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

by Tonya Craft

  The full impact of what he said took a few seconds to sink in.

  “Oh my God. Oh my God, Scott. What am I going to do?” I looked at my mom with my eyes full of tears. “What am I going to do?”

  “Tonya, you’ll get through this,” Scott said. “Stop somewhere, okay?” he told me. “You might want to get a bite to eat because you won’t get any food for a while.”

  Scott was practical like that in the heat of the moment, but I couldn’t eat. There was no way, I told him. “Then just wait. I’ll come. I’ll call you when I’m close to the exit and then I’ll follow you down to the jail,” he said.

  I immediately got on the phone with Cary, whose reaction was the emotional opposite of Scott’s. He was angry and yelled profanities. I was glad to have both sides of the spectrum as I tried to process the news that I was about to spend twenty-four hours in jail. I needed someone to keep me on course, and I needed someone to share my absolute horror and anger and frustration.

  It took Scott nearly an hour to get to us, and by then I’d gone from hysterical to just plain numb.

  “I know this sucks,” he said. “I know it’s not going to be fun. But we have to do this.”

  I tried not to let myself feel that the whole world had turned against me. I tried not to wonder if God had abandoned me as we pulled into the parking lot of that concrete hell on Highway 41.

  We didn’t know what this new charge was all about. How can there be a brand-new charge from Brianna, after all this time, when I haven’t been allowed anywhere near her?

  As we walked into that jail’s stark lobby, Scott went to talk to the guard at the desk.

  He’d explained to me that because this was a twenty-four-hour stay, I would have to change into prison garb, which meant that there would be a strip search and cavity search, and that any way I looked at it this was bound to be awful. I tried not to think about it. He’d told me about a list of approved items they would be able to bring for my “comfort” after I was in my cell, and he assured me they would get me everything I needed. As a woman, I had some pretty specific needs. I just had no idea how badly I’d need them.

  I hugged my mom as hard as I’d ever hugged her in my life as the guard came out to get me. They took me back and put me in handcuffs just like they did the first time—right behind that glass door, in plain sight of my poor mother. Only this time, after taking me back to one of those holding cells with a bunch of other prisoners for a while, they took me to a private room. A guard walked in carrying a folded pair of pinkish-colored, prison-issue pants, a matching shirt, and some canvas tennis shoes with no laces.

  “You’ll change into these after the search,” he said.

  He stepped out and a female officer stepped in. “Sorry we have to do this, but please remove all of your clothes,” she said to me.

  I wasn’t prepared for it. I knew it might happen, but until it happens to you, there is just no possible way to prepare. I was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and flip-flops. I’ll never forget the icy feel of that concrete floor on the soles of my feet as I began to undress.

  “Everything?” I asked.

  “Everything,” she answered.

  I could understand why they’d want women to remove their bras. A person could use the underwire to create some kind of a weapon or something. But everything?

  “The panties too?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Will I be able to put these back on?”

  “No, ma’am. You’re only allowed plain white cotton in here.”

  My panties had polka dots on them. I didn’t see any underwear or socks with the prison clothes they’d left for me to change into.

  “I’m sorry, it’s—it’s my time of the month,” I said.

  “If you’re using a tampon, you’ll need to remove that, too,” she said, pulling a pair of rubber gloves on her hands as she spoke to me.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, softly. The last thing I wanted to do was to make anybody angry in this place, so I tried to be polite, and I tried not to cry as I followed her orders.

  She asked me to open my mouth. She inspected all around my teeth and under my tongue. She felt in my hair. She told me to bend over, and I did, and with hardly any warning at all she stuck one of her fingers up inside of my body—first in one place, and then in the other. I started sobbing so hard my whole body shook.

  “I’m sorry we have to do this,” she said.

  “I know,” I cried.

  She stepped back. “I need you to spread your legs and squat down as far as you can,” she said. It was to make sure there was nothing hidden deeper than a finger could reach. A knife or any kind of object that someone might hide up in some body cavity would hurt or injure a person if they squatted down on it. So I squatted down with my eyes closed and stood back up with tears streaming down my face.

  “Go ahead and get dressed,” she said.

  I found it difficult to balance as I tried to put my legs into those pants. I remember thinking how thankful I was that these clothes, which were kind of like scrubs, were reddish-pinkish in color. I pulled the shirt on and then those shoes, which were almost comically big for my sockless feet.

  They moved me into a holding cell with another young woman. She was drunk as all get-out. I knew she would ask me what I was in for. That was the first thing everybody asked. So I decided to beat her to the punch.

  “Well,” she drawled, “me and this guy had drank four pitchers of beer and four shots of Jägermeister apiece, and I was driving down the road with a Colt 45 in one hand and steering with the other, and somehow—bam!—there was a tree.

  “I’ve lost my license two times,” she said.

  She asked me if I’d been arrested in Catoosa County before, and I shook my head.

  “Oh, well be glad you’re in here,” she said, “because you get three meals in here. You don’t get that in some of the other counties.”

  She gave me quite the lowdown on the neighboring jail communities, ’cause apparently she’d been in everywhere. I noticed she had scabs all over. You could see them through the rips in her jeans. I thought it was from the wreck she’d described, and I asked her, “Are you okay?”

  She looked down at herself and said, “Oh, I got that from monking.”

  “From what?”

  “Monking. You ain’t never done meth, girl?” she said.

  “No.”

  “Really? You never done meth?”

  I just shook my head and tried to fathom how in the world I belonged in the same cell as this troubled young woman.

  “Monking’s when you do meth and then you have sex for like twenty-four hours straight, and you get scabs on your knees and scars and everything,” she told me. I didn’t really want to hear any more, but I kept asking her questions because I didn’t want to talk about myself. Finally the guard came in and blew my silence wide open.

  “Miss Craft,” he said, “we’re fixing to have to move you to solitary for your protection. You were on the news, and some of the prisoners were threatening to do stuff. Anytime there’s a child molestation charge—”

  “Oh my gosh!” the girl said. She was shocked. “You didn’t do that, did you?”

  “No,” I said. I didn’t want to say anything more. I knew I’d have a hearing the next day. I was petrified that they were recording my conversations and that somehow they’d try to use anything I said against me in the courtroom.

  “When they bring you to the regular population, don’t you tell anybody why you’re in here. Just make something up,” she said, “’cause they’re all gonna want to know what you’re in here for. And you’re kinda small and kinda cute, so I’d make something bad up, like you killed somebody or somethin’. Just to be safe.”

  She went on and on giving me all sorts of jail-survival pointers. It turned out none of them would apply. They finally came and took her to the general population area, but they took me to solitary confinement. There were two types of solitary cells in that jai
l, and they put me in the most intensive one, designed for the worst of the worst—for the prisoners who were in there for trying to kill someone. It looked like where they kept Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs, with clear Plexiglas at the front and the back, so that the officers at their desks in the area behind me and anybody walking in front could see me at all times. There was a flat metal slab of a bed, a toilet right there in plain sight, a folded heavy wool blanket, and me. That was it.

  The people in the other solitary cells kept yelling and banging on their doors, trying to get my attention: “Hey! Who’s in there?” I didn’t answer. I went to the back corner on that metal slab of a bed, sat with my knees up to my chin, and covered myself with the blanket, trying to hide from everyone as best I could. The crotch and inseam of my pant legs were soaked with blood. It was freezing cold. I hate being cold. I sat there under the blanket and cried.

  I’m not sure how much time went by before they brought me in front of the magistrate to face my charges. Time was just a blur the whole time I was in there. The process was different this time, too. They didn’t take me into a room to face a real person; instead, they took me and a few other inmates to a room with a television monitor in it. They told us the magistrate would be on the other end of the video monitor and that he would be able to see us at the same time we saw him.

  I tried to ask one of the guards what I was supposed to do. “Excuse me, ma’am. We’re having a bond hearing tomorrow on this whole thing, so I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say or not say, and I’d really like my attorneys to tell me what I’m supposed to say before—”

  “You don’t get to ask questions in here!” she responded. “I don’t care what your damn attorneys tell you.”

  I tried to ask someone else a few minutes later, real politely, but they were rude, too. So I gave up. They put me in front of the TV with the magistrate and they made everyone else sit in chairs on the other side of the room, as if I were dangerous. That girl I’d met in the holding cell was in there at the same time.

  “Hey, Tonya,” she said, elbowing the girl next to her, like, “That’s her!”

  I gave her a sheepish nod of acknowledgment, and all I could think was, Obviously she’s told everybody what I’m in here for.

  From there it all happened so fast; I don’t even remember who the magistrate was. In front of all of those people, he asked me, “Are you Tonya Craft?”

  I answered. Then he asked me my age and “Do you have a degree?”

  “Yes.”

  “What in?”

  “I have a bachelor’s degree in education, and I have a master’s degree in early—”

  “You have a master’s degree?” he said incredulously.

  “Yes, I have a master’s degree.”

  Then, in front of all those people, he said, “You’re charged with digital penetration of a six-year-old girl.” They all started whispering around me. “Do you understand that charge?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “How do you plead?”

  That question made me real nervous. I didn’t want to say anything to jeopardize my case. Was I supposed to even make a plea for this charge that was being tacked on to the original charges? Wasn’t this all part of the same thing?

  “We have a bond hearing tomorrow, and—”

  “I don’t care what you have tomorrow. I’m asking you now!”

  I finally said, “Not guilty.”

  “So you understand the charges?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Take her back.”

  I was scared to death. What if by making a plea and saying that I “understand the charges” I had somehow admitted something that could hurt me? Why wouldn’t they just answer my questions to reassure me that I was doing the right thing? I felt railroaded.

  As an officer escorted me back to my cell, I looked up and happened to notice a sweatshirt, a package of underwear, and a box of feminine hygiene products on a desk beyond my cell. Oh, thank the Lord, I thought.

  “I think those are for me,” I said to the guard.

  “Just get back into your cell,” he said.

  It’s difficult to describe just how anxious I was to get my hands on those items. I hoped they would make me feel a little more human again. I hoped they would warm me up.

  I stood there waiting as he walked away, and I stared at those items, and stared and stared—and nobody went near them. Finally, it became clear to me that no one was going to bring them to me anytime soon. So I grabbed the blanket and went back into the corner.

  I had no idea what time it was. The lights never went out and I couldn’t see any sunlight. I looked at the wall next to me and there were tally marks scratched in it. I figured the only way a person could figure out what time it was is if you kept track of the meals. I didn’t eat, though. They brought me a dinner tray and left it by the door at some point, and I just left it there. I didn’t want to eat or drink because I didn’t want to have to use the toilet in front of everybody.

  At one point they gave me a manual describing all the rules and regulations of life behind bars, and I read the whole thing, cover to cover, thinking, I’d better get to know this stuff. This is going to be my life soon.

  How am I here? A teacher. A mother. How am I in this prison cell? Am I going to spend the rest of my life in a cell this size? How do I do that?

  Finally, I couldn’t hold it anymore. I had to pee. I asked for some toilet paper and they handed me a roll. I tried to hold the blanket up and cover myself while I went, but that’s a whole lot harder than you think it is. And you can’t hold it up when it’s time to wipe. I cried the whole time. I took a whole bunch of toilet paper and wadded it up in my pants to try to stop some of the blood, but that didn’t work very well at all.

  The cell was next to a big set of doors, so every time I’d start to nod off, those doors would go “Wham!” and wake me up. It was torture.

  When one of the workers came by to remove my dinner tray, he looked at the untouched food and asked, “Are you okay?” I swear that boy looked about twelve years old. I didn’t answer. I just hid my face in the blanket.

  “All right,” he said, and he left.

  I didn’t see another human being until they brought me a breakfast tray sometime the next morning. I didn’t eat that either.

  David and Clancy came down first thing, and while I wasn’t allowed to see David, an officer took me into one of those rooms with the Plexiglas dividers and the phone handsets so I could speak with Clancy. They made everyone get down and stay back in their cells during the walk to that visiting room—supposedly for my protection. It made me feel like more of a monster. As soon as I stepped out of my cell, I asked about the items on the counter, and they ignored me once again.

  Clancy made a point to tell me that he and David had stopped at Walmart the night before to get me everything they were allowed to get me—the white cotton panties, the feminine hygiene products, a sweatshirt, and a sports bra. He asked if it was satisfactory. I let him know that they hadn’t given it to me yet.

  “You’re kidding,” he said.

  “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

  I was a wreck. But we talked, and a few minutes later one of the guards said, “Your other attorney’s here.” Clancy left and Scott came in, and we talked practicalities—about the fact that I’d be taken from jail directly to my bond hearing by the police that afternoon. Finally, the guard said, “How many attorneys do you have? Because a third attorney’s here to see you!”

  I remember the visit with Cary the most because I picked up the handset and Cary said, in this soft, caring voice, “How you doin’?”

  “I don’t know. How do you think I’m doing, Cary? I’m in a solitary cell, I didn’t do anything, I’m bleeding, and there’s panties sitting right over there that I need and I can’t get to them. So how do you think I’m doing?”

  “I’m sorry, Tonya,” he said.

  Poor Cary. I completely lost it in front o
f him.

  They took me back to my cell, and I sat there the rest of that morning, right through lunch, until sometime late in the afternoon. Those prison guards didn’t bring my personal items to me until ten minutes before I had to leave for the courthouse.

  I folded the blanket before I left and placed it on the bed. The guard seemed surprised. I said I was just following instructions. He said he’d never met anyone who had actually read and followed the manual before.

  They shackled and handcuffed me to cart me over to the courthouse. I never imagined how tight and painful shackles might be until I had them on me. They hurt. They dug into my ankles something fierce. I could not walk. All I could do was shuffle.

  “Everybody down!” they yelled as they escorted me out and shoved me into the back of a police car. The whole time I was thinking, I did nothing wrong and I’m being treated like the biggest monster in this whole place.

  I don’t know how anybody who’s tall or thickset could ever fit in the back of one of those police cars. My knees were all up against the back of the front seat. I could barely move an inch.

  As they pulled up to the courthouse, I could see the cameras. The press was there. Luckily they took me around the back, but they kept treating me like Public Enemy Number One as they shoved me into the elevator and made me stand with my face to the back wall.

  One of the police officers started lecturing me as we reached the second floor. “You keep your eyes to the ground in here. If you look in your parents’ eyes, if you look at anybody and you have eye contact, I swear if you do you’re on the ground and you’re not getting out and you’re not getting bonded. You’re not allowed to have eye contact with anybody!”

  I kept my head down. All I could do was glance sideward a bit as they walked me through the side door into that little courtroom presided over by Judge Van Pelt. It was packed all the way to the back, especially on my side, where my attorneys were standing behind the table. Mom must’ve called everyone she knows, I thought. But as they paraded me past the prosecutor’s table, I saw that Joal was sitting on their side, and Joal’s father, and Sandra Lamb, and Sandra’s parents, and Kelly McDonald—though I didn’t see her husband, Jerry—and a few others I recognized, plus a few people I didn’t recognize. I tried not to make eye contact with any of them, which must’ve made me look like I was walking in shame. I hated that. I wanted to look every one of those people in the eye.