Women say Springfield massage therapist took advantage of them during sessions -...

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Giacomo Bologna Springfield News-Leader

Published 10:33 p.m. UTC Aug 2, 2018

A massage therapist and yoga teacher has practiced in Springfield for more than two decades despite allegations he inappropriately touched at least three women and a young child.

One woman said Rod Buckner tried to sexually assault her in 1997, police records show, and a girl said Buckner repeatedly molested her in 2003 when she was 3.

Two other women told the News-Leader that Buckner touched their genitals during massages — one incident took place in 2010 and the other in 2017.

"What is and has been occurring here is a blatant abuse and manipulation of power," one woman, Stephanie Murray, told the News-Leader. "And it is unacceptable."

Numerous attempts to reach Buckner for comment have been unsuccessful.

Two women and the mother of the young child went to authorities with their claims. Police investigations in 1997, 2003 and 2018 were conducted, but are now closed or inactive.

Buckner has never been criminally charged with sexual assault or any other sex crime.

A police spokesman, Lt. Chris Wells, said allegations made in 2018 about Buckner's actions several years ago could have met the requirements for a sexual misconduct charge. However, Wells said the statute of limitations had already passed.

Buckner has led yoga classes at the YMCA, Missouri State University and elsewhere in Springfield. His website said he has massaged more than 10,000 people.

It's unclear if Buckner is currently practicing massage therapy.

MSU cut ties with Buckner after graduate student Emily Aderhold reached out to the school's Title IX office in January, accusing him of inappropriate conduct unrelated to his work there.

He resigned from the YMCA around the same time.

In March, Aderhold filed a police report alleging Buckner had engaged in misconduct over several years, including touching her genitals during a massage. Police say there have been no other reports involving Buckner since Aderhold filed her complaint in March.

Buckner's website has been deleted. The phone number associated with his massage business no longer works.

The News-Leader obtained records that show Springfield police twice investigated Buckner for two separate sexual assault cases and presented a case to prosecutors each time.

One case involved a 3-year-old child.

Buckner was never charged in those cases, and he continued to work as a massage therapist and yoga instructor — jobs that regularly brought him into intimate contact with women's bodies.

YMCA spokeswoman Julie Eaton said the Y never received any complaints about Buckner, who had worked there since 2010. Grady Martin, an official with the Missouri Department of Insurance, Financial Institutions & Professional Registration, the state agency that oversees massage therapist licensing, said Buckner has never been disciplined.

However, women who spoke to the News-Leader say talk of Buckner's inappropriate behavior has circulated for years.

After allegations of misconduct recently surfaced, the News-Leader requested police records involving Buckner.

Records show a woman contacted police in 1997 to report that Buckner had sexually assaulted her during a massage.

Buckner had been massaging her upper thigh and hip when his hand went underneath her underwear and grabbed her crotch, according to the woman's interview with police.

According to police records, the woman said she told him to stop, but about six minutes later he did the same thing again.

This time, Buckner allegedly put his fingers inside her vagina and ignored the woman when she said "stop."

When Buckner eventually stopped, the woman was in shock and the massage continued normally for about 10 to 15 minutes, police records say.

Afterward, Buckner jumped on the massage table and pinned the woman down, police records say.

"Come on," Buckner allegedly said. "I don't have anyone to be with. I don't have a girlfriend. It will be okay."

Eventually, Buckner got off the table, the woman told police, and she noticed his pants and underwear had been pulled down to his knees.

According to police records, the woman said she left Buckner's offices when he tried to kiss her and the next day told her family.

The police report said Buckner sent her an apologetic postcard that said "Sometimes I run wild."

A copy of the postcard, which appears to be handwritten by Buckner, is included in the police investigative file.

When police interviewed Buckner, he had an attorney present.

The officer asked general questions about massage therapy and about a specific type of massage called "rolfing."

Rolfing is a sometimes painful type of massage developed by Ida Rolf. It takes 10 separate sessions to complete.

When asked if rolfing required the therapist to massage a woman's vaginal area or breasts, Buckner allegedly said "absolutely."

The investigating officer later interviewed a former teacher of Buckner.

Records say the teacher was aware of sexual assault allegations facing Buckner, and she said it would be inappropriate for a therapist to massage a woman's breasts or vaginal area.

According to state licensing rules, massage therapists are not supposed to touch a client's genitals. They are only supposed to touch a female client's breasts if a physician OKs it and the therapist is adequately trained in massaging breast tissue.

The officer handling the investigation presented a case to prosecutors that said he, the victim and another police officer were all willing to testify. They also had the postcard as evidence.

Criminal charges were never filed. The records do not explain why. The prosecutor who handled the case in 1997, Jill Patterson, was contacted by the News-Leader earlier this year. She declined to comment.

In 2003, Buckner was again investigated by Springfield police, this time for allegations that he sexually abused a girl on four separate occasions when she was 3 and 4 years old.

The News-Leader has attempted to reach the girl — who would now be 18 or older — and her mother, but was unsuccessful.

The girl was taken to a hospital at one point, police records say, where she was diagnosed with vulvitis, or inflammation of female genitalia.

The child's mother told police that her daughter's genitals were swollen and red on several occasions after interactions with Buckner.

She told police she thought it was an adverse reaction to a bubble bath.

Around that time, the girl would act out, stomp her toys and be very angry, the mother told police.

Eventually, she took her daughter to the hospital, then called a child abuse hotline, police records say.

The girl was not interviewed at Springfield's Child Advocacy Center.

According to police records, the child's mother took her to a different center because Buckner's mother was on the board of the Springfield Child Advocacy Center.

The Child Advocacy Center's director said Buckner's mother, Rose, was a board member in the mid- to late '90s, but it appeared she was no longer a board member in 2003.

According to police records, the girl told a child advocate that Buckner would use his fingers to penetrate her and told her she would get in trouble if she told anybody.

One of the girl's dresses was sent to a lab for possible evidence collection, records say, but the tests came back negative.

According to police records, the child, her mother, her baby sitter, her grandparents, a doctor and multiple police officers were willing to testify at trial.

Buckner again hired a lawyer before criminal charges were filed. The attorney sent letters to both police and the prosecutor and had Buckner take a polygraph test.

Results of the test showed Buckner was not lying when he denied sexually assaulting the child.

Two years after a case was presented to the prosecutor's office in 2005, Patterson, the same prosecutor from the 1997 case, formally declined to press charges.

Patterson wrote that the child gave strong and consistent testimony, but "no corroboration exists." She also noted that the "child is safe per family court order."

Patterson declined to comment on either the 1997 or 2003 cases, saying it would be inappropriate to do so.

No letter or explanation was included in the original 1997 police file. The Greene County Prosecutor's Office does not have anything on the case, saying enough time has passed that the office is no longer required to retain files on it.

Patterson, now the Title IX coordinator for Missouri State University, was again approached earlier this year about Buckner, who had been teaching yoga at MSU as an independent contractor.

"We received information of a concern about Rod Buckner that predated, and was unrelated to, any work he has done with MSU," Patterson said.

Patterson said there was an investigation and that there have been no other complaints or communications about Buckner made to MSU's Title IX coordinator.

The graduate student who contacted Patterson's office about Buckner, Aderhold, said MSU reacted almost immediately to sever ties with him.

"They were really on top of it and took it really seriously," Aderhold said.

Aderhold said Buckner inappropriately touched her during a massage about a decade ago. Earlier this year, she made a report to police about that incident and others involving Buckner.

Aderhold said she suffered a hip injury during an ice storm in 2007 and went to Buckner for rolfing.

“He wanted to see how I walked,” Aderhold said — but naked. “He pressured me.”

She said she initially declined but eventually relented. Aderhold said she had about 10 rolfing sessions with Buckner.

During a session in 2010, Aderhold said Buckner was massaging her thigh and moved steadily up her leg until he brushed against her groin and genitals.

When asked by a reporter if she has ever had an experience like this during a massage before, Aderhold emphatically said no.

“Oh my gosh, no,” she said. “That’s not how it works.”

Aderhold said she didn’t react at that moment. She said she felt trapped.

“I trusted him,” she said. “You just don’t know how you’re going to react in a situation.”

Aderhold said she knew Buckner's actions — now more than a decade ago — were not right the moment they happened. However, it wasn't until this year that Aderhold said she heard women discussing similar stories about Buckner.

Aderhold said she re-evaluated the experience with Buckner and decided to publicly share it, as well as other alleged instances of misconduct by Buckner.

During two separate massages, Buckner pressured her to be fully nude, Aderhold said.

Aderhold said it's a best practice in massage for people to undress to their level of comfort.

State licensing rules say massage therapists should give privacy to clients and provide some form of covering for their genitals and — for female clients — their breasts.

About six years ago, Aderhold said she took a yoga class from Buckner. Aderhold said a good yoga instructor will position themselves far away and use fingertips to adjust students and will always ask the person if that's all right.

But Buckner didn't do any of that, she said, and that's partly why she reached out to MSU.

"I didn't want an 18-year-old in her first yoga class to think that was normal," Aderhold said.

The claims described by Aderhold to the News-Leader mirror what she told police in March, according to a police report.

Stephanie Murray is a licensed massage therapist and met Buckner in fall 2017 at a local event in Springfield where Murray was a vendor.

"I had known of him, as he was a prominent figure in the alternative healing and spiritual communities that I have been a part of," Murray said. "I had also been warned quite a time before that he had predatory tendencies."

Still, Murray said she wanted to make up her own mind about Buckner, and they agreed to an exchange of services — she would give him a Thai-style massage and he would give her a Swedish-style massage.

The first massage went fine, Murray said, and a second massage exchange was set up.

This time, Murray said Buckner offered a pair of baggy basketball shorts for her to wear and she hesitantly put them on.

At one point in the massage, Buckner put her calf on his shoulder, which Murray said caused the shorts to slide down her legs, leaving her exposed.

According to Murray, Buckner began using his forearm on her hamstring, working down toward her groin.

"And as he did so, his hand made direct contact with my genital area," she said. "I was too shocked, embarrassed and intimidated to say anything. I didn't necessarily feel I was in physical danger, but I more so feared what repercussions may follow if I confronted him and I was wrong."

Buckner contacted her a few days later about another massage, Murray said, but she told him she was out of town.

Murray said she never contacted Buckner again. A month or two later, she said, she told a few close friends. The News-Leader spoke to two friends of Murray who said Murray gave them a similar account of Buckner's actions.

Earlier this year, a friend reached out to Murray about other women's experiences with Buckner.

"Upon connecting with and hearing the stories of some of the other women, I began to see commonalities in our patterns and experiences," Murray said.

According to Murray, it appeared Buckner targeted women who were in an emotionally vulnerable place and that the women thought their interactions with Buckner were isolated incidents.

There was an individual fear, Murray said, to speak out because it would be his word against theirs. Murray has not spoken publicly about her interaction with Buckner before.

She said she did not consider filing a police report after the incident, explaining that she "didn't think it would be a strong enough case."

Murray called Buckner's behavior "particularly insidious" because as a healer, he is in a position of trust with women often in their most vulnerable states.

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