Earlier today a fifth accuser came forward to tell her story about how Roy Moore groomed and then sexually assaulted her when she was 15 and 16.
Beverly Young Nelson had quite a story to share, one where a 31-year old Assistant District Attorney groomed her before he assaulted her. This is the story she told, as reported by Shep Smith on Fox News.
At the time she was working in Gadsden, Alabama where she lived. She just turned 16 years old. Even though Moore came around and flirted with her, she had no interest in him for two reasons. First, she had a boyfriend, and second, "I was not having a dating or sexual relationship with a man twice my age."
The restaurant was closing on a cold night in December. Roy Moore, who had dined there lots of evenings, was still there at closing. Her boyfriend hadn't yet arrived to pick her up. There were no cell phones then she said so she couldn't call him.
Roy Moore suggested he would take her home. He drove his car with her in the passenger seat in a two-door around to the back of the restaurant.
It was at that point that he began to assault her. She said she squirmed and tried to get away. At some point he either pushed her out the door or she fell out warning her if she told anyone, nobody would believe her.
By then her boyfriend arrived. He walked around to the front of the restaurant and got in the car but didn't tell him at that time because he had a violent temper. She did tell others and over time a number of others.
As evidence that Moore knew her, Nelson showed a copy of her yearbook which he had signed. Here's the inscription, but if you can't read it, it says, "To a sweeter more beautiful girl I could not say Merry Christmas. Christmas 1977. Love, Roy Moore... Roy Moore, DA"
Nelson was 15 when he signed that yearbook. He asked to sign her yearbook. That inscription is all anyone needs to know the rest is true. Moore was grooming her for sexual activity, waiting for a time when he could legitimately get her alone.
Why did she come forward now? According to Nelson, she would not have done so at all, keeping the secret with her to the grave, if it had not been for the other women who came forward.
Moore's behavior toward Nelson is predatory. It's also absolutely believable, and it's leaving Republicans in a real quandary. From the White House floating the notion of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III mounting a write-in campaign (why on earth would he do that?!) to Cory Gardner's call for the Senate to expel Moore if he gets elected, they're spinning themselves into a dark hole of defeat.
Or perhaps not, given that many women came forward before November 8, 2016 to describe how Donald Trump had assaulted them. And of course, Trump himself had described how to assault women and bragged about doing so. Yet there he is, in the White House, yukking it up and destroying the country. So maybe it just doesn't matter much whether or not these men assault women. These 53 pastors don't seem to give a damn, for instance.
But it was kind of Fox News to have Shep Smith cover this. Unlike Hannity, he took her seriously.
Meanwhile, Doug Jones just keeps up the campaign and the momentum. You can donate to him here if you'd like to lift his chances.
