SHELBURNE FALLS — Before heading to Greenfield to address an annual Power of Women event, which celebrates the stories of survivors of sexual and domestic abuse, Ellen Story heard the news: Bill Cosby was convicted of aggravated indecent assault of a woman 14 years ago.
Story, a former longtime state legislator from Amherst and a champion of women’s rights, said she had been a “big fan of his for years” when Cosby used to help out at the University of Massachusetts, where he earned his doctorate in education. “But I am no longer,” she said.
“I was disappointed when the first trial was a mistrial,” Story said Thursday evening after the event run by New England Learning Center for Women in Transition, which has worked for years against domestic violence and sexual abuse. “There was too much evidence of his bad behavior, and I was glad that this time he got three guilty verdicts.”
While Story was definitive in her remarks about Cosby, who owns a home in Shelburne, others in the community were less eager to speak about the first high-profile verdict in the era of #MeToo.
Walking around Shelburne Falls a couple of hours after the Cosby news broke, a dozen or so people asked about their thoughts on the verdict declined to comment. There was bar chatter about it, but locals preferred to not speak publicly about it.
But others, who know the Cosbys, expressed sympathy for the family, which has been a presence in Shelburne for more than four decades.
Town Clerk Joe Judd said he was “sad to hear this, but I have confidence they will work together, as a strong family, to get through it.”
“I have had a business relationship with them for 20 years, and have found them to be great people,” he said. “They have treated me with the greatest respect, and I will continue to respect their privacy.”
Ellen Eller runs Sawyer News in Shelburne Falls, and she made some comments to reporters a few years ago, when the accusations became public.
On Thursday afternoon, Eller said she was called by People Magazine and the Boston Globe and asked again for her reaction.
“I told them: I have nothing to say. I don’t know the man. I heard he got convicted,” said Eller.
“I have nothing to say,” she added, “except that I’m sorry for his family.”
Although the Cosbys have several homes in the United States, they have many roots here in Shelburne.
Bill and Camille Cosby have lived on Bardwells Ferry Road in Shelburne Center since 1971, according to the Registry of Deeds, and their five children attended private schools in the area.
Their son, Ennis, who was killed in California 21 years ago, is buried in Shelburne.
Besides their home and 21 acres, the Cosbys own several hundred acres of conservation land in the area. Over the years Cosby was seen on occasion at local venues in Shelburne Falls, Greenfield and Amherst, but the family largely kept to itself on its gated compound near the Deerfield River, occasionally breaking into the news, like the time in the 1980s when Cosby sued a local television installer for allegedly overcharging for a private satellite and cablevision system at the estate, or sometimes appearing at a local coffee shop.
At Thursday’s NELCWIT event, Story’s remarks about Cosby were prefaced by the Director of Massachusetts Office for Victim Assistance’s victim services Diane Coffey.
While speaking to more than a hundred people, mostly women who are leaders in the community, Coffey was the first to bring up Cosby. When she did, it received a loud applause.
Coffey talked about the “quiet courage” of the survivors who spoke for the trial. On the news Coffey saw talk about “the power of women” to which she said this shows, “We will no longer be silenced.”