AS A child Elishaba Doersken is the first to admit that she was a ‘daddy’s girl’.
Sitting on Robert Hale’s lap, it was a relief to hear him describe her as his ‘special’ daughter.
But Elishaba was also terrified of her father and she found out she had every right to be.
From the age of 19 Elishaba was subjected to regular sexual abuse at the hands of her father who would justify his actions as ‘God’s will.’
Shockingly the abuse would often be carried out in her parents’ bed with her mother lying next to them but too afraid of Hale’s wrath to intervene.
Elishaba, now 49, was able to escape with her younger sister at 29 and has since rebuilt her life, going on to marry and have two children of her own.
On November 28 2007, Robert Hall was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment for for rape, coercion and incest at Anchorage courthouse before he passed away the following year.
Amazingly, Elishaba says she was able to forgive Hale.
She says: “The bible said I should forgive and I tried, but it was so hard. And it was even harder to forgive myself. I felt ashamed.
“But forgiving him is what set me free.
“Now I understand God did give my father a special daughter, but my father betrayed that trust.”
Elishaba grew up in the isolated Alaskan mountains with her born-again Christian father and her mother Kurina and her 14 siblings.
She says that she and her family rarely stepped out of their remote home with her God-fearing dad prone to violent outbursts.
“He ruled us with his fists and a horse whip, using the bible as justification,” Elishaba explains.
“For months at a time, we never left our isolated Alaskan mountain home because he said the evil world outside would lead us to sin.
“We didn’t have TV or radio and the closest my siblings and I got to an education was sitting in silence at dad’s feet as he read from the bible.”
“Even mum, who’d had me at 17 when dad was in his thirties, was completely dominated by him.
“She spent most of her time pregnant.”
‘HE WAS LIKE GOD TO ME’
Elishaba admits that she didn’t ‘question anything’ growing up as the lifestyle was all that she knew.
“He insisted I call him Pappa and was like God to me,” she admits.
“I thought if I displeased him I’d go to hell.”
Then when Elishaba turned 19, her father took her away on a camping trip.
“He told me my time had come,” she recalls.
“Then he raped me – I had seen animals mate but I knew nothing about sex.
“But my dad told me that this is what God had created me for but all I felt was shame.”
CONFRONTING EVIL
The following morning Elishaba tried to confront Hale about his actions.
She says: “He told me that if I spoke against it I was speaking against the Holy Spirit and I could never be forgiven.
“He made me believe it was my biblical duty to satisfy him.
“I became his sex slave, raped daily and he would tell me that no other man would love me as he did.”
While Hale normally carried out the abuse away from Elishaba’s siblings in the woods or an outbuilding, he became more brazen.
“He did it in my parents’ bed too, right beside mum,” she says.
“Like all of us, she lived in terror of his rages and could do nothing.”
Elishaba admits that she was conflicted between what she believed was wrong and her religious beliefs.
She explains: “I was so confused, I wondered whether God could really expect me to sleep with my own father.
“But the abuse continued for years and occasionally he would even film himself raping me.”
Hale blackmailed his daughter into believing that her compliance would stop him from whipping her mum and siblings.
I told him that I couldn’t go to bed with him and that it was wrong for a father to sleep with his daughter
Elishaba Doersken
“He promised if I satisfied his needs, he wouldn’t beat and whip my mum and siblings. But he did anyway,” she says.
When Elishaba was 25 her parents moved her and her 14 siblings to an even more remote cabin in Alaska.
It was 14 miles from the nearest town on an unsurfaced track, so isolated supplies were sometimes air-dropped in.
The family survived on social security payments and what grew, foraged and hunted but, desperate for cash, Hale let four of his sons work as hunting guides.
Elishaba says: “The more they were exposed to the outside world the more they began to question my father’s teachings.
“It came to a head after dad beat me black and blue, locked me in a shed and raped me for three days.
“When my brother demanded to know what happened to me, dad threw him out of the cabin and when another of my brother’s stepped in dad broke his nose.”
Within a few days five of Elishaba’s brothers had fled the cabin for good, encouraging her too to stand up to Hale.
“I told him that I couldn’t go to bed with him and that it was wrong for a father to sleep with his daughter,” she says.
“I told him that it said nowhere in the bible that God gave him permission to treat me like a second wife.
“He punched me and whipped me and when mum tried to stop him he threatened to beat her too so I gave in to spare her.”
MAKING HER ESCAPE
Shortly after Elishaba decided to flee with her youngest sister, Jerusalem who was just 16 at the time.
“If dad caught us he’d kill me, but that was better than my living hell,” she says
“After dad left for town with two of my younger brothers, we gathered food, said goodbye to mum, and loaded up a snowmobile.
“It wouldn’t start as dad had taken the spark plug but thankfully, another sister, Hosanna, found a spare.
“We made it safely and hid out in the woods nearby as dad arrived and scoured the town for us.”
How to report a sexual assault
- Contact a doctor or practice nurse at your GP surgery.
- Contact a voluntary organisation, such as Rape Crisis , Women’s Aid , Victim Support , The Survivors Trust or Male Survivors Partnership .
- Call the 24-hour freephone National Domestic Abuse Helpline, run by Refuge , on 0808 2000 247.
- Speak to the rape and sexual abuse support line run by Rape Crisis England and Wales – you can call the helpline on 0808 500 2222 or use the online chat (both are free and are open 24 hours a day, every day of the year).
Once Hale left town, the two sisters found their brothers and moved in with Jim Buckingham, a local pastor and his wife.
Elishaba opened up about her father’s attacks and the pastor told her that she had been a victim fo rape and encouraged her to report what had happened.
“I didn’t even know what rape was,” Elishaba says.
“When I gave a statement to a police officer, he had to explain the words for my private parts as I didn’t know what they were called.”
Robert Hall went on the run and was the most wanted man in Alaska before he was caught with the newspapers dubbing him Pappa Pilgrim.
While he awaited trial, Elsihaba attempted to get used to the ‘real world.’
“It scared me to death, I was almost 30 with no life experience,” she admits.
“Everything was a culture shock.
“Dad had stolen my life and my heart was full of revenge towards him.
“Even though he’d used religion to justify his abuse, I was comforted by the bible.
My father’s actions were monstrous but forgiving him has set me free
Elishaba Doersken
“No matter how bad I felt about myself, I saw God loved me just as I was.”
The Buckingham’s had a friend, Matt, who was helping Elishaba’s brothers to adjust as well as her.
“He was gentle, polite, softly spoken and opened doors for me,” she says.
“Though I was scared of him at first, over time, we became friends and I began to feel ready to be loved by a man.”
On her 31st birthday Matt proposed to Elishaba.
“I wanted to be with him but still didn’t know how to trust a man but he assured me that he would ‘cherish my glow’,” she says.
The couple married four months later.
Elishaba says: “By then I thought I’d forgiven dad as he’d admitted his abuse, but in court he ranted and called me a liar.
“I was devastated and realised my forgiveness was conditional, I’d needed him to say sorry for it to be real.”
On November 28 2007, Robert Hall was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment for for rape, coercion and incest at Anchorage courthouse.
Judge Donald Hopwood called it “one of the worst cases of domestic violence I’ve seen.”
The following year Hall died in prison, age 67, from diabetes complications.
Elishaba says: “I cried for him and myself as he was buried.
“I couldn’t truly heal until I’d confronted his abuse that meant reclaiming places where he’d assaulted me.
“So, Matt and I went hiking in the wilderness around the cabin where we built camp fires, toasted marshmallows, talked, laughed and cried.
“We made new memories.”
SET FREE
Seven years later on Father’s Day 2015 Elishaba visited Hall’s grave.
She says: “I told him I forgave him and then I read him a letter telling him all the things I wished he had done for me and afterwards, I felt light.”
Elishaba and Matt went on to have two children, Esther and Michael before the couple split a few years later.
Heartbreakingly, Elishaba was dealt a further blow when she was recently diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour.
And yet she continues to see the good in the world.
She says: “I feel blessed I am able to help other women heal from trauma.
“My father’s actions were monstrous but forgiving him has set me free.
“Just as importantly, I’ve forgiven myself.”
Elishaba has written a book Out the Wilderness, you can buy it here .
