In fact, man-boy relationships had been flourishing-not particularly secretly-for years in Revere. And Byrne had a way to catch them: A hotline people could call with anonymous tips about molesters. It was a stretch to call it a “ring,” but Suffolk County District Attorney Garrett Byrne declared that the arrests were just “the tip of the iceberg.” There had to be other perverted people in other wood-shingled houses. In June 1977, police arrested the house's owner and announced that it was the national headquarters of a sordid, pornographic sex ring. It was a normal house, the neighbors thought, until they learned that it wasn't. There were no naked boys loitering in the doorway, no drunken men stumbling in the back yard, no obvious signs of depravity. All of this was done quietly, because neighbors would later say that they didn't see or hear anything unusual coming from the house.
