![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/75970289007-taylor-2.webp?resize=660%2C468&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nThe deputy who investigated Taylor Cadle\u2019s initial report that her adoptive father had sexually assaulted her, Melissa Turnage, recently received a letter from a supervisor directing her to complete an online course on interview and interrogation techniques, an article on Mother Jones.com reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A co-author of the article, California-based reporter Rachel de Leon, first reported on Cadle\u2019s case in a video segment aired by PBS NewsHour in October. De Leon, who specializes in reporting on cases of girls and women charged with filing false reports over rape claims, uncovered details of the 2016 investigation of Taylor\u2019s accusations against Henry Cadle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The NewsHour and Mother Jones reports included recordings of Turnage interviewing both Taylor and Henry Cadle after the girl told a pastor\u2019s wife that her adoptive father had been sexually abusing her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The excerpts suggested that Turnage treated Taylor\u2019s claims with skepticism and lightly questioned Henry Cadle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBasically, Taylor, I guess, has made up these allegations, OK, that you have been sexually abusing her,\u201d Turnage said to Cadle, in an excerpt from an interview. \u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Taylor Cadle, now 21 and living in North Lakeland, told The Ledger last month that Turnage had been hostile and unsympathetic from her first interview in 2016. She said the deputy was strongly influenced by her adoptive parents\u2019 depiction of her as mouthy and materialistic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Former legislator intervenes<\/p>\n\n\n\n
De Leon and her Mother Jones co-author, Julia Lurie, contacted Lauren Book, until recently a Democratic state senator from Broward County. Book is a child advocate, having survived sexual abuse in her own childhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After hearing recordings of Turnage\u2019s interviews during the Cadle investigation, Book contacted the Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office, according to the Mother Jones article. Capt. Dina Russell at first responded with a defense of Turnage\u2019s investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a letter reproduced in the Mother Jones article, Russell described the inquiry as \u201cthorough\u201d and cited reasons Turnage gave in 2016 for questioning Taylor\u2019s accusations \u2014 among those that she could not find surveillance video evidence of Cadle buying condoms at a gas station identified by Taylor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Turnage requested footage starting about 15 minutes later than Cadle would have arrived at the gas station, de Leon and Lurie reported. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Turnage interviewed Henry Cadle for only 20 minutes outside of church on the day Taylor made her accusation in 2016, de Leon and Lurie reported. When asked if he would take a polygraph test, he refused, saying, \u201cI\u2019ve had sex with a lot of people in the shower with my eyes closed, if you know what I mean. I\u2019m a man.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/ghows-LK.webp?resize=300%2C372&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nTurnage replied: \u201cDaydreaming about it and answering questions in reference to the allegations are two totally different things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After listening to a recording of one of Turnage\u2019s interviews from the case, Russell determined that the deputy\u2019s approach did not meet agency standards, according to the Mother Jones story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the letter, dated Oct. 17, Russell wrote of Turnage\u2019s interview of Taylor, \u201cSeveral of your questions and comments were inappropriate. While your intent may have been to elicit the truth and gather essential information, referencing personal circumstances such as foster care or financial hardships can create an environment of discomfort, fear, mistrust and is simply unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In interviews with Taylor, Turnage warned her that if Cadle were arrested, she would return to foster care and she would not receive the dental braces she sought or the new shoes she wanted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russell wrote that Turnage had violated a general department order covering competency, job knowledge and proficiency. She directed Turnage to complete an online course titled, \u201cInterview and Interrogation Techniques.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPlease use this as a learning tool for awareness regarding the proper interview techniques when questioning victims,\u201d Russell wrote. \u201cI am confident you will take the appropriate steps to prevent any similar events in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Turnage would be given time on duty to complete the course, Russell wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was nothing,\u201d Taylor said of Turnage\u2019s training order. \u201cIt was a laugh in my face but a slap on the wrist for her. I don\u2019t think that it\u2019s fair. They thought that it\u2019s fair. They hold the power.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Book could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
History of missteps<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Turnage, who joined the Sheriff\u2019s Office in 2007, is on track to become a sergeant, Mother Jones reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A requested Turnage\u2019s personnel file in late October. The Sheriff\u2019s Office estimated that redacting the 799-page file would cost $498 in employee resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
PCSO spokesperson Scott Wilder declined the request for an interview with Sheriff Grady Judd. The agency\u2019s communication staff did not answer questions emailed in response to the Mother Jones story, among them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why did it take eight years and an inquiry from a former state legislator before the agency addressed Turnage’s handling of the Cadle case?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Did PCSO change any elements of its training or policies on interviewing minors who may be victims of sexual abuse following Henry Cadle’s arrest?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Turnage has a history of drawing warnings from superiors in the Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office. The Mother Jones article included three examples of her apparent missteps, aside from the Cadle case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2015, Turnage failed to read a portion of the Miranda rights\u2019 advisory to a man suspected of sexually assaulting a child. As a result, the suspect\u2019s confession was suppressed. Turnage was suspended for eight hours, according to the Mother Jones article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The same year, Turnage left for Christmas vacation without questioning a man suspected of raping his children or updating her supervisors on the case, the Mother Jones story said. Colleagues stepped in and arrested the suspect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a letter to Turnage, a supervisor wrote that her handling of the case was \u201cinexcusable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2016, Turnage arrested the wrong person while investigating the sexual assault of a minor \u2014 a man with no tattoos, though a video of the assault showed that the suspect had tattoos, according to the Mother Jones article. She received a disciplinary letter over that mistake on the same day that she filed the affidavit against Taylor Cadle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office did not reply to an email asking why Turnage is still on course to become a sergeant, given her career record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Taylor, under pressure from her adoptive mother \u2014 Henry Cadle\u2019s wife \u2014 pleaded guilty to the charge of filing a false report. Judge Mark Hofstad ordered probation, and Taylor was required to write letters of apology to Cadle and to the Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Change in SAO policy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n About a month after Taylor wrote those letters, Henry Cadle parked his vehicle along a road in rural North Lakeland and raped his adoptive daughter. Taylor, anticipating what he would do after Cadle stopped to buy condoms, surreptitiously took photos and videos, one of which showed Cadle exposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tayor later called 911, and a team from the Sheriff\u2019s Office came to the family\u2019s home, eventually arresting Henry Cadle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Judge Keith Spoto sentenced Cadle to 17 years in prison. The judge described Taylor as \u201ca victim of a failure of the criminal justice system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cadle is an inmate at Graceville Correctional Facility, with a current release date of July 22, 2034.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Assistant State Attorney Joni Batie-McGrew of the 10th Judicial Circuit approved the charge against Taylor in 2016. After Cadle\u2019s sentencing, the office filed a motion to vacate the previous case and withdraw Taylor\u2019s guilty plea. The office then entered a \u201cno prosecution\u201d order, dismissing the charge against her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe \u2018false information\u2019 has since been determined to be true,\u201d the order stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Cadle case prompted the State Attorney\u2019s Office to adopt a policy that requires assistants to confer with the administration before charging a minor with filing a false report, spokesperson Jacob Orr said. Since then, the State Attorney\u2019s Office has charged three other juveniles with falsely reporting sexual abuse, Mother Jones reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Orr said that the office found \u201cirrefutable evidence proving the falsehood\u201d of the accusations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Taylor Cadle, the mother of two young children, told The Ledger in October that she resents never having received an apology from the Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office. Taylor, who expressed admiration for Judd in an interview with The Ledger, recently sent him an email expressing outrage that the agency “is still trying to silence my story.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Taylor wrote that the Sheriff’s Office had apparently deleted hundreds of comments about her from a TikTok story it posted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI thought you guys were supposed to help? Not silence a victim,\u201d Taylor wrote. “I stayed silent then but I will no longer stand for that!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Taylor said Wednesday that she has not received any response from Judd or anyone else at the Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI kind of feel like that was a given,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cI would hope for a response, but I truly and honestly didn’t think that it would happen. I just feel like the whole case by them is being ignored in general.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Eight years later, a Polk County sheriff\u2019s detective has received a \u201cletter of retraining\u201d over her handling of a rape complaint that yielded charges against a 12-year-old girl for filing… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNFwvMTJcLzc1OTcwMjg5MDA3LXRheWxvci0yLndlYnA_Zml0PTY2MCUyQzQ2OCZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6IlBvbGsgU2hlcmlmZiYjODIxNztzIGRldGVjdGl2ZSByZWNlaXZlcyB0cmFpbmluZyBvcmRlciBvdmVyIGhhbmRsaW5nIG9mIGdpcmwmIzgyMTc7cyAyMDE2IHJhcGUgY2xhaW0gYnV0IHN0aWxsIG5vIGFwb2xvZ3kgZm9yIFNoZXJpZmYgR3JhZHkgSnVkZCIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiaGlnaHdheSIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.tg-fnszl7MZiXVYfSaDkX-01Jv6E_5HKNkNCzf5XoccMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":52329,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/75970289007-taylor-2.webp","type":"image\/webp"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52328"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52331,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52328\/revisions\/52331"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}