The Rev. W. Thomas Faucher, 73, will spend the next 25 years behind bars for his conviction on two counts of distribution of sexually exploitative material, two counts of possession of sexually exploitative materials, and one count of drug possession. Foucher had served as a longtime priest in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Boise until his retirement from St. Mary’s in 2014.
But the felony criminal charges are not the worst of it. Far more disturbing is the testimony of law enforcement officers who investigated the Catholic priest and found more than 2,500 files that were sexually exploitative or pornographic with young-looking subjects. The files were described by police as violent, disturbing and torturous, some involving children crying. During the course of their investigation, police found evidence that Faucher was involved in Satanic rituals, fantasized about murder, and urinated on Catholic sacred objects.
When interviewed by the Idaho Statesman, Faucher was matter of fact about his crimes and his past, seemingly disconnected to the evil of which he stands accused and now convicted.
Garden City police officer Detective John Brumbaugh who’s been on the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force for five years, noted that the Faucher case was something he hadn’t witnessed in his tenure as a police officer. “The volume of [images] was something I haven’t come across.”
KTVB reports that Faucher communicated online with several people, including a man from Brazil named “Bruno,” and explicitly described the images both men looked at and talked about. At one point, according to detectives, the Brazilian sent Faucher a batch of violent child pornography, only for the priest to respond that he had already seen them.
“There is only one of them I really like, the one of the boy being beaten to death,” Faucher wrote. “I want you to send me more of young boys and even infants.”
Another time, according to news stories, Faucher and Bruno discussed a plan for the priest to travel to Brazil so the two of them could find, sexually assault, and ultimately murder a little boy. The retired priest also fantasied about raping an altar boy and told the Bruno that he had violated the sacraments by ejaculating into the communion wine at St. Mary’s Church in Boise.
It was this level of depravity and evil provided in court testimony that led the judge to hand down the long prison sentence.