A friend and life-long colleague is accused of child molestation and they quit work. How do you relate to them after that?

It’s a person you’ve known and admired for maybe as many as 40 years. They do an excellent job, and have earned significant awards in your field. They are well respected.

Then multiple accusations of child molestation appear, out of the blue. The statute of limitations is past, so there will be no criminal cases or lawsuits. Your colleague quits immediately and is seen no more at the office.

How do you process this? Do you reach out to the person? If so, for what purpose? Do you want to know why? Would you expect them to admit it if they did it? If you don’t expect them to admit it, even if true, how do you explain what they did to yourself?

Was there some lapse in your judgment of people? Should you have been able to know? Was this crime perhaps an understandable one? Was there some hidden darkness in your friend that you always wondered about?

Is there some darkness in all of us that is closer than we want to admit? Are we all a bit closer to an evil like this than we want to think? Kind of in the way that so many Germans fell prey to Nazi ideology and behavior?

Does knowing this person give you any better of an idea about what leads people to engage in this kind of molestation? Or do you wipe them out of your mind and acquaintance once you see what they are capable of?