Teri Hatcher's Uncle Dies in Prison

[Brian Damage]

The former Sunnyvale engineer who "Desperate Housewives" star Teri Hatcher helped put in prison for molesting two young girls, one of whom committed suicide, has died of colon cancer.

Richard Hayes Stone, Hatcher's former uncle, had been serving a 14-year sentence when he died Tuesday at the Alvarado Medical Center in San Diego, according to Craig Ostendorf, a spokesman for Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in Blythe.

Stone, 70, had been in prison for six years.

"It closes the book on a very, very sad tragedy," said Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Chuck Gillingham, who prosecuted Stone. "Unfortunately those who are still alive will always suffer from his actions."

In 2002, Sunnyvale teenager Sarah Van Cleemput shot herself in the head leaving behind a note that said: "You're probably thinking a normal teenager doesn't do this; well, ask Dick!"

According to prosecutors, "Dick" was Stone, a former engineer at National Semiconductor who was a trusted family friend of the Van Cleemputs. The families vacationed together.

After reading about the case while visiting her parents in her native Sunnyvale, Hatcher contacted prosecutors. She told Gillingham that Stone molested her, too, when she was a child.

Gillingham flew to Los Angeles with a Sunnyvale public safety officer to take Hatcher's

statement.

"When we went to interview her, she almost canceled," Gillingham told the Mercury News in March 2006. "But she had been with her daughter that morning and was thinking if, God forbid, something happened to her daughter that someone would come forward and do the right thing."
With a tape recorder running, Hatcher explained in detail how her uncle - the then-husband of her mother's sister - allegedly molested her in the late 1960s and early '70s when she was no more than 7.

In 2006, Hatcher told Vanity Fair magazine that at the time she talked to the authorities, she was afraid if her story came out in the tabloids, she would be seen as a has-been actress seeking publicity.

"At the end of the day, there was no way I was not going to put this girl first, before whatever damage might be done to me," Hatcher told the magazine.

After prosecutors gave the defense a transcript of Hatcher's interview, Stone pleaded guilty Oct. 24, 2002, leaving no need for a trial nor a court appearance for Hatcher.

Two years later came the premiere of "Desperate Housewives," which rejuvenated Hatcher's career.

http://www.mercurynews.com/valley/ci...nclick_check=1

[Amanda Woodward]

Good riddance

[Schmoopie]

He sounds like a monster!

[knicksfan89]

it is a very sad tale, as a DH fan, my condolences go to teri hatcher