Accused: My Fight for Truth, Justice & the Strength to Forgive

by Tonya Craft

  I was crying so hard when Tammy picked up the phone that she couldn’t understand a word I said. I must have terrified her because she yelled at me, asking if the kids were hurt. I caught my breath enough to say, “No.” She asked if I was hurt. “No! Just please come now!”

  That’s when my legs finally gave out and I fell to the ground, sobbing.

  Time seemed to swirl together. I can’t tell you if it was one minute or ten minutes later when I pulled myself together enough to stand up and have a clear thought.

  I need to call an attorney.

  I’d been working with an attorney on a whole other matter related to my ex-husband and his new wife, so I had her number in my phone. I dialed her, but there was no answer. I left her a message. I waited a few minutes and then tried her again, this time leaving a more frantic message. I can’t even begin to tell you how frustrating it is to get voice mail when your whole life is on the line.

  Why can’t I get a hold of her?

  Then I suddenly got hit with the thought of something else those detectives said: They had talked to my “soon-to-be ex-husband,” David. My husband. The husband who’d left me. The man whom Ashley had come to me crying about just last night. He wouldn’t abandon me through this. He just wouldn’t. I need him. I called his cell phone. David always had his cell phone on him. He didn’t pick up. I left a message. I called the number again. I left another message. I called again, this time leaving an angry message. Four days earlier David had left me a message saying simply, “I love you.” We’d been talking a little bit about him moving back in. He loved my kids. My kids loved him. I loved him. He might have been mad at me, but he knew what kind of person I was, and he knew what kind of mom I was. Did he really tell those detectives I was a child molester?

  I called again, this time furious and spewing a flurry of words that shouldn’t come out of any God-loving Christian’s mouth, ever. I knew for a fact that he had that cell phone in his pocket. He always did. He always answered. Always. I stood there staring at my phone in a daze, wondering why he was avoiding my calls, just staring until I felt a tug on my arm. I looked up. It was Tammy. I hadn’t seen her drive up. I must have been in some kind of shock because I could see her lips moving but I couldn’t hear a word she was saying. She finally grabbed my shoulders and shook me. She put her hands on my face and looked right at me and yelled, “Tonya, calm down and tell me what is going on!”

  I managed to start speaking. I told Tammy everything. I told her what I’d been accused of. I concluded with the fact that my own husband wasn’t picking up my calls. That’s when my mother and father pulled into the driveway. Tammy didn’t know what to say. By the time I was through, she looked as if she were in as much shock as I was. She ran inside to check on the children while I tried to figure out how to explain it all again to my parents. Speechless, I stared at the two of them for the longest time: my mother, who was always so strong, and my father, who had worked so hard to give my brother and me everything we ever needed our whole lives.

  Finally, I said it: “They said I’ve been accused of molesting three little girls.”

  My beautiful mother’s face fell in horror like I’ve never seen. My mom doesn’t have a filter, and a flurry of angry words spewed out of her mouth. Her instincts about how certain people must have made up this lie to try to hurt me were the same kind of instincts I was having, and she let me know it in no uncertain terms. My poor daddy didn’t say anything. His shoulders slumped over like his heart was going to give out right there. Honestly, I’d never seen them so distressed in my entire life. I don’t think there’s anything in the world I could have told them, including that somebody had died, that would have shaken them like this did.

  During one of my calmer moments I remembered that I knew another local attorney. David and I had hired him to help Tammy get through her own divorce the previous year, and just a month earlier I had spoken to him about some questions I had regarding my ex and his new wife and their care of my daughter, Ashley. How did my life become so complicated that I know more than one attorney? I called his office, half expecting to suffer through another voice mail message when I surprisingly got through to him.

  “Tonya, what’s going on?” he said.

  As calmly as I could, I relayed the whole story, still standing there in my front yard. I swear I could hear the sound of that doorbell ringing in my ears. I was scared to death that if I went inside, I’d hear the doorbell again and see those detectives again. I was frightened that I’d hear the bell and be dragged off to jail on this horrible charge, accused of molesting these children when I’d done nothing wrong. When I’d done nothing at all.

  I grew more panicked as I spoke it out loud again. I told the attorney that the detectives wanted me to come down to the police station for an interview and a polygraph. I told him that they threatened to get an arrest warrant and come back for me. “For all I know they could be on their way right now!”

  He kept telling me that it would be okay, that he would handle it. He asked me for the names of the detectives and I pulled out that business card and gave him the number for Tim Deal. The attorney stayed calm through the whole thing and said he would place a call to Detective Deal for me. “But first,” he said, “I’m gonna call Buzz.”

  “Who?”

  “Buzz Franklin. He’s the district attorney. Just to see if I can get to the bottom of this whole thing. I should be able to get some answers for you, Tonya.”

  This attorney was a local guy. Well connected. He knew people. I was sure he could help.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you.”

  For the first time since it all began, I felt calm for more than a few seconds.

  It wouldn’t last.

  Chapter 4

  I’ve never been annoyed by the commotion and liveliness of kids. The noise and chaos of a classroom or a house full of children never bothered me. I like being around kids. I babysat as soon as I was old enough to do so. I taught Sunday school. I became a teacher because I love teaching kids. At the end of the school day, I would often let my children invite friends over—the more, the merrier—knowing they would all entertain each other, freeing me to do other things.

  Of course, just about the only “other thing” I ever had time to do as we rounded the corner into 2006 was study. I was back and forth to graduate school every Monday through Thursday evening after work. The kids stayed with my parents while I was in class, and I had a slew of papers to work on. I was determined to complete my master’s program in a year and a half. I was also determined to do it with a high grade point average. That’s just how I am. If I’m going to do something, I go for it. I give it my all.

  My schedule didn’t leave a whole lot of room for socializing away from the kids, aside from the times they were at playdates or sleepovers. Especially during the week, and especially when baseball season started up in February.

  Tyler’s always been a little tall for his age, and he’s definitely got the combination of both my genes and my ex-husband’s when it comes to being athletic. Ashley does, too, for that matter. She’d show off her skills in tumbling class, being the energetic four-year-old she was. And between tumbling classes, baseball practice two nights a week, and baseball tournaments on the weekend, all while driving back and forth from our town house in Tennessee, I felt like I was running a children’s taxi service sometimes.

  We all made new friends through baseball, though. Tyler was on a team with a boy named Aaron Potter, who was a year younger and wouldn’t be going into kindergarten until the following year, but they really hit it off. I hit it off with his parents, too. Mike and Dee Potter were a wonderful, down-to-earth couple who lived just a mile or so from the school, and all of our kids got along beautifully—Ashley and the Potters’ daughter, who was quite a bit older than both of my kids, had sort of a big sister/little sister, or maybe babysitter-child, relationship. As spring heated up, they invited us over to their pool just about every weekend, and we had
cookouts together. It was wonderful.

  Kelly McDonald’s son was on Tyler’s baseball team, too, which worked out really well: Kelly’s daughter, Chloe, and Ashley could play together while the boys played ball. The McDonald kids would come over to play at the house now and then, too.

  The Lambs weren’t in the picture quite as much at that point. I don’t think there was more than one night during that whole school year when Brianna Lamb came over and joined Ashley for a sleepover up at our town house in Tennessee. But I was happy to have her that one time she did come over. Ashley loved going over to the Lambs’ big house with its fancy pool in the backyard, too. She would sleep over there now and then. There was a closeness to this whole community.

  The Walker children were always around. In fact, hanging out at the Potters’ pool together made me like Kim Walker even more than I had before. Her kids would wind up coming over for sleepovers, and in time I got to know her husband, too. Even though she was so young, I could be myself around Kim. I noticed early on that it wasn’t quite like that with Kelly or Sandra.

  To be frank, Kelly’s behavior was all over the map. That spunky personality of hers could turn unkind, bordering on nasty at times. She made remarks about other people that made me uncomfortable. Sandra would do that, too. I had an uneasy feeling about her, but she was such a “Tonya fan” that I brushed it off. It felt good to be the object of her praise in school and around town. Who wouldn’t want to be talked up in all sorts of glowing ways by a woman who seemed to be so well-known throughout the community?

  In the spring, I decided to start looking around at houses in Chickamauga. I told everybody I knew that I was on the hunt, just in case anybody knew of a nice place opening up. That’s when something funny happened that I’ve thought back to time and again. The principal at the school pulled me into her office one day and said, “Don’t do it.”

  “Don’t do what?” I asked her. She and I seemed to see eye to eye on almost everything when it came to education, so I wasn’t sure what she was talking about.

  “Don’t move here,” she said.

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “Do not move here. It’s the most drama-filled place—just do not buy a house here,” she said. “It’s just—you do what you’re told here, and if you didn’t grow up here, you’re always going to be an outsider. I won’t be the principal here forever. I’m not going to conform to what everybody wants. They don’t like it. And they get rid of people who don’t conform to their ways.”

  I remember thinking that she must have been exaggerating. People exaggerate all the time just because they’ve had one bad experience or something. So I listened but I didn’t really pay attention to a word she said.

  In May of 2006, I bought a comfortable little three-bedroom house. It was beautiful. It was brick in front and had tan siding on the sides and back with green shutters, in a brand-new development on the edge of town. In fact, a small part of the development crossed the border out of Walker County, where Chickamauga is located, and carried over into Catoosa County. That’s where my house was—not that it would make a difference, as far as I knew.

  We were the first people to buy a house in that whole development. I bought it with no cosigner, either. For the first time in my life I had a home in my name, and my trusty old SUV was paid off, too, which made me proud.

  I can hardly explain how excited Tyler and Ashley were to have a new house to call their own. Not to mention how excited I was to be setting down some roots that felt solid.

  Before I drifted off on our first night in the house, I sat there and watched my kids sleep, just as peaceful as could be. For the first time in ages, I felt like I was home.

  Chapter 5

  After getting off the phone with the attorney, I managed to stay calm for a little while. I went back to telling myself it would all be okay. I haven’t done anything wrong. They can’t arrest you if you haven’t done anything wrong.

  I talked the whole thing through calmly for a while with Tammy and my parents, and I eventually decided I should get the kids out of there. They didn’t need to see or hear any of this. I directed my father to go take the kids for ice cream. The kids loved their Pop-Pop and would jump at the chance to go out for ice cream with him. Joal was scheduled to pick them up in a couple of hours anyway for his weekend visitation, so my dad could just have him pick the kids up at his house instead. It made sense.

  My mom insisted she would stay behind. She knew I needed her.

  As Tammy helped usher the kids into their bedrooms to change out of their bathing suits, Ashley started crying. She demanded to know what happened, and of course none of us would tell her. What could we say?

  The attorney finally called back just as the kids came out the front door. I blew by them with the phone to my ear, rushing inside and closing the door behind me so I could find some quiet. I realized I didn’t say good-bye to Tyler and Ashley. I didn’t give them a kiss or tell them I loved them. Even though I knew they’d only be gone for a little while, it bothered me that I didn’t stop to kiss my children good-bye. It all happened so quickly.

  “I’ve made a whole bunch of calls on this, Tonya. The first call I made was to Buzz Franklin, the DA, and I have to tell you, he had never heard the name Tonya Craft. He had no knowledge of a case against you whatsoever,” he said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, that’s what I wanted to know and what he wanted to know. So he said he was going to make some calls and get back to me. I also left multiple messages for Tim Deal, who has yet to call me back, and tried some other sources. But Buzz finally called me back just a minute ago—”

  “And?”

  “And … he said that there were too many holes in the case, and that an arrest warrant would not be issued.”

  “Oh, thank God. Thank God.”

  “So you’re gonna be okay. All right, Tonya? Nothing’s going to happen to you. You’re not going to get arrested. I don’t have all the answers, and I wish I had more to tell you. But at this point, I’m confident that nothing is going to happen immediately, and that you and I can meet on Monday morning and work this all out. Okay?”

  I took a deep breath.

  “Okay,” I replied.

  As we set up an appointment for first thing Monday, I looked up and saw that my mom and Tammy had both come back into the house. I gave them a little smile and nodded, like it was all going to be okay. They seemed relieved. I seemed relieved.

  My mom got me a glass of water. Tammy gathered up Hunter, gave me a great big hug, and said she’d call in a little while to check on me.

  Before she got out the door, though, the phone rang again. I got a bad feeling.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Tonya Craft?” the man said.

  “Yes.”

  “Why are you not at the police station like you said you would be?” He started yelling. “I can only presume that your absence means you’re guilty?”

  “Can I ask who this is?”

  “This is Detective Tim Deal, Tonya, and your lack of cooperation can only mean one—”

  “Detective, I told you I am more than willing to cooperate, to come in for an interview, even take a polygraph as long as my attorney is present, and my attorney has left numerous messages for you—”

  “I do not work for your attorney. I have no obligation whatsoever to return his call. Ms. Craft, I just want to enlighten you to the fact that if you refuse to cooperate with an interview with myself and Detective Keith at this time, it will result in your immediate arrest.”

  “I want to cooperate, if you’ll just call my attorn—”

  “I am not concerned about your attorney. I am only concerned with you, and you have now left me no choice.”

  The next thing I heard was a dial tone.

  I freaked out. My mom and Tammy insisted I call my attorney back. So I did. “He’s bluffing. There is no arrest warrant, and there won’t be. Don’t worry, Tonya! We will work i
t all out on Monday!” he said.

  His tone was nonchalant, almost jovial. Yet “worry” didn’t begin to describe what I was feeling. Why would a detective lie to me? What does the attorney mean by “he’s bluffing”? Is this some kind of good cop/bad cop thing like you’d see on TV? What in the world is going on?

  I felt weak. I decided to go to my bedroom to lie down, and Tammy followed me in.

  “Were the kids okay when they left?” I asked her.

  “Tyler seemed fine, but Ashley …”

  “What?”

  “She was crying.”

  I could see Tammy was extremely upset. “What, Tammy? Tell me.”

  “The tears were just streaming down her little face, you know? I told her everything was going to be okay, but she started sobbing and screaming, ‘No, it won’t be okay! No, it won’t be okay!’ She kept screaming the whole time your daddy drove them away.”

  Tammy started crying and I just couldn’t take it. I lay down and curled up into the fetal position and cried, too. Time seemed to slip away as I lay there on my bed. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t get up. I just lay there, shivering, wishing it would all go away.

  I tried to stop myself from thinking the worst. I told myself over and over, It’s gonna be okay. It has to be okay. My babies are going to be okay. This’ll all be cleared up Monday morning. This’ll all get worked out Monday morning—

  That’s when the doorbell rang. Again.

  Chapter 6

  “You did what?!”

  Kelly’s shout startled me. It was the afternoon of the last day of the 2005–06 school year, just after we’d moved into our new house. Ashley and I were over visiting with Chloe and her mom. Ashley and Chloe had been playing quietly together in Chloe’s bedroom, and Kelly had just gotten up to go see what they were doing, but her scream sounded really hysterical. Oh, brother. What’d the girls do now? I wondered. Then all of a sudden I heard Chloe scream bloody murder. I ran in to find Kelly beating her child with a belt.