Asked what she did wrong, she told the stunned teacher that her father treated her as his wife, raped her repeatedly and even stopped her from taking birth control so she could have his child. 5 William Goler considered his daughter Sandra as his wife 5 The depraved Goller even wanted to have a baby with his daughter 5 The Golers live in a remote part of Canada, away from prying eyes Sandra opened up about the horrific abuse she suffered at the hands of dad William, which began when she was just nine years old, lifting the lid on a family whose depraved lifestyle shocked Canada. Evil Goler headed an incestuous family described as a “hillbilly sex ring”, living in an isolated mountain community away from prying eyes. Thirteen adults from the notorious clan were eventually jailed after being found guilty of 100 counts of incest and other sexual offenses with children aged between six and 14. William, his common-law wife Wanda Whiston and his brother Tom, along with other male and female family members, were among those convicted. Their story mirrors that of the Colts – dubbed the world’s most purebred family – in which patriarch Tim Colt on an ‘inbreeding’ farm in Australia, where he raped his daughters with his sons and fathered their children. The story of the Goler clan was told in the best-selling book ‘On South Mountain’, which reveals the heartbreaking moment Sandra lifted the lid on what had happened to her. After the teacher tentatively asked Sandra what was wrong, she replied that her father “made her”. “You know… using me… like his wife. F***** me,” he said. The book describes how child welfare workers were immediately called in with one, Dale Germaine, assigned to interview Sandra in January 1984. She talked about William “doing, ‘f****, and screwing her” since she was nine or ten, the book says. Because the abuse had gone on for so long, Sandra couldn’t remember exactly how many times they had sex, but she estimated it was “fifteen or twenty times a month.” But while the dates had been combined into one, Sandra was adamant about one thing: “I don’t want to be used as a wife anymore.” Sandra was immediately taken into care and the police began to look into her allegations. One of the investigators, Corporal Baxter Upsall of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, believed there was more to her story than she was letting on. He had experience investigating incest, so he began questioning Sandra more. She told the officer that William had forbidden her to use birth control because she wanted to have his child. I don’t want to be used as a husband anymore Sandra Goler But from her answers, Upsall also concluded there was more going on in the family, so he and a colleague decided to question Sandra’s sisters Donna and Lisa, who also received care. Despite their gruff appearance, social workers were surprised at how sensitive Upsall and his colleague were with the girls, including gaining their trust with trips to buy hamburgers. One day after answering questions for an hour Donna suddenly fell silent and looked at the police officer and the social worker and began to speak. “He did me too. I don’t want her to stop doing Lisa,” she said. Her words kicked off two days of questioning which lifted the lid on the horrific incest in the family. William Goller not only had sex with his daughters but also with his sisters, four daughters between the ages of five and 12. Sandra and Donna also told how he sexually assaulted his nephews, aged nine and 14.
HARD LIFE OF AMOICA
William Goler was soon arrested and initially denied any wrongdoing, although he hired an expensive lawyer despite not having much money. He was revealed to rule his family with an iron rod, once slamming his car boot into Sandra’s toes as punishment. Twenty people crammed into the house – aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, and brothers and sisters. The family’s life was a miserable squalor with rubbish piled up in the rooms until the stench became so overwhelming that the children were ordered to clean it up. Eventually the interrogation led to more adults becoming involved in abuse and the other children being taken into care. Two years later the case went to court where Donna revealed that William allowed family members to have sex with her children in exchange for beer or cigarettes. When authorities began to dig into their past, it was found that incest had been a way of life for over 100 years. The prosecutor described the case as “something out of the movie Deliverance” – which is famously depicted playing in America’s deep south. Decades of inbreeding had taken their toll on the family, and their defense lawyer, Bob Levy, told Canadian television that the family was “on another planet” and “pushed out of bounds”. Their intelligence levels were in the “bottom one or two percent” of society, he said. William Goller was sentenced to seven years in prison for incest, gross indecency and abuse. The family’s 12 children were put up for adoption by families to start new lives with new identities and reportedly made good progress. Donna continued to campaign for the rights of abused children and for a change in the law so that young relatives of pedophiles could never be left alone. 5 His wife Wanda Wiston was convicted of sexually assaulting eight children 5 William’s brother Tom was jailed for three years for abusing a nephew and niece
