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School-Bus Witch On Trial
A boy testifies that the woman who drove him to middle school every day repeatedly had sex with him, until he called it quits over her kinky demands.
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by Denise Lavoie
BRIDGEPORT, Conn., August 2, 1996 - She called him "L.B." -- for "little boy -- and sent him love letters signed in blood and decorated with supernatural symbols. Kerri Lynn Patavino, a self-proclaimed witch, was his 26-year-old bus driver who wrote of seeing his "aura." He was a 14-year-old middle school student. The two had sex for months, the boy said, until he began to fear Patavino's taste for the bizarre.
Once, after she cut her arm with a razor blade, "she made me lick the blood," the boy testified as Patavino's sexual assault trial began yesterday. Patavino, a married mother of three, is accused of having sex more than 50 times in 1995 with the teen, who was a student on her bus route in Trumbull. She is also charged with breaking into the boy's home after he ended their alleged affair, stealing a ring,, videotapes, a skateboard and other possessions.
Patavino, now 28, wore a pentagram medallion -- a witchcraft symbol -- around her neck in court. She could face more than 20 years in prison if convicted.
When the boy, now 16, testified that she had sometimes given him marijuana and crack cocaine, she looked at the ceiling, shook her head and said, "Oh, my God."
The lanky teen, who is not being identified because of his age, smiled and fidgeted uncomfortably as he told the jury about his first sexual encounter with Patavino. He said they had sex about four times a week from February through June 1995. He was the first student on her bus every day, and she greeted him with a love note and a kiss, he said. On the way home, she would drop him off at a store, drop off her bus, then come back and pick him up.
Prosecutor Stephen Sedensky III read aloud letters that police said were decorated with witchcraft symbols and signed in Patavino's blood. "I am a witch and I see your aura.... Your spirit is good; use it, use it," reads one letter. When asked what "L.B." referred to in the letters, the boy hesitated, then said that Patavino called him a little boy.
The boy said he finally told his mother about the relationship in June 1995 after Patavino began to bother him, calling incessantly. The mother took the boy to the police. Defense lawyer Joseph Mirsky tried to show that Patavino's bus company found nothing improper after investigating a complaint that she had taken the boy home late at night.
Patavino had said her husband was friendly with the boy's father and that the father knew the boy sometimes visited her home, according to testimony from Gail Avery-Cross, a contract manager for Ryder Student Transportation Services Inc. "We were satisfied with her explanation of why she was with this child," Avery-Cross said. Nonetheless, Patavino was eventually suspended.
Bus driver Gale Somers testified that Patavino had
tried to take over her high school bus route just as the boy was finishing
middle school. "She said she would try to get me off" the bus route
because there was a boy she wanted to drive, Somers said.
Witch Convicted of Statutory Rape
by Chuck Shepard
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. - School bus driver Kerri Lynn Patavino, 28, was convicted of statutory rape in Bridgeport, Connecticut, for having sex with a 14-year-old passenger, who said Patavino cast a spell on him and made him lick her blood. According to the boy, the two had sex more than a dozen times, and she sent him love letters signed in blood. Patavino admitted that she is a follower of Wicca, an ancient, witchcraft-practicing religion.
Bus-Driver Witch Appeals Conviction
BRIDGEPORT, Conn., November 11, 1998 - A practicing
witch and school bus driver is appealing a sexual assault conviction.
The woman was found guilty of sexual assault for having sex with a 14-year-old
student is appealing her conviction. Kerri Lynn Patavino, of Monroe, was
convicted in August 1996 of five counts of second-degree sexual assault and six
counts of risk of injury to a minor for luring the boy into a sexual
relationship. She was sentenced to six years in prison, but has remained free
on a $35,000 bond while she appeals the conviction.
It was unclear what issues Patavino will cite in her appeal. Because the case
involves a minor, the court file is sealed and court documents outlining the
appeal were not accessible. Her appellate lawyer, H. Jeffrey Beck, did not
return repeated telephone calls seeking comment.
Oral arguments were scheduled Thursday morning before the state Appellate Court
in Hartford.
Patavino was a pretty, 26-year-old school bus driver who also happened to be a
witch. Her accuser was a 14-year-old middle school student on her bus route in
Trumbull. She called him "l.b." - for little boy - in love letters
signed in blood. The boy claimed they had sex more than 50 times.
Patavino's trial featured sometimes lurid testimony about sex, curses and
spells. Her accuser testified that Patavino seduced him after taking him out
for pizza a month before his 15th birthday. He said they had sex about four
times a week from March through June 1995. The boy said he tried to break off
the relationship after she started making him do "weird things,"
including cutting herself with a razor during sex and forcing him to lick her
blood. He said Patavino refused to let him go, casting a witch's spell on him
to make him stay. The boy finally told his mother, who brought him to police.
Patavino has a nonpublished telephone number and could not be reached for
comment. Patavino is a follower of Wicca, an ancient, nature-based religion
practiced by witches.
Witches Express Relief as Vexing Case Is Closed
By David M. Herrszenhorn
BRIDGEPORT, Conn., August 11, 1999 -- To the relief of witches throughout Connecticut, the case of Kerri Lynn Patavino appears to be closed once and for all.
In the case's final chapter, Mrs. Patavino, a 32-year-old former school-bus driver and follower of Wicca, the witchcraft religion, who was convicted in 1996 of having a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old boy, returned to court this week to admit her guilt and to request that her prison sentence be reduced.
The admission meant one last round of headlines in Connecticut newspapers about witchery and of stories recounting the prosecution's allegations that Mrs. Patavino, a mother of two, had used a boy on her bus route in rituals of sex and blood-drinking on a bed atop a large pentagram in her home in Monroe, Conn.
Witches, who say their religion has more to do with nature worship than with dark, occult practices, say it is time for the case to fade away.
"Whatever religion somebody is doesn't change the fact that you have folks who do rotten things," said Dawn Debbe, a witch in Hamden who teaches classes in Wicca and magic, including spell casting.
"I don't think that the emphasis should have been on the fact that she is a witch," Ms. Debbe said. "One of the things that bothered me a lot was that they had declared her in the headlines here as an alleged witch, which cracked me up because you never hear of an alleged Catholic or an alleged Lutheran."
Mrs. Patavino was convicted of multiple counts of sexual abuse and risking injury to a minor and was sentenced to six years in prison. In exchange for her admission of guilt, prosecutors did not oppose her request for a shorter sentence. And on Tuesday, Judge Joseph T. Gormley Jr. cut the sentence by one year.
Mrs. Patavino's lawyer, H. Jeffrey Beck, said his client was disappointed that the judge did not cut her sentence further. He said that religion had not factored into her appeal and was not discussed in the letter to the court in which she dropped her professions of innocence and accepted responsibility.
Mr. Beck said that from conversations with Mrs. Patavino he understood her Wicca beliefs to be "very positive." "It's not flying around and broomsticks and devil-worship," he said. "It's kind of an earthy religion, very holistic, that she practices, at least."
Although for a while Mrs. Patavino and her supporters asserted that she was being persecuted for her religion, Mr. Beck said that the state's evidence was strong and that she probably would have been convicted "whether she was a witch or a werewolf."
After her arrest, several witches set up a defense fund and argued her cause in various online Wicca newsletters, one of which, "Jane's Tidings," criticized the "lurid publicity" around the case "that emphasized and cheapened her religion."
Local witches were equally critical this week. "They emphasize the witch part all the time, which hurts any positive accomplishments that others have made," said Beverly Safko, the owner of The Magik Mirror, a witchcraft store in Milford.
The total number of witches in Connecticut is not known, but Ms. Safko said she herself maintained a mailing list of about 800 people. And the Connecticut Wiccan Resource page lists more than two dozen covens and other witch groups in addition to the Pagan Community Church in Bridgeport.
Prosecutors had alleged that Mrs. Patavino used the 14-year-old boy to celebrate "The Great Rite," an act of ritual sex that is a central tenet of Wicca, symbolizing the male-female polarity in the universe. Witches say participation in the rite is always voluntary.
But Ms. Debbe, not inclined to automatically approve the behavior of a fellow witch, noted that since "children can't give consent," voluntary participation by the teenager was impossible.
"I don't care if you are going to call it the Great Rite or what you are going to call it," she said. "But religions also have to work within the guidelines of the law and the guidelines of the age of reason."