Adhahn's mother: "My son is sick. I am angry at him"

FORT WORTH, Texas -- Pennsiri Bower has built a life around family, her lush garden and comfortable brick house, putting behind her the dark days of her early life when she struggled to feed her five children in her native Thailand.

But she finds herself reaching back to painful memories ever since the arrest of her 42-year-old son, Terapon Adhahn, in connection with the rape of two young girls and the growing suspicion of his involvement in the slaying of at least two other girls.

Bower thinks back to Thailand and recalls her former mother-in-law complaining that Adhahn, then only 7, would frequently scream hysterically.

Only in 2001, when he moved into his aunt's home in Texas, did Bower learn the reason for the screams.

An older sibling -- now deceased -- had raped Adhahn for years.

"Maybe that's why he's angry inside," said Bower.

The aunt, who works in a high-security job and would speak only if her name was withheld, said she didn't know why Adhahn suddenly revealed the story of the assault. But when he did, she said, they both sat and cried.

"He is sick and needs help," the aunt said.

Bower, 66, a tiny woman in a loose blue floral housedress, breaks into tears.

She desperately wants to understand what happened in her son's life. How he could wind up in a Pierce County Jail cell facing numerous criminal counts.

"I cannot eat. I cannot sleep," Bower said. She has not been close to her son for years, not since he moved from Fort Worth back to Tacoma in 2001, taking with him a 12-year-old girl he had been asked by friends to care for. Adhahn is now charged with repeatedly raping the girl over a four-year period while she lived with him.

Bower hopes the courts will consider Adhahn's mental health and emphasize treatment over punishment.

A mental-health evaluator once concluded that Adhahn was "an angry and poorly controlled man with a plethora of psychological, emotional and behavioral problems."

But the mother's hope is tempered with the knowledge that crimes against children -- particularly those as heinous as the ones of which her son is accused -- rarely warrant mercy. Behind her anguish is the palpable sense that she believes her son could be guilty.

Still, she cannot help thinking back to Adhahn's childhood for some clue, some marker that can help her understand what may have gone wrong with her son.

She points to the physical abuse he suffered at the hands of his father, her first husband, and the deprivation of their early life.

Her first husband left her alone to feed and care for their five children. The only way she could manage was to send them to live with their paternal grandmother, whom she describes as a cruel woman who worked as a farm laborer.

Bower worked as a housekeeper for American families in Bangkok and once a week walked five miles with food to feed her family. Her entire paycheck went to support them.

When she married John Bower, an American soldier, two more children were born and Bower's life improved.

The family moved to the U.S. in 1977 and later to Germany, where her new husband was stationed. It was there that Adhahn seemed to thrive, doing well at the American school and playing trumpet in the band.

After graduation she took him and a younger brother back to Thailand, where they went through Buddhist ceremonies typical for young men and Adhahn became a Buddhist monk, she said.

She opens pages of her family album and showed photos of Adhahn in an orange monk's robe and with a shaved head. Adhahn in a class photo from high school. Adhahn in a band uniform. Adhahn in his Army uniform.

Even during the best of times, like when Adhahn once brought her flowers for her birthday, he was distant and often blamed her for many of his problems, accusing her of abandoning him and his siblings in Thailand.

But not as much as Bower blames herself.

Long divorced from John Bower, she now lives with Donald Bay, and they've filled the brick rambler with photos of family, Adhahn's among them.

Over the years he's popped in and out of her life. She saw him more often when she, Adhahn and his then-wife, Barbara Harris Adhahn, lived in Tacoma. Bower moved from Tacoma to Fort Worth in 1999.

Bower recalls the upheaval in her family when a 16-year-old relative said Adhahn raped her in 1999.

Adhahn later pleaded guilty to incest and was sentenced to 60 days in jail and five years in sexual-deviation counseling, which he completed.

Memories of that case came back in 2001 when a 12-year-old girl was allowed to move in with Adhahn while he was living in Texas.

The girl's mother agreed to the arrangement, Bower said. It shocked her because of the vast differences in their ages, and she feared he'd get into trouble. But she couldn't have imagined the trouble in which he would find himself.

"My son is sick," she said. "I am angry at him, but I am so sorry."

Nancy Bartley: 206-464-8522 or nbartley@seattletimes.com