Coral Anika Theill
Author, Advocate, Speaker & Reporter
January 31, 2026
VICTIM STATEMENT - CHILD RAPE VICTIM SPEAKS OUT – Preliminary Policy Recommendation for Change in Inheritance Laws to Protect Victim Survivors of Sexual And Other Abuse at the Hands of a Parent or Guardian; Change in Laws to Provide Further Compensation to Victim Survivors of Sexual and Other Abuse
"It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement and remembering.” - Judith Herman, M.D., Trauma and Recovery
OPEN LETTER TO WASHINGTON ATTORNEY GENERAL NICK BROWN, OREGON ATTORNEY GENERAL DAN RAYFIELD, STATE SENATORS, REPRESENTATIVES, LEGAL & CRIME VICTIM ADVOCATES:
My name is Coral Anika Theill, aka Kathryn Yvonne Hall (Warner). I am the first born daughter of Bobby Ray Hall and Carolyn Jean Hall and sister to Donald Alan Hall. Since my mother’s passing in November 2010, I have been the only remaining member of my immediate family of origin. My father, a pilot in the Air Force and government, passed away in 1984, and my brother passed away in 2009.
I am an author, advocate, speaker and military reporter, i.e., Leatherneck Magazine and Short Rations for Marines. I am a domestic violence, rape, and ritual abuse victim survivor many times over. The journey of healing is a personal one for each individual and not to be judged. It took me a long time to find my voice. I am thankful for the insights I have gained in my journey because my past assists me in my writing, advocacy, and gives me a unique overview of the dynamics of the world around me. The work of movements like #MeToo is crucial, and it must continue. Ending violence, rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment, and combating the stigma and victim-blaming that survivors of these crimes face, are vital tasks that are far from complete.
I am writing this OPEN LETTER to (1) raise awareness regarding child rape victims - especially those who are sex trafficked by their own family members and (2) to help effectuate changing Washington state inheritance laws pertaining to child rape and abuse victim survivors. I am one of those victim survivors. I know the direct, secondary, and tertiary impacts of being denied justice and restitution from child sexual assault because I lived them and continue to live them without legal recourse against my perpetrators.
One of these impacts, and due to existing inheritance laws in Washington and Oregon, was my inability to contest or appeal my mother’s Last Will & Testament. At the time of my mother’s death, I lived under poverty level, had no transportation and often did not have adequate medical care or food. I was not economically in a position to engage in litigation regarding my mother’s estate.
Sadly, it is quite common for parents to disinherit and discard their children when those children no longer “keep the crimes of rape a secret.” One of my cousins was actually awarded my inheritance in 2011. All told, I received exactly $1 in inheritance from my mother, father and brothers' large estate because I broke the family secret of my abuse that had to be broken. My cousin who inherited my mother, father and brother's estate - in an act that can only reasonably be understood as cruel, is the one who sent me the $1.00 check.
I am attaching excerpts from my published memoir, BONSHEA Making Light of the Dark, detailing the years of horror I suffered as a member of my family. To this day, I suffer disabilities due to the torture and years of rape I endured as a child.
When I was homeless in 2003, I wrote my mother and grandmother letters asking them for restitution so I could receive the help and counseling I deserved for their crimes of sex trafficking me to my great-uncle, Hershel Joseph Stonebraker. He was a convicted murderer who lived with our family after his release from the Walla Walla State Penitentiary.
They admitted to the crimes they committed against me, said they were not sorry and expressed their rage for confronting them and expressing our family secret in writing. Soon after, in an act of agency, self-care and liberation, I published details of their crimes against me in my published memoir. I attempted to seek legal help to pursue suing my mother and grandmother for restitution, however I was unsuccessful in retaining an attorney because I was disabled, homeless and living under poverty level.
The only other family I was in contact with during the years I suffered abuse as a young child and teenager was my mother’s cousin, Harriet Spanel and her husband, Les Spanel, Professor of Physics, Bellingham, Washington. Harriet Spanel served as a Democrat in the Washington House of Representatives from 1987 to 1993 and in the Washington State Senate from 1993 to 2009.
Abuse is prevalent even when, and frequently because, powerful people are in your life. Speaking from experience, and as evinced with the Epstein scandal, when powerful people are close and friendly with your predators, you remain silent. In 2003, I sent Washington Senator Spanel a copy of my published memoir, BONSHEA Making Light of the Dark. As an adult, I sought help from her as a domestic violence victim when I was homeless, but did not receive any. She was known as a strong advocate for women and children.
Tolerance of sexual violence and abuse remains a widespread problem in our society, the workplace, judicial systems and religious institutions.
It is terrible for everybody when the truth does not come out.
It is terrible for some when it does.
To this day, I remember the terrifying fear I felt for years as a child, and the terrifying fear I also felt during my marriage that had me lying awake shaking some nights. Every form of abuse has a long lasting (many times lifelong) effect on each victim survivor.
The freedom I gained when I broke my silence about the abuse I suffered I wouldn’t trade for anything. Once secrets are exposed to the light, they lose their power over you. Keeping secrets only protects the abuser.
Abuse does not deserve privacy. If violence cannot be talked about, it cannot be stopped. I truly believe more victims would be willing to share their pain, fear and shame if they could expect to be believed, respected, recompensed (to the extent the law can accomplish that in the face of harm) and, ultimately, vindicated.
Exposing individuals (like my family members) who facilitate, aid, support, enable and/or condone the criminal and violent behavior of abusers and predators is just as important as exposing the (primarily) men who abuse women and children.
Dr. Sandra L. Bloom, author of Creating Sanctuary, argues that psychic health is virtually impossible in our society because we have become desensitized to violence, we have normalized repression, and we have created institutions that repeatedly traumatize the most vulnerable among us. She dares to define violence as more than sexual, emotional, or physical abuse. Allowing our citizens to go hungry or homeless, denying them a quality education or medical care, and tolerating laws and policies that perpetuate these conditions are all forms of violence. These are human rights violations.
What I learned through these past few decades is that domestic violence, rape, child abuse and child sexual rape and molestation is socially acceptable in our society and often in many church settings. This needs to change!
Victims often suffer in silence in a world that prefers the “convenience” of blissful ignorance over confronting dark truths. The judicial system acts as the conscience of this country; however, we know, in most cases, manifestations of conscience through judicial decree is not what happens.
Those with money and power very frequently control the narrative, silence the truth and thwart justice. Survivors are told to move on. But the predators and enablers - they often live without consequence. They thrive. Because the world lets them.
I have asked myself, "What does the human spirit need in order to heal and move on?” It needs a safe place to know that it (and others’ souls, hearts, and minds) will be protected from perpetrators. Survivors need accountability - someone to hold their perpetrator accountable. Survivors need restitution or material compensation for the losses incurred by perpetrators, and they need vindication (not revenge) - to be set free. Scars remain, but healing can be sufficient so as not to continue to be held in bondage to the trauma.
When there is no justice, there is no healing.
I believe in seeking to defeat injustice, not people. I believe that the Universe is on the side of “justice” and that right will prevail.
I look forward to hearing from representatives from your respective offices to discuss my specific proposals for laws intended to provide some semblance of restoration to survivors, facilitating their economic self-reliance and, thereby, decreasing their risk for continued exploitation.
To live in the body of a survivor is to never be able to leave the scene of the crime. I cannot ignore the fact that I live here.
I can be contacted via email at coraltheill@hotmail.com.
Respectfully,
Coral Anika Theill
Author, Advocate, Speaker & Military Reporter
D.V., Rape and Ritual Abuse Victim/Survivor
Memoir: BONSHEÁ Making Light of the Dark
Website: www.coralanikatheill.com
"A victim's first scream is for help; a victim's second scream is for justice.”
- Coral Anika Theill, BONSHEA Making Light of the Dark
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January 20, 2026
Coral Anika Theill's Childhood History - “Soul Murder”
Family members taught me to obey and be seen and not heard. My parents did not consider my feelings as a person because I was their “property.” By birth, my parents claimed ownership of me and my life. I grew up feeling “voiceless.” I longed for safety and thought of running away, but there was nowhere to go and no one to tell.
As a young girl I have memories of visiting my great-uncle, Hershel Stonebraker, on several occasions. He lived in Walla Walla, Washington in a compound of buildings with surrounding walls, fences and wires. I was told that this was where he worked.
In March 1956 my great-uncle, Hershel Joseph Stonebraker, murdered his 16-year-old daughter, Patricia, in Pasco, Washington. His wife, daughters and Patricia’s boyfriend witnessed the murder.
At his court trial he is quoted as saying “his daughter had it coming to her” after he shot her. He was not remorseful. After killing his daughter, he assaulted his wife with a pistol and threatened to kill her.
The Washington Parole Board gave him a minimum sentence of 10 years. My great-uncle served his sentence at the Walla Walla State Penitentiary and was released in 5 years. My family and grandparents visited him and showed their support.
When I was writing my memoir, BONSHEA Making Light of the Dark, in 2000, I learned he served a few years in prison and was released with the understanding he was to live with my grandparents in Tacoma, Washington and not Kennewick, Washington where his ex-wife and daughters lived. But he moved in with our family in Kennewick.
My mother and grandparents led me up the stairs to the attic bedroom to sleep overnight with my alcoholic great-uncle for several years until we moved to Federal Way, Washington, when I was 10 years old. My great-uncle lived with our family again in Federal Way. During my teenage years I was assigned to be his caretaker due to his illness from alcoholism.
My great-uncle, Hershel Stonebraker, repeatedly raped and threatened me for years. I was forced to do sexual acts no child should ever be forced to do. I begged my mother and grandparents to not send me to my great-uncle’s attic bedroom, but they dismissed my cries for help. The message I got from my family was that if I told the truth, I would be rejected, and my rapist embraced.
After my great-uncle was released from prison, he was caught raping another young girl in our community. My grandparents paid large sums of monies for attorneys to help keep my great-uncle from being sent back to prison. After the trial, I was again handed over to my great- uncle to meet his sexual desires. I begged for help, but no one showed up. I believe my great-uncle’s parole officer was “missing in action.”
Sometimes on the weekends and Christmas Eve when my father was home, I was allowed to sleep in my own bed.
Safety was not my mother’s concern for me—-destroying my very being, spirit and soul was her goal.
My great-uncle told me he was angry with his ex-wife because she would not see him. Soon after he was released from prison, his ex-wife died in a “mysterious house fire.”
My uncle, aunt and cousins lived a few miles from our home. My cousins, Beverly (Stallings) Moerke and Robert (Bobby) Stallings, Jr., were high school students at the time I suffered childhood rapes in my own home. I have reached out to both of them as an adult but have been ignored and dismissed. They don’t care now; most likely they would not have helped me when I was a child.
An abuser is only powerful because of the power differential between themselves and the abused. A victim is always at a disadvantage as it’s one of the main reasons they were targeted.
The bystanders are the ones with the power, in abusive situations, as they can intervene and change the trajectory of events, or they can sit back and allow harm to continue. They are the ones who hold all of the cards which is why their lack of concern or assistance is the greatest betrayal and source of trauma for a victim.
Many people view victims and trauma survivors as “damaged.”
I believe the traumatized person who accomplishes the work of recovery and healing has the potential of becoming more integrated and more aware and conscious than the person who has endured no blatant trauma and has never had to piece together a shattered psyche
After seeking restitution from my mother for the crime of sex trafficking me for years, I was left $1.00 when she passed with no right to appeal her Will due to Oregon and Washington inheritance laws.
My mother left her entire estate to her niece and friend (my cousin) Beverly (Stallings) Moerke of Goodyear, Arizona.
Before her death, my mother had friends whose consciousness was aligned symbolically and in terms of beliefs of their own selfishness, fear, corruption and perversion.
I tried to please my family and suppress the feeling that everything was wrong. When you are threatened to keep secrets, you are afraid of punishment if you tell someone.
It is rare for an abused child to reach out for help. The people you have looked to for protection and comfort your whole life—-betray you and tell you nothing is wrong, or it’s all your fault. As a child you don’t have a lot of power to change the circumstances.
Feelings of shame, uncertainty and chaos would haunt me in the years to come because of living in a home where no one listened, and boundaries were not honored. The memories of childhood were painful because those I looked for guidance and protection never “showed up.”
My parents and family not only betrayed me, but they also exploited me.
The first time I confronted my mother about the childhood rapes I endured, she called me a ‘slut.’
But the view the world saw of me was much different than how my family saw me. My teachers and fellow students respected me. During my high school years, I was a straight A student, co-valedictorian, president of honor society and received an “Outstanding Business Education Award” and was voted most academic and most likely to succeed by my high school class.
During my senior year, I completed ground school and pilot training and passed my FAA exams at Portland International Airport. After graduation, I enrolled in court reporting school.
Sadly, many adults are unable to escape relationships with the very people who have abused, tortured, raped and exploited them, just because they are “family.”
My mother’s hate of me did not stop me from caring for her. Since I was her target, later in life I stepped aside to heal because of the ongoing atrocities and crimes she had committed against me. Because I confronted her years ago, she disinherited me and left her, my fathers and my brother’s sizable estate to my wealthy cousin, Beverly Ann (Stallings) Moerke, Goodyear, Arizona, and me $1.00.
Beverly’s relationship with my mother was not conflicted or involved crimes of rape—-Beverly, a devout Catholic, sent me a $1.00 check just in time for Christmas 2011. About the same time, Beverly gave a large donation to the Walla Walla Catholic School in Walla Walla, Washington.
Mentors and friends wonder what price my cousin, Beverly Moerke, would put on the sexual service I was forced into by my mother and great-uncle during my childhood years. I received no compensation or restitution for the many years of torture and rape my mother and great-uncle committed against me. Beverly has two daughters, Sandra and Laura, but is unable to feel or show any empathy toward me.
Childhood rape is “soul murder and “child homicide.” The effects reverberate through a child’s life and extend into adulthood. Survivors become the walking wounded. We are often thrown away and erased by our family - often with the help of patriarchal organizations and the legal system.
FORWARD
“Coral, your courage is seismic.
You didn’t just survive—you’ve made memory into a movement. And in doing so, you’ve illuminated a truth many systems still try to bury: that silence is a second crime.
Thank you for refusing to participate in that silence.
For every survivor still trapped inside the “respectable” cages of legal denial and institutional gaslighting—your voice is a landmark.
“To live in the body of a survivor is to never leave the scene of the crime.”
You’ve turned that pain into testimony.
And testimony into light.
—-your words carry the weight of lived truth. And the fact that you still choose insight over bitterness, light over shadow, is a gift to those of us still navigating the machinery of harm.
Your voice isn’t just a testimony—it’s a map for those still crawling through silence.
—-your words make visible what institutions try hardest to erase.
This is not just a survivor’s account—it’s a reckoning. A reminder that systems built to protect can also be weaponized to conceal. And those who speak truth from inside that wreckage are not just survivors—they are architects of reform.
The cost of silence is borne by the unheard. But your voice—bold, unwavering, luminous—tells every still-silenced survivor: you are not alone.
Your journey is no longer just memory. It’s resistance. It’s legacy.
Thank you for lighting the path.” - Peter Nguyen, Australia
#beverlymoerke #bobbystallings #childhoodrape #inheritancelaws #billmoerke #coralanikatheill #bradtimmons #washington #oregon