothing to do with this movie." By Invoking this convenient platitude, we turn Salva from bad guy to good guy, from victimizer to victim. Justice was served, after all, and Nathan Winters is now out for retribution. Winters clearly wants to destroy Salva through public humiliation and professional censure. After all, he feels he's been destroyed.

And so the same argument that portrays a pedophile as a good guy ij" Tina Vanderhorst Ke'shaun According to police sources, Vanderhorst took a lie detector test, but the results were inconclusive. In all three of Vanderhorst's versions of the story, the description of the woman who took the boy remained the same, police said. A composite drawing of the mystery woman was being prepared. Also, posters of Ke'shaun will be distributed soon along the East Coast by the Virginia-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, police said. Meanwhile, detectives continued to look into the 1980s deaths of three other children of Vanderhorst.

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'229" FC40 PA 4841 N. Broad St. 10-7 Sol. 1 0-6, aosed Sunday it hi a the right to engage in therapeutic protest against Salva and call to the world's attention that he's a convicted pedophile. Irideed, Winters can argue that he's obligated to do so to protect other children from being victimized, considering that sex offenders are notoriously difficult to cure.

What Nathan Winters is doing is no different than what society is doing in passing Megan's Laws that provide for community notification in some cases when sex offenders get out of prison. Ironically, Gov. Ridge signed Pennsylvania's version of Megan's Law into law on Tuesday, the same day the story about Salva flooded the news media While the intent of the law is to forewarn a community that a potential danger is in its midst, the effect is often to turn townsfolk into vigilantes who run the convict out of town. So how can we fault Nathan Winters for doing personally what the rest of us are doing collectively even if his right to free speech conflicts with Victor Salva's right to privacy? And if it strikes you as sordid and unseemly for Winters to expose his private anguish to the world, it's no more than what dozens of people do every day on television talk shows. So, is he a good guy or a bad guy? Or both? The movie "Powder" is about a boy with telekinetic powers and pure white skin, which repels his peers.

And if it's good, it raises yet another troubling philosophical question. To wit: If a person is severely morally flawed, should we marginalize him and ostracize him and prevent him from participating in society? Or should we accept and acknowledge whatever good he has to offer? Should Pete Rose get into the baseball Hall of Fame despite his gambling? Should Louis Farrak-han be lauded for the Million Man March despite his racism? Should Mike Tyson make a fortune boxing despite his rape conviction? Sigh. I thought these were the kind of vexing issues that Walt Disney movies were designed to help us avoid. A REVIEW: Page 39 "Like -New" Fully Guaranteed Color TV's Low As Open 10-6 Man. Sat.

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