WEIRTON, WV -- "Linda" has lived with the pain of knowing victims of child molestation for over twenty years.

"Those boys were like my own children," she told NEWS 9's Ashlea Kosikowski. "It hurt me deeply these boys were being used the way they were."

Linda -- who wants to remain anonymous -- worked as a teacher at the Saint Paul Parish school when Father Victor Frobas, who has since died, was the priest at the Catholic church. Some boys confided in Linda and another teacher.

"They were being molested that the priest was successful with some, others he frightened away," she says.

The boys told stories about the ways the priest would allegedly lure them. He got close to his alleged victims by starting a boy scout troop. She says Frobas preyed on devout Catholic families, who thought a holy man could do no wrong.

Linda, another teacher, the school principal and some parents met with the bishop of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston. She was shocked by what he said.

"He knew about it," Linda said. "He brought out a file. He told us the number of times this priest received rehabilitation for this. His words were, 'Any priest is better than no priest at all.'"

Soon after the meeting, Linda says Frobas was abruptly transferred. Friday, a national study reported about a dozen victims accused seven priests in the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston of sexual abuse. But Linda says the numbers don't tell the whole truth. Those statistics only come from victims who were brave enough to tell their story. She says she knows of 12 victims of Frobas who went to Saint Paul's -- even though only three victims sued the priest. But Frobas also taught at Wheeling Central and Saint John in Wellsburg. Linda says she knows there are many other victims out there living with a dark secret inflicted upon them by a man of God.

Frobas eventually served prison time after sexual assault convictions in Missouri in 1988. He died shortly before allegations of his involvement in a child sexual abuse ring went to trial in Worcester, Massachusets.

Ashlea Kosikowski, NEWS 9