ARTICLES

He Was My Best Friend

San Diego Women Remember Paul Shanley

By Robert Kumpel

An Ocean Beach woman claims that she and her daughter were the first friends priest-molester Father Paul Shanley made in San Diego. Ten years later, when they learned who he really was, they led the police to him for arrest.

Phyllis Lucas, now 81, was walking along Sunset Cliffs 11 years ago with her daughter Lisa, now 51, when they met Shanley. Lisa was instantly struck by his good looks. Lisa's son, then two years old, had run ahead of his mother and grandmother and Shanley was making a fuss over what a "fine boy" he was. "I joked with my mom, 'I could knock you off the cliff now, and he'd be mine!' She said, 'He's too old for you!' and I said, 'No, he's too young for you.' But we didn't know him yet. We met him on the way back and talked to him."

Shanley gave his name, address and telephone number to Phyllis, telling her that he didn't know anyone in San Diego. Shortly after the meeting, Lisa moved to Colorado, and Phyllis relocated to the Villa Surf housing compound on Ladera Street. Shanley also got an apartment there shortly thereafter. "I got him in there," Phyllis says, "you had to know someone to get in there. I was so lonely when my daughter moved, that I called Paul. He came up for dinner, and he was very quiet. I thought, 'I've never picked up a guy on the beach before. I'll bet he's murdered his wife.' Well, after dinner he took me outside and told me that he was a Catholic priest. I would have rather that he'd murdered his wife!"

Over the next ten years, Shanley frequently took Phyllis out to lunch and dinner, escorted her to parties and was her companion at the symphony and opera. "He was my best friend," she said.

"He was my best friend, too." Lisa recalls. "I would call him up from Colorado and ask him for advice. We were all very taken with him. And there was no indication at all that he was gay."

"I would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that he was not gay," Phyllis agrees. "And he was so charming. But my son kept warning me that he was gay. Somehow he could tell."

Two other priests often joined Phyllis and Shanley on their lunch and dinner dates. "There was a Father Tom Mahoney and another who left the priesthood, Robert Sidner. He works at the Mingei Museum at Balboa Park. And Paul would say Mass frequently, but not at any local churches."

When Shanley moved in next to her at Ladera Street, Phyllis began to have suspicions about Shanley. "He moved in with a younger man, Dale Lagace. Paul told me that the Church would probably frown on him always being seen with the same woman, so I asked him what the Church thought about him living with a younger man. He looked like I had punched him in the stomach. He was very hurt by that. He said, 'I have always had a male roommate.'"

Lisa learned about Shanley's past watching the news and quickly told her mother. Her mother had been corresponding with Shanley by e-mail and she turned over copies of his e-mails to the police. Phyllis recalls, "He had traveled --to Bangkok, I think -- just before he was arrested. Then he came back. I never understood why he came back. But my heart was broken when I learned what kind of man he was. He needs to be locked up for the rest of his life."

Both mother and daughter were upset when they learned that Shanley was released on $350,000 bond. Phyllis knows that he is in Provincetown, near Nantucket, Massachusetts. Lisa is especially upset that he is free. "They should castrate him and never let him out. He's free to do what he wants now. It was unthinkable that he could do these things."

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