I Speak For This Child: True Stories of a Child Advocate

by Gay Courter

  Grace Chandler was saying “look at the cold hard facts.” To keep me focused on the unfolding events, I pulled out my steno pad and began to take notes. “Today you will meet a child, for that is what she is, even though she is maturing into a young lady. This is a child, who because of her father’s heinous crimes, has lost her home, her family, and any hope at a normal life.” Grace’s voice choked. “Nobody wants to confront what happens when the person charged with the care of a child abuses that fragile trust in the service of his twisted cravings, but we must do our duty and examine the details of this depraved crime.”

  When Walt Hilliard’s turn came, he dispensed with the podium and strolled confidently in front of the jury, asking them to consider “the standard of proof and to follow the road map of the evidence.” He explained that there was but one crime of sexual battery being considered, and while other alleged crimes may be mentioned, Mr. Stevenson had never been charged with them. Then his voice dropped as he described Alicia as a “very troubled girl,” using the tone of someone who regretted the necessity of having to speak ill of the dead.

  Turning on his heel as if he were about to leave, Walt Hilliard then spun around to renew their attention. “Why didn’t this young girl, who claims she was the victim of multiple years of abuse, tell anyone? There were stepmothers in her home. She had teachers and close friends. Why, all of a sudden, did she pick Mrs. Smiley, a virtual stranger? Pay attention to that witness and see if you believe what she tells you, then listen carefully to Dr. Leif, the state’s expert witness, and rely on your common sense to decide if this man, Richard Leroy Stevenson, could have done the terrible things that are alleged by his young, confused daughter.”

  Grace Chandler told the judge her next witness would be the victim. Looking at me, she said, “Her Guardian ad Litem has requested a closed courtroom.” During the brief break, I went into Grace’s office to locate Alicia. Her head was lying on Grace’s desk blotter, but she was not asleep.

  “Ready?” I asked. I went behind her and massaged her neck. “This is the worst part, then it will be over.”

  “I’m okay,” she said as she straightened the folds on her new dress.

  I walked Alicia into the courtroom and as we passed the reporters on the back benches stared sharply at Sterling Bailey, who looked away.

  As soon as the bailiff shut the doors, Alicia took the stand. She was carrying the Bible covered in white leather and stamped with her name that Ruth had given her the previous Christmas. The pink flowers on her calico dress flattered her tawny complexion. A lacy collar framed her face. Her hair was pinned back with a matching bow. Without purple eye shadow, bright lipstick, or trendy clothing, Alicia looked younger than fifteen.

  Grace Chandler adjusted the podium so that it was close enough to be personal, but not “in her face.” Then she began with gentle questions about Alicia’s age, where she was living, and attending school. Next, she took Alicia back to when her father first molested her.

  In a quiet voice, but without hesitation, Alicia described the tool shed. “It was kind of spooky, with lots of cobwebs. Dad knew I didn’t like to be in there alone.”

  Just as she had during the deposition, Alicia told how she climbed on her father’s lap and how he had touched her genitals.

  I watched the jury. There were two retired men in their early seventies, one portly, one thin. One had been in accounting, one in sales. The mustached man was a recent navy veteran with a personable face. The fourth man, who was a local supermarket butcher, wore a brown suit, and had a bulldog’s chin. The lone woman was over fifty and had cotton white hair and wore purple-framed glasses. I liked the alternate best. She was a schoolteacher in her forties who seemed the most alert and most likely to empathize with Alicia. The others behaved as if they had taken a pretrial course in blinking as infrequently as possible.

  “When did your father change the way he touched you sexually?” Grace asked.

  “When I was nine.”

  After clarifying how she knew how old she had been, Alicia explained that she used to help her father at his marine shop.

  “What do you remember happened there the summer when you were nine?”

  “One time I had to use the bathroom and my father came in while I was sitting on the toilet. He reached above my head and took down some magazines and showed me pictures of people having sex in different ways. My father pointed to the pictures of men’s things, and then he unzipped his pants and showed me his, and made me touch it.”

  “Touch what?” Grace asked gently.

  “His penis,” Alicia said, then looked away.

  “What happened next?”

  “He jerked me off the seat and pulled my shorts down around my ankles. He turned me around so my butt was facing him and placed my hands on the tank of the toilet. He held onto my elbows and he jammed his thing inside of me.”

  “How did it feel?”

  “It hurt,” she replied flatly.

  “Did this ever happen again?” Alicia nodded. Grace prompted Alicia to tell of a typical situation.

  “If nobody was around the house my father would take off his clothes, put on his bathrobe, and walk around with it partially open so I could see he was interested. Then he’d have me lie down on the couch and he’d do it to me.”

  As soon as the particulars of the crime were patently stated, Grace turned the floor over to the defense attorney.

  Walt Hilliard moved the podium into position for the cross-examination. Grace had warned Alicia that Mr. Hilliard would try to intimidate her, not only with his words, but also with his body language. As predicted, he loomed close to the witness stand and tried to cut off Alicia’s eye contact with Grace.

  I had stationed myself at a different angle from the prosecutor, and Alicia had been told that whichever direction she would look she would see someone who cared about her. Instead of taking notes, I lifted my chin and set my mouth into what I hoped was a supportive expression.

  Walt Hilliard was smart enough not to badger Alicia, for no jury would want to see this former college linebacker bullying a tender teen. “Why didn’t you tell anyone sooner?” he asked, as if he genuinely did not understand how someone could have suffered so long in silence.

  Following instructions, Alicia did not respond at once. Grace had warned her to leave a few seconds in case she needed to object to an improper question. “There was nobody to tell.”

  “Wasn’t there a stepmother in the house at the time?”

  “I didn’t think she would believe me.”

  “Why didn’t you tell a teacher or a friend?”

  “I was afraid to.”

  “Were you afraid your father would hurt you if you told?”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “Then why?”

  She waited the requisite beat. “I was scared.”

  “You just said you didn’t think your father would hurt you, so what were you scared of?”

  Beat. “Ah …” Beat. “… being moved. Like my older brother. When my father didn’t want him around anymore, he sent him away.”

  I couldn’t control my involuntary grin.

  “Did it ever happen again?” Alicia nodded. “Where?”

  “Usually somewhere in the house.”

  “Anywhere else?”

  “He took me on trips with him when he had to deliver a boat or some parts. Last summer we drove all the way to Mobile, Alabama, where we shared the same bed and did it every night.”

  “When in the summer was it?”

  “I remember The Thorn Birds was on television because he’d let me watch it if I’d do it.”

  “There were a lot of people living in your house. When were you ever alone?”

  “In the middle of the night.”

  “Didn’t anyone wake up?”

  “Rich and Cory are very sound sleepers. Dad has to use the squirt gun to get them up in the morning.”

  “It is hard to wake you up too?” She nodded. “But he could get
you up for sex?”

  “Yeah, like you can really sleep when someone is doing it to you,” she responded with a nasty edge.

  “Didn’t anyone in your family suspect anything?” Walt Hilliard questioned.

  “My brother, Rich, did, but I told him nothing happened because if he knew the truth he would have killed my father.”

  Walt Hilliard took a few steps backward, then consulted his notes. “Do you like boys?”

  Beat. “I guess …”

  “Do you like having sex with boys?”

  “Objection!” Grace said with a tinge of disgust.

  “Sustained,” ruled Judge Donovan.

  Then Walt Hilliard asked when she first had sex with her father and she indicated it was that afternoon at the marine shop. “What about when you were in the tool shed?” She said that was different. He began a series of questions relating to discrepancies in her testimony from the early written statements and cleverly tried to confuse her, but she had done her homework. He did, however, annoy her enough so her polite responses took on an edginess.

  Mr. Hilliard began reading quotes from Alicia’s deposition. Grace Chandler objected to bringing in this evidence, which wasn’t in the file.

  “It was filed June twenty-eighth,” Mr. Hilliard stated and showed her the date stamped on the paper.

  I sagged. Grace’s “lucky break” had been a clerical oversight.

  Grace’s cheeks flamed. She asked to approach the bench to explain she had never received a copy. The judge gave her a short recess to read the transcribed deposition over. I took Alicia back to Grace’s office for a Coke. We watched Grace pace back and forth flipping the pages and reading worrisome passages aloud. Normally imperturbable, the prosecutor seemed genuinely shaken.

  When the trial resumed, Walt Hilliard read from Alicia’s conflicting written statements. “In this one you said that you had sex with your father ‘about once a week from the age of five through nine’ and after that as often as three times a week.”

  “I meant he touched me once a week.”

  “But that is not what you reported under oath,” Walt Hilliard said, waving the transcribed deposition in front of her, “is it?”

  Grace Chandler objected to this needling but the judge allowed it.

  Walt Hilliard came back at her even more aggressively. “And when you were nine? What happened then?”

  “He had sex with me.”

  “So what you wrote in your statement was not what you meant?”

  “No.”

  “Then it was a lie, wasn’t it?”

  Walt Hilliard backed away so the jury could see Alicia’s distraught face. In a studied gesture of kindness, he gave her a moment to catch herself, while he pretended to look at his notes.

  “You explained how your father had sex with you for the first time in the bathroom at his place of business, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you describe the bathroom?” Alicia mentioned the bathtub and the woodstove. “Isn’t that the bathroom at your house?”

  “No, it is the one at the old marine shop in town.”

  Walt shrugged, then continued. “You testified that ‘my father pulled my pants down around my ankles,’ is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you step out of your panties or did they stay around your ankles?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Oh, now you’re not sure! Do you remember what you said he did to you?” He looked at his notes. “You said, ‘he jammed his thing inside of me.’ Then you told us that ‘thing’ meant his penis. Now I want you to tell me about his penis. How did it feel to you? Was it hard or was it soft?”

  “Soft.”

  “How could he penetrate you with a soft penis?”

  “First it was soft, then it got harder.”

  “Oh, so now it got harder? Which was it?”

  “Both, but it was from the rear, so I couldn’t see and I was too young to know exactly.”

  “But now you know more about these things?”

  “I should by now.” The painful knowledge wrought by that familiarity was etched on Alicia’s face.

  “You say that your father had routine sex with you as often as once or twice a week, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me exactly what you allege your father did to you.”

  “He would go in and out until he came. You know what that means?” Alicia finished with her Bardot pout.

  “Did he try forceful, hard, pounding sex with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And nobody heard what was going on in that small house with so many people sleeping nearby?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Didn’t you know that all you had to do was say the magic words ‘sexual abuse’ and HRS would come and remove you from your father?”

  “I wasn’t sure what would happen.”

  “But you said that your brother had been taken away before, so you must have known you could get out of your house if you claimed abuse. Were you angry with your father the day you decided to tell someone?”

  “No.”

  “Who is your best friend?”

  “Dawn Leigh Pruitt.”

  “Where is she living now?”

  “Clearwater.”

  “Where did Dawn Leigh Pruitt live before she moved?”

  Alicia described a section of the county not far from Stevenson Groves. After some more rapid-fire questioning she admitted that she had been upset because her father had not facilitated a visit between the girls.

  Then, unexpectedly, Walt Hilliard excused the witness.

  Grace Chandler returned and entered an exhibit into evidence. It was the picture of the bathroom in the marine shop. She had Alicia verify that this was where the rape had occurred. Then she asked, “Were you ever afraid of your father hurting you physically?”

  “Yes. He has hit me with a belt and with his hand.”

  “Do you still love your father?”

  “Yes.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Red Stevenson straightening from his hunched-over position. He was shaking his head from side to side, as though he could not believe what had just happened.

  The proceedings adjourned for lunch. Alicia’s testimony had taken almost two hours, but she had held up beautifully. Ruth brought Alicia, Rich, and me sandwiches to Grace’s office. At one point Rich asked Alicia to pass him a drink and called her “Janet.” She teased him about it, but he didn’t seem to realize his mistake. Cory, who didn’t want to talk to his brother and sister, ate in another room with Marta Castillo and Mitzi Keller, and I spent the second half of the break with him.

  As I walked back into the courtroom, Sterling Bailey touched my arm. “I called my editor. We won’t be printing the family name in future editions.”

  I scribbled Lillian a note announcing the little victory. She squeezed my hand.

  The prosecution called Dr. Colette Boggs, the court-appointed psychologist who had evaluated the three Stevenson children. Dr. Boggs discussed incest in general, some of the syndromes that victims present, including self-mutilation and low self-esteem, and how she diagnosed these characteristics in Alicia.

  “Why don’t girls like Alicia Stevenson tell anyone of the abuse?” Grace Chandler asked the expert.

  “One reason is the fear of being stigmatized. Although we try to assure the victim that she has done nothing wrong, she may feel that because she participated she was somehow at fault. Also, as soon as the disclosure is made, the victim will be blamed for the subsequent trauma to the family. She also feels responsible for the fate of the offender, which is why some never reveal the secret. Other times children who have been violated for many years don’t realize that something is terribly wrong until they are teenagers developing outside relationships and their own moral position.”

  Dr. Boggs answered questions about what she knew about the women who served in the capacity of Alicia’s stepmother and poi
nted out that the history of transience gave Alicia the feeling that nobody could be trusted. Next the psychologist’s testimony turned to defining posttraumatic stress disorder and Alicia’s presentation of some of these symptoms. “We describe the victim’s response in terms of freeze, flight, and fight. Initially, when a sexual attack occurs, the victim’s brain pumps adrenal hormones, and these act like an anesthetic so that the incident can be endured without an overwhelming sensation of pain.”

  “Would this result in someone not recalling an initial sexual penetration as excruciatingly painful?” Grace asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Does that mean she did not experience pain at the time?”

  “No, although her sensations may have been muted as a coping response. However. later, even a small amount of pain associated with a similar event can set off a traumatic response far more intense than is warranted by the actual situation.”

  Colette Boggs went on to describe the flight response as one used to minimize anxiety.

  “How does Alicia exhibit this response?”

  “When she is asked to recall unpleasant memories, she seems to fall asleep or dissociates from the discussion at hand.”

  Dr. Boggs testified that the fight response ranges from temper tantrums to more aggressive acting out. When asked why Alicia permitted so many years of abuse, she explained that Alicia’s passivity was “a form of accommodation.”

  “Is this common?”

  “Very much so. Some children either deny the abuse occurred at all or, even after it is out in public, recant the confession if pressured to do so.”

  Watching the impassive jury, I suspected that Dr. Boggs’s technical explanation was not hitting its mark.

  After Mr. Hilliard’s brief cross-examination of the psychologist, Deputy Moline from the sex crimes division was called to the stand. He answered the prosecutor’s questions about the night he responded to a report of sexual battery.