Quiet Time

Justin George: Kevin Rouse stood before the judge wearing a patchy beard and a rumpled orange jumpsuit. He was accused of following a young boy into a church bathroom, stuffing paper towels into the boy's mouth and masturbating.

It wasn't the first time Kevin, then in his 30s, had been in trouble. As far back as high school, he had yanked down the pants of a boy, pulled another into a room, and fondled a 7-year-old at a movie theater.

But with an IQ of 60, Kevin couldn't understand the charges against him so he couldn't stand trial.

The judge told Kevin he would stay in jail unless his attorney found him a secure group home.

Rose Rouse looked at her youngest son on that pivotal day in 2003 and saw a little boy in a man's body. She had tried to monitor him by herself for years, but he was more than an aging widow could handle. She knew Kevin, who had a childlike obsession with the Buffalo Bills, wouldn't last in prison.

Someone suggested the Human Development Center. Rose had never heard of this place 138 miles from her house in Palm Bay. It was a government-funded, state-licensed facility for developmentally disabled men. And it had a reputation for working with sex abusers. The judge approved, and the next day Kevin was in a van headed to HDC's isolated campus on Stark Road in Seffner.