why did you go back to him? why did you agree to do that? i m thinking the protection of my children and the protection of my family. she says joe benson threatened to do terrible things if she didn t do as she was told or if she gave away his secret. he said that i might not see the light anymore. what did he mean by that? kill me. so amelia went along. when he told people in hurricane that he was her boyfriend and that her first husband had died in an explosion. each month amelia collected almost $2,000 in death benefits, and she says they used 10,000 of arthur s $200,000 military life insurance as a down payment on a house. but the deception became truly bizarre in that little house when they closed their door at night. the children were forced to live the lie, too. what about the children? they know him as joe benson. but amelia said her children
was her boyfriend and that her first husband had died in an explosion. each month amelia collected almost $2,000 in death benefits and she says they used $10,000 of arthur s $200,000 military life insurance as a down payment on the house but the true deception became at night. the children were forced to live the lie too. what about the children? they know him as joe benson. amelia says her children didn t like joe benson. she says they found the fiction of their lives painful. to outsiders it all appeared perfectly normal. amelia got a job as a seamstress and joe did odd jobs around town and volunteered at the local high school helping students build stage sets for the drama club and we might never have known this story. the perfect crime complete. but the man the marines hadn t stopped now couldn t stop
and was transferred. arthur bennett returned to the states a single father. amelia discovered an affair with a 17 year old and was divorcing him. amelia feared she couldn t support herself and three girls in the states so she stayed behind in okinawa and in a move she would deeply regret, she let arthur have custody of their children. i knew he loved our children. i think i made the right decision at the time. she couldn t know the future of course and neither could the briskos. but even though he was now thousands of miles away, the briskos couldn t shake the feeling they hadn t heard the last of arthur bennett. a whole year had gone by since arthur bennett was accused of fondling two little girls but marine corps officials decided
the man he knew as joseph benson was really marine corps staff sergeant arthur bennett and back in yuma, arizona, where he had been indicted for raping a 13-year-old girl everyone thought he was dead. well, almost everyone. i still love him. i never stop loving him. incredibly three months after crying over his casket at a military funeral, amelia bennett and her three children had reunited with arthur but now he had a different name. joe benson. why did you go back to him? why did you agree to do that? i m thinking the protection of my children and the protection of my family. she says joe benson threatened to do terrible things if she didn t do as she was told or if she gave away his secret. he said that i might not see the light anymore. what did he mean by that? kill me. so amelia went along when he told people in hurricane that he
of course, copeland had no way of knowing they were the man s biological children. i said, it s not true. because deep inside me he was a real father of my daughters. so maybe they re only accusing him because they thought every stepfather does something bad to their stepdaughters, you know. every stepfather? remember, this is the same amelia bennett who had forgiven her husband many times before, who admits she lived for years in denial. who knew about okinawa and yuma and a faked death and still came back to him. amelia bennett claimed that at first she couldn t believe her husband would molest their own daughters until she confronted the eldest and her worst fears were confirmed.