Strangler

by Corey Mitchell

  “Are you still thinking that maybe if you go along, it’s going to be okay?”

  “I don’t remember. I didn’t have a choice at that point.”

  “Did you let him take your pants off?”

  “I think I struggled a little bit.”

  “Did your pants come off?” Buess asked.

  “Yes.”

  “So, now at this point you’ve got your panties on?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your blue T-shirt?”

  “Yes.”

  “And your bra?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re sitting on the edge of your bed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Tell us what happens next.”

  “He used a knife to cut off my panties.”

  “Selma, how did you know it was a knife?”

  “Because he—I don’t remember if he told me at that point, but at some point he told me that he had a knife that he would cut me with.”

  “So, when he cut off your panties, did you feel that knife on your body?”

  “I don’t remember if I felt it, but I knew that’s how he did it.”

  “When he’s cutting off your panties, did he say anything to you?”

  “I don’t believe so.”

  “At this point, with your panties off and your jeans off, are you still sitting upright in your bed?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Where are you now?” Buess queried.

  “I’m laying on my back on the bed, but my legs are still hanging off of the bed.”

  “Off of the edge of the bed?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re laying back flat?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He was standing at my knees.”

  “Is he still talking to you?”

  “I believe he was.”

  “Do you recall what he was saying at this point?” Buess questioned.

  “He started talking, telling me to just relax, and he spread my legs open.”

  “How is he spreading your legs open?”

  “Using his hands,” Janske answered with a quaver in her voice.

  “And you said you think you struggled at one point?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you recall doing?”

  “Trying to close my legs and just screaming.”

  “At that point the tape that’s around your mouth, is it still in place?”

  “It’s a lot looser by then because [of] the moisture from my breath and moving around.”

  “So, it’s come a little bit loose?”

  “Yes.”

  “In your screaming, can you hear yourself screaming?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can he hear you screaming?” Buess posed.

  “Yes.”

  “Tell the jury, please, as you’re screaming, what changes with him?”

  Janske looked directly at the jury. “As I was screaming, he got upset. He was telling me that I was being too loud, that I needed to be quiet. At that point he was threatening me with the knife, that he had a knife and he was going to cut me.”

  “And at that point you knew he had a knife, right?”

  “Yes, because he had cut my panties with it.”

  “So, with that knife and the threat being made, did you believe that he was capable of doing that to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Of killing you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You said you were screaming. When he told you to be quiet, did you stop or did you continue?”

  “I think I did quiet down for a little bit.”

  “What happens next?”

  “He was able to open up my knees.”

  “And what happened next, Selma?”

  “That’s when he raped me,” Janske replied as the air went out of the room. The prosecutors looked fierce. The jury looked worn-out. Anthony Allen Shore looked neutral as he continued to stare down at the defense table.

  “Did you ever hear him unzip his pants?” Buess asked the young lady.

  “No.”

  “When you say ‘raped,’ tell us—I’m sorry to have to ask you this, but we’ve got to—the written record has to be clear. What part of him goes into you?”

  Janske cast her eyes downward and quietly answered, “He put his penis into me, into my vagina.”

  “And again, just so the jury is clear, he’s not on top of you, is he?”

  “No, he’s not.”

  “How is he at this point?”

  “He’s leaning over me. On me.”

  “So, he’s standing in front of you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And your legs are between his legs now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he stay still or did he move? Just tell us what you recall.”

  “I think he stayed still.”

  “Selma, tell the jury, back then when you were fourteen years old on that date, had you even started your period yet?”

  “No.”

  “Did you really know anything about sex?”

  “No.”

  “Ever had anything enter your vagina before that you know of?”

  “No. No.”

  “Tell the jury, when his penis went inside your vagina, what that felt like.”

  “It hurt.”

  “When that happened, what did you do?”

  “I started screaming again.”

  “And what did he do?”

  “He told me I was being too loud.”

  “Did he ever tell you—aside from the ‘quit screaming’ and ‘quit being so loud,’ did he tell you what to do?”

  “No.”

  “Did he ever tell you to relax?”

  “Yes, he did,” Janske remembered.

  “How many times did he tell you to do that?”

  “I only remember once.”

  “Did he tell you what would happen if you didn’t relax?”

  “He told me if I relaxed, it wouldn’t hurt.”

  “Did you believe that?” Buess asked.

  “Well, not at that point. No.”

  “Tell us what you recall happening next.”

  “I want to say I started screaming again, and he told me I was being too loud. I remember, suddenly I wasn’t able to breathe.”

  “You said the tape around your mouth is coming a little bit loose and you can hear yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “How about your eyes? Does that come off your eyes? Can you see at all?” Buess wondered.

  “At some point I could see just a little sliver of light coming through,” Janske responded.

  “But you didn’t see his face?”

  “No.”

  “At any point up to this time, have you ever said, ‘No. Stop’?”

  “I don’t know that I specifically said ‘no.’”

  “And while you’re laying down on your bed, your arms are where?”

  “They’re still tied behind my back.”

  “So, you’re laying on top of your arms?”

  “Yes.”

  “You said you were screaming?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you crying?” the ADA questioned.

  “Yes.”

  “When did you start crying?”

  “It’s hard to say exactly. I mean, probably when I started screaming.”

  “So, even before he had pulled your legs apart?” Janske could not verbalize her answer at first. She slowly nodded her head up and down. “Yes,” she finally said.

  “You said you were still screaming and he was upset about it. And then you said it became hard to breathe.”

  “Yes.”

  “What was happening?”

  “I realized that something was choking me.”

  “Could you see what was choking you, Selma?”

  “No.”

  “Based on his position on you, do you have a good idea what was choking you?”

 
; “Yes.”

  “What was choking you?”

  “His hands.”

  “Tell us how far that went. That choking.”

  “I kind of came out of my stupor, I guess, and realized that I had to do something at that point,” Janske recalled.

  “Let me back you up just a moment.” The jury actually seemed disappointed. They wanted to know what this brave young woman did to protect herself. Terese Buess, however, knew what she was doing. She wanted to lead Selma Janske to the reveal, with the most impact.

  “You realized that you can’t breathe. What’s happening to you aside from the realization that you can’t breathe?” The jury appeared as if it were not ready to breathe either. “Did you begin to black out?”

  “No, I don’t believe so.”

  “What are the thoughts going through your mind?”

  “If I don’t do something, I’m going to die.”

  “So what did you do?” The entire gallery was a cone of silence.

  “I pulled my legs up to my chest and I pushed him off as hard as I could,” Selma recalled.

  “So, you kicked him?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened?”

  “He didn’t come back to me. I was really scared that . . .” Her voice trailed off at the memory.

  “What did you hear, though, when you kicked?” Prosecutor Buess brought Janske back to her counterattack.

  “I heard him knock into something.”

  “And you were scared that he was going to come back to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because you knew he had the knife?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he come back to you right away?”

  “No.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t think he came back to me at all after that. He started talking to me again.”

  “What’s he talking about now?”

  “Now he’s talking about how he knows everything about me. He had been watching me. He knew I came home from school. That he knew I played soccer and where I played soccer at, and that . . .” Her voice trailed off again as several members of the jury glanced over at Shore.

  “Specifically, what did he say about where you played soccer that he knew?” Buess asked Selma.

  “He knew what field I practiced at.”

  “Did he name the school that you played at?”

  “He named my high school that I went to and said he knew I went to school and it was Lamar and—”

  “How did that make you feel?”

  “Later it made me pretty scared.”

  “So, he’s talking and you’re still on your bed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Laying flat on your back?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are your legs now?” Buess queried.

  “I think at that point, once I kicked him off, I think I curled up into a ball on the bed.”

  “So, are you on your back or on your side?”

  “On my side.”

  “And he’s talking now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is his voice nice and calm, like it was in the beginning?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Can you tell what he’s doing?”

  “I think I hear him putting on his pants or shuffling around.”

  “Now at this point, are you talking?”

  “Well, he was making me promise—he was telling me the description that I needed to give to the police.”

  “What description was that, Selma?”

  “That he was a short black man with a New York accent.”

  “Which was not what he was at all?”

  “No.”

  “You knew he was white?” Buess asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Did he have an accent?”

  “No.”

  “And what did you tell him when he’s asking you to do that?”

  “I swore up and down that I would,” Janske replied.

  “What else?”

  “He told me that if I told them, the police, the correct description of him, that he would come back for me and that he would come back and kill me.”

  “And did you believe that at the time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he tell you he was leaving?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  Selma Janske continued to testify that Tony Shore finally left her house. She rushed to pick up the phone and dialed 911.

  “Someone had broken into the house and I needed the police,” she told the jury.

  Janske then testified that she called her mother at work. Neither one of these phone calls was a simple task, as she was still bound with duct tape. First she put the phone on the counter and dialed the numbers, then she laid her head on the receiver to speak. To call her mother, she testified, she had to “bunch my hands to the side, just to dial. And it really hurt because my hands were tied down so tight, but I just—I had to do it. And so I was able to bring it up to my head.”

  “What did you tell your mom?” Buess continued.

  “I told her someone had broken into the house and hurt me.”

  “You didn’t tell her that you had been raped?”

  “No.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She asked me if I had called the police. I told her I had and she said that she was coming.”

  “She was on her way home?”

  “She left her office.”

  “And you’re telling us with a pretty calm voice right now. What kind of voice did you use when you called your mom?”

  “I think I was trying to be calm so I wouldn’t totally scare her.”

  Selma Janske testified that a female police officer, Jeannine Maughmer, was the first person at the scene. Janske had to somehow manage to unlock the dead bolt on the front door to let the officer enter her home.

  “When she came in, did you tell her everything that happened?” Buess asked.

  “No,” Janske admitted.

  “Why not?”

  “I was pretty scared.”

  “What were you scared of?”

  “I didn’t want to tell her his true description and I didn’t want to tell her the false description. So, I told her I didn’t know.”

  “Did you tell her what had happened to you yet?”

  “Yes, I think it was pretty obvious.”

  “Who else came over to the house?”

  “My next-door neighbor did. My mom’s secretary had called my dad and my mom left the office and he, in turn, called my neighbor to check on me.”

  “And then your mom arrived?”

  “Yes.”

  “When your mom arrived, did you talk with her?”

  “Yes, I told her that he had threatened me if I gave the correct description and that I didn’t want to tell them.”

  “What did she tell you to do?”

  “She told me that I had to tell them the truth.”

  Selma Janske continued her testimony that she gave the appropriate description of her assailant. Her father then arrived at the house and her mother took her to Texas Children’s Hospital, where doctors performed a rape examination on the young girl. She continued to testify that since she was unable to get a clear view of her attacker’s face, the police could not do much to help her. The police, however, did keep in touch with her over the years.

  Janske also testified that her attacker continued to harass her. A couple days after the attack, Selma answered the phone. “My mom was in the shower and my brother had come home from college for the weekend and he was asleep. I answered the phone. The voice on the other line just said, ‘Do you know who this is?’”

  “Did you recognize the voice?” Buess asked.

  “Yes. The same man who broke into the house and raped me.”

  “When you heard that voice on the phone, what did you do, Selma?”

  “I just dropped the phone.”

  “Were there other odd things that happened with t
he telephone?”

  “Yes. One day, I think it was a couple of weeks after this incident happened, there was a message on the phone, and it was someone just heavily breathing into the phone sounding very sexually explicit and just around that time a lot of hang-ups, a lot of nobody being on the phone.”

  Selma Janske also testified that the attack forced her entire family to alter its routine. Her mother started coming home early from work. They installed an alarm, bolted the windows shut.

  “How about school? How did you feel about going to your first soccer practice after that?” Buess asked.

  “It was pretty scary, but I felt like I had to go back to some sort of normal life,” Janske recalled.

  “Did you go to counseling?”

  “A little bit.”

  “Did you find that very helpful?”

  “No.”

  “Was this something that you just put behind you and went on?”

  “No, not at all,” she stated as she emphatically shook her head.

  “Selma, during the time that the sexual assault was happening, do you recall anything happening to your anus at all?”

  “He touched my anus.”

  “You don’t recall anything going inside your anus?”

  “No.”

  “And you told the doctors that at Texas Children’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you recall telling them that something wet was coming down?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you have any idea what that was at the time?”

  “Not really.”

  “Did you know the basics of intercourse?”

  “Yeah, from health class, but . . .”

  “And at the time that this was happening to you, did you know whether or not the man ejaculated?”

  “No.”

  “Selma, after the weird things started with the telephone, did you continue answering the telephone at your home?” Buess queried.

  “No, I stopped for a couple of months. We finally got caller ID, which had just come out at that time.” Selma paused for a moment, looked at the jury, then looked back at Buess and said, “I was terrified.”

  “You told us that your period hadn’t started on that date that this happened. When did it start?”

  “It started later that week.”

  “How did you feel about that?”

  “Not very excited.”

  “When you were at the hospital and had a pelvic exam, were your feet up in the stirrups?”

  “Yes.”

  “Had you ever gone through anything like that before? Had your genitals been examined in that kind of way?”

  “No.”

  “Was there anything about what was done that hurt you at that time?”