Document trail: Floyd David Slusher

Clay Evans was a 13-year-old Scout in Boulder, Colo., when scoutmaster Floyd David Slusher allegedly tried to molest him in 1975. Evans said Slusher, who was in his early 20s, pulled him and a younger Scout into a station wagon’s back seat during a campout. He told them he was a bisexual who would teach them about masturbation and that they would start with hugging and kissing and then “move on to other things.”

Evans said he and the other boy declined and scrambled out of the car.

“Dave came to me later and said in a panic, ‘I want to hypnotize you right now so you’ll forget what happened,’ ” Evans recalled in an interview. “That scared me even more.”

Later that summer, Evans told his father, and they reported the incident to troop committee members. But he said they suggested he might have misunderstood or exaggerated. They took no action. Nobody contacted the police.

Another Scout made a similar allegation against Slusher, also in 1975; troop officials confronted the scoutmaster, but felt there was insufficient evidence. Slusher was arrested in 1977 for molesting several Scouts. He was convicted of sexual assault on a minor and sentenced to “one day to life.” Paroled in 1984, he was arrested again in 1989 and charged with three counts of sexual exploitation of children. He was convicted and sentenced to 50 years in prison.

The files reveal Slusher had been dismissed as a Scout camp staffer in Germany in 1972 for sexually abusing a youth. U.S. Scouting officials put him on probation and let him continue in Scouting.

Evans, now a 50-year-old marketing manager and writer in Niwot, Colo., said he’s still angry that Scout officials ignored his complaint.