SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- Lori Jones Clouse says, from the time she was 3 years old forward, her life has centered on one thing: the abuse she suffered at the hands of Charles Spradling of Phillipsburg.

Old family photographs make her smile but Lori Clouse's childhood memories elicit a different emotion.  She struggles still to remember something that she says happened when she was little but continues to shape her life even today.

"I was sexually abused by a close friend of the family," she said.

She says that man was someone with whom her family spent birthdays, vacations, and Sundays after church.

"He always built up that friendship.  He'd say, 'I'm your buddy.'  That was his big word," Clouse said in an interview on Tuesday.

According to court documents, the abuse began in 1986 when she was 3 and continued through 1994.  Around that time, she saw an episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

"That was the first time I ever heard the word molestation," she said.

That's when she told her family.

"We were in shock.  We couldn't believe it," said Bonita Jones, Lori's mother.

"I thought, when I voiced myself, this would come to an end," said Clouse.

Instead it was another beginning.

"From 14 to 27, I was just waiting for something to be done," she said.

On Tuesday, she got what she was waiting for: a guilty plea from Spradling in Laclede County Circuit Court in Lebanon. 

"It was like a weight taken off me," Clouse said after hearing the verdict.

With that weight off her shoulders, Clouse is moving forward toward yet another beginning.  She lives in Springfield, has a career and she's married, and now she's planning a future she chooses to shape with her past.

"I will use all the years of my life to help other men, women and children who have been abused," she said.

Spradling was charged in March 2006 with forcible rape and sodomy.  In a plea agreement with prosecutors, he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of child endangerment.  He received a suspended one-year county jail sentence and two years of probation.

A reporter contacted Spradling and his defense attorney but both declined to comment.

Clouse filed a personal injury lawsuit against Spradling and his wife in 2006.   In a letter to Laclede County Prosecuting Attorney Angie Hemphill-Wright on Jan. 11, Clouse's attorney, Craig Hosmer, said "all issues in the civil lawsuit have been resolved between Ms. Clouse and Mr. Spradling.  Ms. Clouse chooses to leave the outcome of the criminal case in your sole discretion as Prosecuting Attorney for Laclede County and will take no position with the disposition as long as Mr. Spradling has a criminal conviction for a crime against Ms. Clouse."

Online court records show the civil case is still pending but Hosmer wrote in the letter that "Ms. Clouse wishes to conclude the civil matter as soon as possible and Ms. Clouse wishes to resolve this claim.  As I am sure you recognize this has been emotionally difficult for Ms. Clouse and she wants these matters concluded as quickly as possible."