Print edition: 
The sound Elizabeth Tally remembers is a Polaroid camera clicking, then buzzing — a snapshot taken, another loaded.
As a child, she heard the sounds over and over.
As a child, Tally suffered sexual abuse for years. A camera, which spit out instant images of her in sexual poses, became a tool to perpetrate crimes against her.
A man she knew as Uncle Charles — Charles F. Anderson — sexually abused her and documented his crimes by taking pictures of her in sexual poses, Tally says and records show.
"Even though it hurt and was scary, he made it a game," she said.
Beneath each picture, Anderson — who is being considered for parole — would write a caption with the date it was taken, she said.
In the summer of 1994, before Anderson was convicted, investigators seized hundreds of pictures from his Wichita home, according to a 1995 Eagle article. The pictures show a blond girl from age 8 to 11.
That girl was Tally. She is 29 now, a mother of three, and still lives in the Wichita area. She works at a warehouse and wholesale store.
Unless someone knew what she survived, they wouldn't know why she won't let her hair go back to its natural blond, or why she won't let her daughters go to a swimming pool or slumber party.
"I don't trust anybody," she said.
Her motivation
She has a purpose in publicly talking about experiences that others might want to bury.
By putting a face and a name to the crimes she suffered, she hopes to promote awareness that could prevent other children from being harmed, she said.
A statistic that Tally cites — the statistic that motivates her — is that about one in four children are sexually abused. She can't purge that from her mind.
(Some national surveys suggest that the percentage of victims is even higher for girls: one out of three females before they reach 18, and one out of seven males.)
Tally is speaking out as the Kansas Parole Board is considering whether Anderson would be eventually released to parole supervision. She is asking the board to deny him parole.
If the board granted him parole, he would first have to serve a 34-month sentence in prison, which could be reduced if he earned credit for good behavior, said Bill Miskell, spokesman for the Kansas Department of Corrections. The earliest Anderson could be released would be July 2012, Miskell said.
If he were to be freed, he would be on parole supervision for two years.
Raising awareness
Tally wants everyone to watch for child abuse.
"Talk to your neighbor," she said.
"Don't pretend like this doesn't happen, because it does."
She thinks schools can do a better job of helping children understand that it is wrong for someone to touch them or manipulate them in certain ways.
She believes that if she had heard the right message as a child or if she had had a chance to act out with dolls in front of the right adult, someone would have seen a sign that something was wrong in her life.
Without enough awareness, children won't realize they have been victims and won't speak up, she said.
Her motivation is also about control: taking control of her life. And, in a way, defeating the man she says controlled her for so long in harmful, selfish and bizarre ways.
She describes a make-believe world that he created where he treated her as if she were his girlfriend or wife.
One of the snapshots she still has shows her at age 9 standing by a tree where he carved their initials inside a heart, she said.
"He didn't view me at all as a child."
Forgiven, not forgotten
Anderson, now 61, remains in Hutchinson Correctional Facility, convicted of crimes against Tally from 1992 to 1994: one count of attempted rape, 12 counts of sexual exploitation of a child and four counts of indecent liberties with a child.
He has been in prison since September 1995, serving a Sedgwick County sentence of 23 to 70 years, records show.
With an adjustment for "good-time credit" — for time served without serious discipline — this is the second time he has been eligible for parole. The first, in 2007, the board decided to pass on consideration for him, delaying a possible decision until now.
On Monday, Tally will address the Parole Board when it holds a public comment session at the Finney State Office Building in downtown Wichita.
She plans to present thousands of signatures she has collected on a petition urging the board not to grant Anderson parole. It could be a few weeks before the board decides.
Tally argues that Anderson would pose a threat to her and to children.
Anderson, who was scheduled to appear before the board in a closed session this past Tuesday, could not be reached for comment.
"I have forgiven him," Tally said, "but I will never forget."
Crimes against a child
This is what she recalls or what she has learned:
Anderson married into her family.
As a child, she was like a "tumbleweed," going from home to home.
"I know I lived with him for a couple years."
She contends that Anderson's convictions do not include all of the crimes he committed against her.
According to records, the first of the crimes for which he was convicted occurred on March 20, 1992, when Tally was 11. The crime: one count of indecent liberties with a child.
The next crime — attempted rape — occurred on Jan. 1, 1993, when she was still 11. The charge said that Anderson pushed Tally onto a bed and tore her shirt while trying to have intercourse.
Anderson seemed generous at times, she said. He spoiled her with material things. He kept her in new shoes. He took her to every state fair and monster truck rally. They shared vacations in Colorado.
He also had her dress up in cheerleader and maid's outfits and took pictures of her.
"Any costume you can imagine," she said.
She has concluded that he could not overcome a sexual attraction to children.
"Some people are attracted to redheads. Some people are attracted to kids. ... There's boundaries, but those people don't have boundaries."
Sometimes, he bound her or inserted objects into her or put her in a cage, she said.
Anderson's crimes against Tally also involved his possession of sexually explicit photographs of her on June 17, 1994, the records say. Those crimes led to convictions on 12 counts of sexual exploitation of a child.
How it affects her
The objects that he put into Tally when she was a girl caused tearing and scarring, she said. She feared the injuries would make it difficult for her to have children. She feels blessed by God that she has children.
She bears emotional scars as well.
She has a name for what she sometimes experiences: post-traumatic stress disorder.
Something will remind her of him, and for her "it's like I can feel that he is touching me. He is taking tape off of me."
Once while she was at a park with her daughters, a boy walked by wearing blue sneakers. Because she had similar sneakers as a girl, the sight of the shoes sent her mind running back to an image of him — a large man at 6 feet 2, 240 pounds — physically controlling her when she was a child.
And then she pulled her mind back from the bad memory, telling herself: "You're OK. You're at a park. You're in a safe place."
She has a hard time recalling a good memory from her childhood.
"I just want to remember what it's like to go back and not be this."
She enjoys being a parent partly because being around her children allows her to feel a childhood she didn't have. When they open presents, she opens presents. Their excitement becomes hers.
She puts pressure on herself to be a good parent because of what happened to her.
Guarded feelings
The abuse she suffered years ago affects her relationships.
"I'm very guarded of my feelings," she said.
"I loved him as much as I hated him. It's very confusing when you love somebody who hurts you."
She keeps her mother at a distance.
"My mom trusted him," she said.
"He was an actor, and he was good at it. He put on a role, and my mom accepted it."
She struggles at times with intimacy. It bothers her when someone touches her hair.
Because Anderson liked her blond hair when she was a child, she keeps her hair dyed red as an adult.
Tally's experience has made her extra-protective of her three daughters.
She won't let them go to swimming pools because in her mind those are places where sexual predators lurk.
"They haven't spent the night at a slumber party."
She fears that one of her children could become one of the one-in-four victims.
She tries to remind herself: "I can't look at every man as a pedophile."
But in her mind, "they're a pedophile until they prove themselves otherwise."
It's about overcoming
Anderson could argue that he has served his punishment and spent enough time in prison, that his crimes are behind him.
But, Tally said, "I would probably tell him it's never going to amount to the childhood he took away from me, ever."
But she doesn't want her life — her story — to be only about the bad things.
It also is about overcoming.
The way she wants to end her story is this: "I am not a victim. I am a survivor. I want to live. And I'm alive, and I'm enjoying myself every day.
"I don't want people to think I am miserable.
"I don't want people who go through this to think it's going to affect every aspect of their life.
"I just want people to realize that you can learn to live again.
"I can't always look back."
