Lehi child sexual abuse scare

Snow was the therapist at the center of the high profile and controversial Allan Hadfield sex abuse case in 1987 in Lehi, Utah.^[11][12][13]

In the summer 1985, a resident of Lehi, Sheila Bowers took her children to see Snow, who divulged that they had been sexually abused by their babysitter, the teenage daughter of the local LDS Church bishop. Other parents who had their children babysat by the same sitter took their children to see Snow for therapy.^[14] These children also began to disclose sexual abuse by others, with eventually around forty adults were accused of being satanic ritual abusers of children.^[15][16] The Utah County Sheriff's Office and Utah Attorney General's Office began an extensive two-and-a-half-year investigation. The bishop's children were taken away by family services, but returned in several weeks after no evidence of harm was discovered. After the investigation, a Lehi resident named Alan Hadfield was the only one to be charged with abuse.^[14]

Before the trial of Hadfield, Snow resigned her position at the Intermountain Sexual Abuse Treatment Center amid controversy over her interviewing methods and opened a private practice in Salt Lake City.^[14]

At the trial, a Utah County chief deputy attorney testified that he observed Snow coaching children through a two way mirror. "I was appalled", said the deputy attorney, "[Snow] had so conditioned those children that I had serious concern about using them as witnesses in cases."^[14] Snow countered that as a therapist, not a law enforcement investigator, she needed to create an environment where hesitant children who might have been threatened to be silent could feel comfortable disclosing abuse. Judy Pugh, a colleague of Snows at the Intermountain Sexual Abuse Treatment Center, told the court that she was concerned about how children's stories would homogeneously emerge after interviews with Snow. One ten-year-old girl testified that Snow asked her as many as fifty times in one session if Hadfield had touched her, and that she finally relented when she became afraid that Snow would yell at her otherwise.^[14]

Stephen Golding, director of clinical psychology at the University of Utah, testified that Snow's techniques were "subtly coercive and highly questionable. There were several inconsistencies in the testimonies of the children. On April 6th, the children accused Hadfield of fondling them as they watched a television program, however telephone records showed that Hadfield was on the phone with Snow at the time the abuse was to have occurred. The children said their father had promised to buy them a toy four wheeler for not revealing abuse, but receipts showed that the toy was purchased before the abuse was to have occurred. Hadfield was convicted by an eight member jury on December 19, 1987, and the judge sentenced Hadfield to 6 months in the Utah County Jail.^[14] The court placed an order that barred Gay Hadfield, the mother, from hiring Snow as their therapist.^[17]

In 2002, Snow wrote an op-ed in the Deseret News defending her actions, writing, "Sexual predators are master manipulators. ... We cannot have it both ways, ... We cannot decry child abuse publicly and tolerate it privately if the offender is a white, upper-middle-class member of our religious congregation."^[7]

Probation

In 2008, Snow agreed to probation by the Utah Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing to avoid protracted litigation, for violating the Utah codes of professional conduct and ethical principles defined by the National Association of Social Workers. The state alleged that Snow had convinced her relatives that they were victims of satanic ritual abuse and military testing and that Snow provided fabricated notes from her sessions. Snow admitted to destroying her relative's computer with a baseball bat.^[18][19]