THE WHOLE STORY

Where It All Began

uring the 1970's, Sister Plante was the Principal of St. Mary's Parochial School in Winchester, Massachusetts, where she was respected and well-liked by the families whose children attended her school. Among those families was that of General John S. Ross and his wife Elaine. Their son Michael attended the school. General Ross is a retired officer of the United States Marine Corps. Due to the sensitive nature of his work while in the service, and the even more sensitive and highly classified work he continues to do for the United States government, the General uses the pseudonym of Ross in all public circumstances to protect his family. (This fact will become very important later in this story.) "Ross" is an acronym for Reserve Officer Strategic Services, and was assigned to the General by the military as a pseudonym in 1969. The Ross family still maintains a home in Winchester, Massachusetts, as well as other homes in the United States and abroad.

Sister Plante's career as an educator eventually led to her leaving her position in Winchester for other administrative posts. By 1994, she had been employed for ten years as Associate Superintendent of Elementary Schools for the Fall River Diocese in Massachusetts. Her professional record up to that time was unblemished, and she holds a doctorate in Education. Because of her warm relationships with the students of St. Mary's Parochial School, Sister Plante stayed in contact with some families there, including the Ross family. She maintained a close friendship with General and Elaine Ross, but she had not seen Michael in person since his days as an elementary school student.

Michael

Michael Ross matured into a deeply troubled young man. After a three-month period of service in the Marine Corps, he grew his hair long and cherished aspirations of becoming a rock musician. However, Michael suffered from chronic depression, and this led to his becoming a frequent caller to the suicide intervention hotline of the Samaritans of Fall River/New Bedford Inc. Although his parents sought other help for Michael, he seemed to see the Samaritans as his only lifeline. He continued to call the Fall River hotline, and other Samaritans hotlines, regularly for more than four years. Apparently--based on public statements the Samaritans/FRNB have made--the Samaritans regarded Michael as something of a nuisance caller, a young man who needed attention more than intervention. According to the Samaritans/FRNB, several Samaritans chapters eventually banished Michael from their hotlines, claiming that he became abusive to their volunteers. The Samaritans of Fall River/New Bedford, however, continued to accept Michael's calls.

Despite their dubious attitude toward this client, the Samaritans and their "befriending" techniques seemed to help Michael during his blackest moments. For at least four years, Elaine Ross sent the Samaritans/FRNB anonymous donations of money to show her appreciation for their program. She became increasingly concerned when some of her donations, in the form of traveler's checks, money orders or bank checks made out to the Samaritans/FRNB organization, were neither cashed nor returned to her. (Samaritans/FRNB attorney James Franchek later publicly displayed bank checks totaling $2,050 that the Samaritans/FRNB refused to either cash or return to Mrs. Ross.) Among other things, the Samaritans/FRNB claimed that Mrs. Ross's checks bore the name of a "fictitious" company.

In early 1992, the Rosses as a couple arranged to present the Samaritans/FRNB with a specially designed and engraved plaque to show their appreciation for the Samaritans/FRNB's patience in dealing with Michael. The plaque's text was composed by a friend of the family who was also a retired Marine Corps officer, and included the names of General John S. and Elaine Ross. It was presented on February 8, 1992, by Helen Miranda, a long-time Community Services Director and staff member for the Greater New Bedford United Way in Bristol County. The Board of Directors accepted this plaque with apparent pleasure and honor, and according to Barbara Mackowski, displayed it in their offices.

In May of 1993, Michael Ross attempted to kill himself by hanging. Although his life was saved, he suffered irreversible brain damage from asphyxiation. The highly classified work that General Ross performed for the government required that his real name be kept out of the news media and as low profile as possible. Local emergency assistance was not notified. Instead, Michael's father rushed his son to an area facility, from where he was emergency airlifted by military medical transport to a civilian hospital in North Carolina. (Military and veterans' hospitals would not accept Michael for treatment.) There he remained on full life support (including a respirator), drifting in and out of a coma for more than a year. He died in 1994, never having reached his thirtieth birthday. His father has stated that the last person Michael spoke to, by telephone, was Sister Plante.

Michael's Book

Michael was a gifted poet, with an interest in the occult. Not surprisingly, his outlook on life was very bleak. After his suicide attempt, Sister Plante suggested to Elaine Ross that she select some of Michael's poems in sequence and send them to counselors, psychologists and other people who dealt professionally with suicidal patients. Sister Plante felt that the poems gave insight into the feelings and thoughts of those who are in despair, and might assist others in being helped. Mrs. Ross sent some poems to a few schools and received positive feedback from those who read them. In 1994, Mrs. Ross thought of binding some of the poetry material into book form and sending it to the Samaritans/FRNB. She hoped that the volunteers and administrators might be interested in reading these poignant expressions of one of their long-time regular clients. Michael had sometimes read his poems to the hotline staff over the phone.

Elaine Ross chose a selection of poems and made some drawings and other illustrations to accompany them, including an unlabelled photograph of a rock star that Michael admired. A family friend created more illustrations for the poems using images from Tarot cards, choosing cards whose meanings mirrored that of various poems. Tarot cards date back to the Middle Ages, and their pictures are rich with psychological and cultural archetypes. The cards also honestly reflected Michael's own occult interests. Sister Plante had never seen Tarot cards before, but she understood that the cards are considered "white magic" by the Roman Catholic Church, and their use is discouraged, but not forbidden. The Church does not consider these cards to be "evil" or "black magic". This point will become important later on. Sister Plante edited the poems and prepared the final manuscript using the accompanying illustrations exactly as provided to her.

The poetry book was never commercially published for profit. Three copies were made by a hand bookbinder in Freetown, Massachusetts. In March of 1994, Sister Plante sent one copy of the book to Mrs. Ellie Leite, then Executive Director of the Fall River/New Bedford Samaritans. Sister Plante and Mrs. Ross both hoped that the book might help alleviate some of the concerns which the Samaritans/FRNB had about the Ross family at that time. The other two copies were sent to Elaine Ross, and eventually were given to attorneys.

The Praise Campaign for the Samaritans of Fall River/New Bedford

Despite her own crushing personal tragedy, Elaine Ross wished to honor the Samaritans/FRNB for befriending Michael and supporting him for the past four years. In May of 1993, she and a group of supporters, including Edward J. Florino of the Veterans Services Department of Medford, Massachusetts, family friend Yvonne George, and the Rosses' personal secretary Sheila Gilmartin organized a "praise campaign" for the Fall River Samaritans. Letters of commendation were requested from numerous legislators and public figures, including Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank, Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy, and President Clinton. Plaques recognizing the agency's service to the community were made up, and special gifts, such as a portrait of Cardinal Bernard Law, were donated. In addition, Mrs. Ross and her supporters collected over $27,000 in individual donations to be given anonymously to the Samaritans of Fall River/New Bedford, Inc. in memory of Michael. When the donations were ready, a presentation ceremony was planned by the Veterans. Edward J. Florino contacted Mrs. Leite to arrange a time for the presentation. Other donations were made by various people on an individual basis and mailed to the Samaritans/FRNB separately.

The Samaritans/FRNB reacted to this flood of praise and funds with suspicion and antagonism. All of the money was rejected, along with the letters, plaques and other gifts, and Mrs. Leite refused to allow the presentation ceremony. The Samaritans/FRNB at first stated that they would not accept donations from anyone who was receiving their services. The Samaritans/FRNB operate under the auspices of the United Way, and their policies state that all callers and families of callers are guaranteed absolute confidentiality. This means that connections between clients and donors who wished to remain anonymous shouldn't even have been drawn. Other Massachusetts chapters of the Samaritans state that they will accept donations made anonymously. The Samaritans/FRNB also claimed that it seemed "bizarre" for someone to donate money to a suicide-prevention agency in memorial to a person who had attempted suicide. They did not suggest what other sort of agency would be the logical recipient of such a memorium. Their fellow agency, The Samaritans of New York, Inc., states that it "welcomes donations from individuals, corporations and foundations, including in-kind donations, matching grants and donations placed in memorial or to honor someone."

The reaction of the Samaritans of Fall River/New Bedford to the praise campaign puzzled the Rosses and the campaign organizers. They were left in the intensely embarrassing position of having commissioned dozens of letters of recognition and collected thousands of dollars in donations that were now being thrown back in their faces with no reasonable explanation. The harder they tried to get the Samaritans/FRNB to clarify their concerns, however, the more aggressively defensive and hostile the Samaritans/FRNB became. It seemed completely illogical that an organization so heavily dependent on donations for its funding, and with an annual operating budget of only $40,000, would reject nearly $30,000 in donations. As the disagreement continued, the Samaritans/FRNB began to openly accuse the praise campaign organizers of being "criminals" and of operating some sort of "mail fraud". Personal checks were returned to donors, such as Sgt. David Andrews, by Samaritans/FRNB Board members who interrogated the donors about the identity of the Rosses and suggested that the donations had been solicited by "impostors." But the Samaritans/FRNB would never go into explicit detail regarding just why they suspected the Rosses and their praise campaign.

Among the trivial points they did offer to substantiate their vague accusations was the claim that the letters of commendation from local politicians were forgeries. The envelopes, they insisted, were all typed by the same individual, who always used an idiosyncratic spelling of the abbreviation "st.". This was true, as far as the envelopes went--the letters were being collected by the praise campaign organizers and forwarded to the Samaritans/FRNB. One person was responsible for coordinating the letters and addressing the final envelopes. But each letter was written on official letterhead and signed personally by the legislator or politician whose name appeared at the top. As the various individuals learned that the authenticity of their letters was being questioned, many of them sent second letters, personally signed on official letterhead, verifying that their commendations were authentic. Other participants in the praise campaign wrote letters to verify that they had held fund-raising events for the Rosses and the money being contributed was of legal and honest origin. But if the original letters had been forged, according to the Samaritans/FRNB, then so could the verifications. It remains unknown why the Samaritans/FRNB believed that anyone would steal official letterhead from more than a dozen individual legislative offices (some of them in Washington, D.C.), type or print out letters on as many entirely different typewriters or printers, and then forge official signatures in order to create a fictional praise campaign.

The Rosses and the organizers of the praise campaign had to face their many contributors (including President Clinton) with bright red faces and no way to explain the insulting rejection of the money and commendations. All the money that had been individually donated to Mrs. Ross to make up the $27,000 had to be returned, and the Samaritans/FRNB themselves returned some personal checks they had been sent. The praise campaign organizers were determined to get a full explanation from the Samaritans/FRNB. The Samaritans/FRNB, on the other hand, demonstrating little less than sheer paranoia about this "fake" praise campaign and "shady" money, were just as determined to rebuff the Ross supporters as violently as possible. To them, as Ellie Leite wrote to Bishop O'Malley, this was the most "frightening" issue in the agency's ten-year history. No one was willing to say, however, why the Ross praise campaign was so threatening to the Samaritans/FRNB, or what they thought was behind it. Furthermore, despite the public accusations of fraud, swindling, chicanery and possibly worse crimes, not once did the Samaritans/FRNB ever report the praise campaign organizers to any authority or regulatory office for investigation, or turn over any evidence for such criminal activity. They simply assumed an aggressively defensive posture and ordered the Ross supporters to shut up and leave them alone. The irrational emotions on the Samaritans/FRNB side, particularly, made the tense situation a potential explosion just looking for a scapegoat. Into this booby-trap, entirely unawares, Sister Plante was about to step.

Sister Plante is Asked to Help

On July 7, 1993, Sister Plante accepted $600 from Yvonne George that had been raised in Michael's name at a fundraiser held at the Islamic Center of New England. She deposited it into her Sister of Mercy bank account, and wrote a check on that account for the full amount of $600 to the Samaritans of Fall River/New Bedford, Inc. She sent the check with a cover letter explaining its origins. The check was returned to her.

In August of 1993, Sister Plante met with Mrs. Leite in Sister Plante's office in the Department of Education building in Fall River. Mrs. Leite spoke openly about her contact with Michael and Mrs. Ross, how badly she felt about Michael's suicide attempt, and how she felt glad that the Samaritans/FRNB had been able to help him as long as they did. She stated that she would "keep Michael in her prayers."

On September 9, 1993, however, Mrs. Leite again met with Sister Plante in her office, accompanied by Barbara Mackowski, then the agency's Assistant Director. Sister Plante was surprised to see Mrs. Mackowski, but Mrs. Leite asserted that Mrs. Mackowski "knew everything that went on" at the Samaritans/FRNB center. Mrs. Leite apparently wanted a witness present at the meeting. Both women were extremely angry and barely able to control themselves. They showed Sister Plante some of the letters of commendation they were receiving and asked questions about the similarity of the envelopes and other concerns. Barbara Mackowski repeatedly lost her temper during the discussion and was quieted down by Mrs. Leite. Sister Plante was concerned about the letters she was shown, and promised Mrs. Leite that she would investigate and find out what was going on. However, Sister Plante felt that the two Samaritans/FRNB representatives believed that she knew more about the situation than she was admitting, and that she was lying to them when she expressed ignorance of the entire praise campaign. To Sister Plante, it seemed obvious that Mrs. Leite thought she was in collusion with the praise campaigners for reasons unknown. Following this meeting, Sister Plante questioned the praise campaign organizers about the issues Mrs. Leite and Mrs. Mackowski had raised, and obtained new letters to verify the authenticity of each letter of commendation. These letters, with Sister Plante's explanations, were sent to the Samaritans/FRNB, but no response was ever returned.

Altogether, Sister Plante sent five courteous and sympathetic letters to the Samaritans/FRNB about the praise campaign and the Samaritans/FRNB's concerns, along with the verification letters from politicians and legislators. She never received a reply in writing to any of her letters, or any acknowledgement whatsoever of the other materials and her efforts at follow-up to the meeting with Mrs. Leite and Mrs. Mackowski.

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