ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- The man who called himself "Papa Pilgrim" wanted his children to be illiterate, isolated and obedient to his interpretation of the Bible, says the family who call themselves victims of his sexual and physical abuse.


Robert Hale, 66, is also known as "Papa Pilgrim." Some family members want him to go to prison.

1 of 3 The family is now urging a judge to send the man, 66-year-old Robert Hale, to prison for a long time. Sentencing was set for Tuesday.

Hale was convicted of sexually assaulting an adult daughter. His plea agreement calls for a sentence of about 14 years.

Hale and his family first came to prominence in Alaska during a feud with the National Park Service. Family members used a bulldozer without permission to clear an abandoned mining road to get to their land.

National land rights advocates rallied to their cause and stories featured their plight as a case of big government vs. simple God-fearing, music-loving, live-off-the-land folks.

But that rustic image was a facade, Hale's wife testified Monday during a sentencing hearing.

Fighting back tears, Kurina Rose Hale compared the family to a city -- beautiful to outsiders but plagued on the inside by bad water and barren ground. Robert Hale ruled his family by fear and abuse, she said.

"I've never been able to say these things in his presence without objection and the possibility of a threat, and it scared me," she said.

Hale forbid his children to marry and would not allow his sons to cut their hair or beards. He refused to allow his children to learn how to read, she said.

Patriarch of a family of 17, Hale insisted that he had a perfect spiritual understanding, his wife testified.

"This is how he justified all his immoral activity," she said.

Hale was accused of persuading one child that she was a "special kind of daughter" and that she must have sex with him.

Kurina Rose Hale said she was wracked with guilt for not taking steps to stop the abuse.

"I can see how wrong I was for not finding help," she said.

Joseph Hale, the oldest son, testified that his father made his five oldest sons sleep together wearing only underwear into their teens.

There was sexual abuse among the brothers, he and others said. When his father found out, he beat the five oldest boys, requiring them to stretch out over a "beating barrel" and administering lashes with a three-cord riding crop.

"He beat us unmercifully for that for months," Joseph Hale said.

He testified that he initially could not believe that his father had been sexually assaulting his sister because the boys had been beaten so severely for their transgressions.

"He constantly lied to me and his older boys when we confronted him," he said.

The sexual abuse culminated with an incident in the tiny community of McCarthy, where Hale locked his daughter in a shed for three days, sexually assaulted, and beat her so badly her face looked like a black and blue basketball, according to another daughter's testimony.

Soon after, she and another daughter left on a snowmobile and contacted authorities.
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Once again we see a freak using religion to condone his own sinful lust. I hope this man dies in jail.

Sounds horrible, but I bet it would make for a good movie.

Horrible... just horrible. So glad the woman and her kids could escape. Hopefully they can be helped enough so they can function well in society.

But.... this has nothing to do with religion as a whole, and everything to do with a sick, twisted power freak.

Your gonna tell me that someone in this dysfunctional family couldn't have stopped all this crap...Im sick of hearing about how the wife was threatened and fears for her life, yet lets this crap go on with her kids...And the boys couldn't do anything about it either..Power and control freaks are the worse...I'm glad they finally did escape, and hope they get the help they need...

It almost reminds me of a V.C. Andrews novel.

Isn't that about those kids in an attic?

I said "using religion". By these quotes, he was using his religion to do what he wanted to his family.

Patriarch of a family of 17, Hale insisted that he had a perfect spiritual understanding.

The man who called himself "Papa Pilgrim" wanted his children to be illiterate, isolated and obedient to his interpretation of the Bible.

He had brought a folder of papers and a Bible into the courtroom.

The woman was probably abused before she had the kids, while the kids were growing up, and onward.... They were secluded and she probably had no one to turn to.

What good would she be dead to her kids? She fears for her life, but leaving her kids defenseless against him would be worse, right? I was an in abusive marriage. Any anger against abused people just shows lack of understanding.

That's not supposed to be a snippy attack, by the way. If you weren't abused as the person in the situation was abused, you can't understand it. And that's a good thing.

Yup. Really weird, incestual stories. I read one book, and that was enough for me. Sick, sick woman who thought up those stories, but, obviously there are others int his world, since this stuff happens in real life.

It's very unfortunate. but what you say is very true. I know from personal experience that trying to get out of a abusive relationship is very hard. And what makes it the hardest is that you are cut off from everyone, family, friends who do you turn to for help? I was luck enough to have a very understanding sister who I finally broke down to and she helped me more than I ever expected.

Clearly this B*****d kept his family secluded and uneducated and in constant fear of him! I can,t imagine what that was like for this family. But years of that would no doubt leave it,s mark on the strongest of individuals, so not going for help is something i can understand! They were warped in their ability to think and draw rational conclusions, and no doubt believed that if they tried to get help and failed worse would happen to them! The fact is HE is the villian in all this, and no matter what you or i think we would have done to stop this from happening or continuing we can never know what or how we would have reacted in this situation! I,m just glad they have the creep behind bars, and i hope he never gets out! As for the family, they have a long road of painfull healing ahead of them, and i pray they can make it!

But I do understand it...Everyone has a different way of looking and handling this kind of a situation....It just irks the hell out of me, everytime I read something like this....

He was found guilty and got 15 years.

I'm glad he got 15 years.....Although it seems that it's going to take longer than that for is family to get back to a normal life, if they ever do......

I agree! 15 may be to less though. But i hope that family communicate their problems and work things out to become a stronger family.

I sure hope they can overcome this, but it was such a big part of their developing lives, the children may have hangups for the rest of their lives.