I'll do my best, but you must realize that I'm 67 now [2004], have a number of health problems and a leaky short-term memory. My long-term memory is not that bad, however, and the club did leave an indellible [sic] mark (a positive one) on my life. I first joined when I was a kid, back in '47 or '48. Charlestown at that time was a pretty tough neighborhood, and I felt safer hanging out in an indoor place with adults around. Around '49 or '50 I became active in the printing class, and had my picture in the Boston Globe when they did a feature on the Boy's Clubs. Yes, the swimming in the pool was all skinny-dip, but nobody made a big issue of that. I learned to swim in the club pool.
Charlestown was a very poor neighborhood of Boston, which is not to say that the children ran around barefoot. But clearly, these poor people had nothing.
The gym was in another building, which was connected to the main building by a tunnel. Downstairs from the gym there was a large locker room, and a medical room where all boys had a physical checkup each year. It was the first of those checkups that revealed I needed glasses -- a thing which the Boston Public Schools had failed to catch, dismissing my poor performance as laziness.
I also joined the photography class which took place in a darkroom located at the far end of the locker room beneath the gym. After only a few months, the photography instructor quit and the class was discontinued for a while. I was anxious for it to reopen and one day noticed that the door was open. Jubilant with that thought, I went in, and was unceremoniously ushered out by the person working in there. It could have been Ed Darragh; I'm not sure, since that was over half a century ago, and it was dark in there, but the voice was right.
Edward A. Darragh, Jr. was sentenced to life in prison at MCI Gardner Massachusetts after thirty-two charges of sexually assaulting children between 1966 and 1984. Ed Darragh worked and or volunteered at the Charlestown Boys Club at least since 1952. In 1963, immediately after the rape, he was finally kicked out. He worked as director of the Midget Division, where the youngest children at the Club were grouped, and as director of the swimming program, where nudity was required.
I then joined the radio class where I got into a fight with Bob Coony, a kid my age, and that fight resulted in my getting my ham-radio license, my crowning achievement up to that time. It led me into my career in electronics, but that's another story. I still have my last club ticket, dated 1952, after which we moved and my contact with the Club fell away. When I got my drivers' license in '58, I still had a strong sentimental attachment with the club, and fell in with the Bunker Hillbillies. (By the way, Robert Munstedt was not a boy's club member; he was an adult employee, director of the Bunker Hillbillies. He was a highly professional, no-nonsense gentleman whom I learned to highly respect. His son, Peter Munstedt joined the Bunker Hillbillies around 1961.)
Ed Darrah Attempts to Promote Pedophilia at the Charlestown Boys Club
In the late fifties, I was earning more money than was good for a kid fresh out of adolescense [sic]. I had acquired the then unheard-of luxure of a sound motion picture camera. I proposed to the management of the Boys' Club the idea of making a short movie lauding the club's work. They liked the idea, and Ed Darragh came to my home with two boys. (I think [redacted] was one of them.) There I shot some trial footage of Ed mediating a mock dispute between the boys. A few days later, Ed insisted that I take a tour of the Club (guided by him,) even though as a long-time alumnus I knew the club like the back of my hand. After proudly showing me the gym, he showed me the room where kids were given their annual physical checkups -- a place I was already familiar with. He insisted on "demonstrating" by having a kid strip as if for a physical. That was unnecessary. Afterward he showed me the Junior game room, also a place I knew very well.
Ed Darragh's Second Attempt to Promote Pedophilia at the Charlestown Boys Club
You may recall that the Junior game room had a large stage at one end, on either side of which was an anteroom. Game equipment was controlled and administered from the ante room to the right of the stage; the ante room to the left was a storage room. Darragh told me of a sort of inner circle he had within the club, and invited me to watch the "initiation" ceremony for that inner circle. He ushered the initiate into the storage room at the left of the stage. There he blindfolded the boy, had him drop his pants, and after a little ceremonial mumbo-jumbo, goosed the kid with a piece of cold metal. That was the "initiation." I didn't feel very good about Ed after that, and I backed off from that particular project. Looking back in retrospect, I should have reported it higher up, but I was new in my activity with the club as an adult, and the upper brass was still a bit suspicious of my own motives.
I continued to tag along with the Bunker Hillbillies, shooting a lot of movie footage of them, all at my own expense. Some of that footage may still exist somewhere in the club. as [sic] I came to be more trusted by the club staff, I took one of the Bunker Hillbillies to New York City [see image below], along with some of my movie footage, in an effort to get them on the Ed Sullivan show. I also helped produce a booklet about the Bunker Hillbillies in 1961 (see attachment), and paid the club to send an occasional boy to camp. I never knew what boys were sent with that money or how they were selected. I did all that at my own, out-of-pocket expense, never asking for or receiving any reimbursement from the club management. I felt I owed it to the club, and have nothing to regret or be ashamed of throughout the several years of realtionship [sic]. In 1963, I got married and moved out of town, losing touch with the club and the Bunker Hillbillies. In all fairness to the top brass, recalling how suspiciously they watched me untill [sic] I'd proven myself, I honestly believe that, had they known of Darragh's shenannigans [sic], they'd have fired him without hesitation. However, I also know that they were hyper sensitive of the club's public image and would certainly have gone to great lengths to keep the matter quiet. [Editor's note: In fact, the Club knew full well what was happening but lacked the judgement to know that what was happening was wrong. Both Edmund Moussally and a second Charlestown Club member, in addition to this one, knew what Ed Darragh was doing back then and have said so in witing.] As for myself, I'd just as soon keep my name out of the limelight. I am an old man with a bad heart, taking care of a critically-sick wife. However, if you have any contact with some of the boys -- Jim and Dana Kelly, Neil Mclaughlin, for instance, I would love to hear from them and find out how they fared in their lives.
