Teen 'sick of being hurt and hiding it'

MOAB — Kelly Sowell hated summers. She couldn't wait for them to end so she could go back to school. In the summer of 2002, the 14-year-old joined a girls softball team to keep herself busy.

It was a decision that robbed her of her innocence and ultimately, her mom says, her life.

Arielle Beck had built up a stellar reputation while an athlete at Grand County High School. She still holds several Utah girls high school basketball scoring records. She made the Deseret News all-state team in both basketball and softball in 1997. She was popular and well-liked. After college, she returned to Moab to become a teacher and coach.

Her softball players knew her as Fuzzy, and Kelly was on her team.

Kelly and Fuzzy hit it off that summer. Kelly wanted a big sister and Fuzzy wanted a little sister. But it wasn't long before the relationship took a sordid turn.

Fuzzy assured her catcher the kissing and sexual contact was OK. "Even your mother did this only she doesn't talk about it," she told the naive teen. Kelly didn't talk about it either.

Nothing during that season threw up red flags for Sherilyn and Mike Sowell, though they found Beck's nickname inappropriate for someone who wanted to be a schoolteacher.

But as summer closed and the school year approached, Sherilyn began to suspect something was going on between Fuzzy and her daughter. The coach called and sent e-mails. Kelly went places with her. She had a newfound interest in basketball and football.

When Kelly returned to school, Beck volunteered as a teaching assistant in her English class. Kelly's midterm grades were poor, except in English.

"I thought she was getting kids into drugs, not sex. I really didn't think about that," Sherilyn Sowell said.

Sherilyn Sowell found a couple of e-mails Beck wrote to Kelly. She showed them to a friend at the state Division of Child and Family Services, who called them "grooming letters" for a relationship.

The Sowells took another two-page handwritten letter to the police. After reading it, Moab Police Chief Dave Navarre said, "That's a damn love letter." Police opened an investigation of Beck.

Kelly initially refused to cooperate. "Mom, if I tell, I'll get someone in a lot of trouble," she said. It took what Sherilyn called a bit of divine intervention to get her daughter to talk with police.