How Could You? Hall of Shame-Henry Cadle and Lawsuit UPDATED

This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

From Lakeland, Florida, adoptee Taylor Cadle “sought help from the police when her great uncle and adoptive father, Henry Cadle of Lakeland, Fla., was sexually abusing her.””

“Instead of putting him in cuffs, [Taylor] Cadle, then 13, was charged with lying to authorities.”

“Cadle was adopted by Henry and his wife after she spent a year and a half in foster care, de Leon reports. She stopped living with her mother when she was 7, per de Leon.

Scared and unsure of what to do, Cadle listened to her adoptive mother’s advice to plead guilty “and get it over with,” she told De Leon.

After entering her guilty plea for filing false information to a law enforcement officer, she was sentenced to probation, court documents show, The Ledger reported.”

“Determined to prove that Henry was abusing her, Cadle took pictures during a subsequent attack, photographing an empty condom box, a clock inside his vehicle and the suspect himself walking outside of the truck, De Leon reported.”

“When Cadle went to the authorities in 2017, she had proof of what she alleged Henry had done to her. In 2019, he was sentenced to 17 years in prison for sexual battery of a minor, The Ledger reported.”

“Her charges were overturned, PBS NewsHour reports.”

https://people.com/taylor-cadle-teen-sexually-abused-collective-evidence-proof-8737926

[People 11/5/24 by KC Baker]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

Update:

“Taylor Cadle is suing the police for allegedly making her write an apology letter to the adoptive father who raped her.

The 22-year-old has alleged that staff at Polk County Sheriff’s Office in Florida, USA, accused her of lying to investigators. Filed in a district court on 10 October, she claims Henry Cadle sexually abused her between the ages of nine and 13.

It allegedly began after she had been transferred from foster care into the custody of him and his wife in 2012. Taylor claims that the reason why she didn’t initially report Henry is because she worried she would end up placed back in foster care.

Online court records reviewed by PEOPLE show that Henry has since been convicted of sexual battery of a child between the ages of 12 and 18, committed by a custodian. The lawsuit says the investigation began in July 2016, following a church member reporting claims to officials at the local sheriff’s office after Taylor confided in them.

Following the accusations, the lawsuit alleges that during an interview with Henry and law enforcement, investigator Melissa Turnage said to him: “Basically, Taylor [Plaintiff], I guess, has made up these allegations, okay? “That you have been sexually abusing her.” The man declined to take a polygraph test (a lie detector) for the investigation and is alleged to have boasted to officials that he ‘had sex with a lot of people in the shower with my eyes closed’.

Turnage claimed in the police report that there was no evidence of abuse and accused Taylor of lying during a criminal investigation, with Sheriff Grady Judd among those also named. She alleges that Henry’s wife pressured her into pleading guilty to this and that as part of her probation, police made her write apology notes to the man.

Two handwritten letters were included in the lawsuit with one addressed to the adoptive dad and the other to an ‘officer’.

One reads: “Dear dad, I’m sorry for what I did. I didn’t stop and think of my consequences of these actions. This will not happen again & I’m sorry. Taylor Cadle 6-29-17.”

The other to the unnamed officer includes: “I know what I did wasn’t right therefore I face my consequences.” Still a child at the time, she was returned to Henry’s custody but went on to record his abuse of her in secret the following month. Eventually resulting in his arrest and conviction according to the records reviewed by PEOPLE, her lawsuit explains that she showed photographic evidence to the police.

In her suit, she is asking for ‘compensatory damages and special damages, punitive damages, cost disbursements, pre- and post-judgment interest and attorney’s fees’.

The Polk’s County Sheriff’s Office regarded the lawsuit as a publicity stunt and told LADbible in a statement: “Unfortunately, in today’s highly litigious society, lawyers file lawsuits that include false and misleading accusations, including second guessing nine year old criminal investigations.

In this case, our deputies did an extensive investigation and made deliberate and rational decisions [my ass!] based upon the information and evidence we had at the time. “We look forward to vigorously defending against the baseless and fabricated allegations included in the lawsuit in court. The child rapist Henry Cadle was arrested by our agency in 2017 for custodial sexual battery of a minor and he was convicted and sentenced to 17 years in Florida State Prison.”” [You suck, Polk County Sheriff’s office!]

Woman sues police for allegedly making her write an apology letter to her rapist father

[LADBible 11/2/25 by Jess Battison]