by Tonya Craft
That led him to ask how in the world I ever relaxed, and that led to talking about my friendship with the Potters, which began that spring of 2006. That led to the detail of my watching the Potters’ kids during the summer.
“Every single day?” Doc asked me.
“Every single day,” I said.
“We can’t say that enough, can we,” Doc said.
I didn’t move to Chickamauga until approximately May 25, 2006, which was right after the end of that school year. We laid everything out, plain as day for the jury to see and hear. I spoke about Mike and Dee dropping in to my house to pick up the kids, unannounced, at any time, just to make a point about how I was never trying to hide anything. And more.
We were definitely hitting our stride.
I’d already been up on that stand for almost two hours when I related the Chloe and Ashley story, of the touching and “losing it” that happened at Kelly’s house. The whole time I was talking, I just hoped and prayed that the jury was seeing and hearing me as the reasonable human being I am. As absolutely stressed out as I felt as I sat there, there was a part of me that felt good to finally speak the truth in front of all of those people.
Of course, right as I was feeling like it was going pretty well, Len Gregor stood up again. He objected to us entering a “good conduct” teacher evaluation into evidence from my first year of teaching at Chickamauga Elementary.
Much to my surprise, Judge House allowed it. I felt like shouting, “Hallelujah!” It was the first bit of any kind of a decision that had gone our way in what felt like forever. I didn’t think the tide might be turning or anything like that. But it was almost five thirty in the afternoon, and right after we put that document into evidence, Doc asked the judge if we wanted to break and continue the next day—and Judge House agreed.
All of a sudden the courtroom burst into a rush of commotion like it was Grand Central Station or something. Everybody started talking and yammering. My attorneys got up to try to take the timeline off the stand so we could take it back to the house with the rest of our boxes. The jury filtered out. Everybody milled about.
I got up on my feet and just stood there at the witness stand. Everybody in the courtroom was going back to their lives, back to their homes, back to their children. Some of those people seemed to be there just for the spectator sport of it. It sounded almost like people leaving a baseball game or something. People sounded happy. People sounded alive.
I touched my face and could feel that my cheeks were all hot. Knowing me, they were probably bright red. David hadn’t come in yet. I had no one to talk to. No one was asking me anything.
I stood there in the middle of all that commotion, knowing there were people gathered outside who had come just to support me, and knowing there were TV news satellite trucks parked up and down the street outside planning to talk about me. And in that moment, standing in the middle of all of it, I felt alone.
Chapter 61
I hardly slept at all before coming in for that second morning of testimony. I think it showed, too. My face felt tired. I knew my hair wasn’t quite right. I really didn’t care.
I’d put on a black-and-gray striped jacket over a white blouse this time. I wore my pendant inside my shirt, where I could feel the metal on my skin—right close to my heart.
I stood in the witness box as the jury filtered in, taking deep breaths, once again trying to slow my heart down to some reasonable rate. I just couldn’t seem to get it calmed down. And then all of a sudden, we started again.
“That was tough yesterday, wasn’t it?” Doc asked me.
“Yes,” I said.
“Did I go too fast?” he asked. He was good about catching me off guard with odd questions now and then, almost to distract me from my own fear.
“Sometimes,” I said. I smiled for a second. Not a full smile, just a quick one.
“And how are you feeling today?” he asked, while I gulped a few more breaths.
“Um,” I said. I shook my head trying to put it into words. “The same way as yesterday. Scared, and I know I’m being questioned and grilled and it’s—it’s very difficult for me to get up here because I feel like I’m fighting for my life and my children’s lives and any child that believes something that didn’t happen to them, and that’s why I have to get up here. It’s the personal attacks. It’s very scary,” I said.
Doc gave me some instructions, telling me to stop him if he was going too fast or if he was being flippant. I was half-surprised that Len Gregor didn’t jump up and object to him coaching me or something.
“This is your trial,” Doc said, “not mine.”
He then instructed me to speak a little louder.
“Okay,” I said. And off we went.
Doc continued walking through my whole timeline, bringing up every bit of my busy life, every friend who’d been over to my house, talking about Shanica and her daughter Hailey, and Tammy and her son Hunter, and the Potters, and all of the people who were truly there, truly spending time with us, and who rarely, and in some cases never, saw Brianna or Chloe spend any time at our house at all.
We used the visual of the timeline for what felt like a very long time, walking the jury through absolutely everything.
We rolled through the details of my “love at first sight” with David and went into the basic detail of the wedding-reception stories from my point of view—but not that much. David had covered it accurately, and I let the jury know that. Plus, I felt like Doc kind of nipped that whole thing in the bud just perfectly with one series of questions: “Did you eat the food? Did you drink a lot? Did you dance around? Did you puke in the middle of the night?” I answered yes to all of that. And then Doc said, “So what?”
He moved right back to the timeline.
We covered the specifics of how few times Chloe and Brianna had been over at my house. Ever. We went through the details of the High School Musical party that had been brought up during the trial, which happened in August 2007.
“The girls played dress-up, the boys ran around doing boy stuff,” I said, and we talked about the fact that David was there. Chloe was there, and she spent the night, along with a whole bunch of other girls, and Chloe’s older brother was there, too.
“Nobody took a bath,” either that night or the next morning, I confirmed. There was nothing unusual that happened other than children having fun. Nobody complained about anything that night. “Maybe David [complained] a little bit,” I said, which got a chuckle out of Doc.
We made the point that David was there at my house every night, unless he was traveling on business trips, which were pretty few and far between. Basically, we added up the whole timeline, all the way through the end of 2007, and explained what we felt were the inconsistencies with Brianna’s and Chloe’s stories.
Someone’s cell phone went off on the prosecution side of the courtroom somewhere, right in the middle of my testimony. It was shocking, since everybody who came in on my side was practically body searched on their way in. Even my attorneys couldn’t bring phones in. And yet, no one was escorted out. It was a beeping electronic reminder to me that the bias I perceived in Judge House’s courtroom was as strong as ever.
After Doc and I talked through the fact that I never gave baths to any other kids at my house, ever, we turned the corner into 2008. I relayed the details of what happened at Ashley’s birthday party and the moment when DeWayne Wilson threw a notebook across the table at me and said, “Somebody’s gonna pay!” We walked through my concern over Ashley and Sarah showering together. We then went through the awfulness of May 30, 2008. Judge House had ordered me not to talk about anything anyone said to me on that day, including the detectives. So I couldn’t tell the whole story. I wasn’t allowed to tell the “whole truth.” I kept having to stop myself to say, “Oh, I can’t say that.”
We were allowed to play the tape of the whispered message Ashley left for me that night. I got choked up on the stand when Doc played it, just thinking abou
t my baby girl.
I talked about staying with my friend Diana for the very first time in any public forum whatsoever. I walked through my arrests, noting that I’d turned myself in both times. I walked through my termination hearing in August 2008, and when Doc asked whether I had called the media to that hearing, I told that jury the absolute truth: “No!”
In fact, looking back on it now (and I didn’t say this in court), I wondered if the DA’s office had been the ones to call the press. After all, it was an election year. Now here they were complaining about all the press and trying to turn it on me as some sort of evidence of my guilt.
The hypocrisy sure runs thick in this place, I thought.
Finally, Doc asked me point-blank if I’d ever touched any of those girls.
“Did you do any inappropriate touching with Ashley?” Doc asked me.
“No,” I said.
He asked me if I’d done anything inappropriate to Chloe.
“No.”
He asked me the same of Brianna.
“No,” I said.
He went on to ask me if I’d scrubbed Brianna in the bath, or neglected to feed her, or whether I listened to rap music with her in the car. I answered “no” to every one of those allegations.
“Do you have any idea why Brianna Lamb is saying these things about you?” Doc asked.
Len Gregor tried to object to my answering that question. He said it was speculation. Doc pressed it, and the judge let me speak.
“In my mind,” I said, “I’ve listened to the experts, I’ve listened to the different influences and how things can play out, and how she got to the point to where she believes it, I don’t know. I think it’s just horribly sad for any of these children—for them to think that something happened to them that did not happen to them.”
I left the detailed breakdown of the girls’ interviews to the experts we’d already put up as witnesses, but I thought it was important for the jury to know that I’d done that legwork myself, too. It was important for them to know that I wanted to understand how on earth this could possibly happen.
We talked openly about all the research I’d done, and the traveling I’d done, and how I wanted to get lots of people’s opinions about my case, and advice about my case. I certainly didn’t see any need to hide that part of my story from anyone.
Doc even asked me why I’d gone so far as to hire a team of expensive attorneys. I thought about my kids, and I made the best analogy I could: “If your child has a brain tumor, you take ’em to a specialist. You don’t take ’em to a walk-in clinic.”
“The last thing I want to go through,” Doc said, “I want to ask you about the things that Mr. Gregor has been asking. This is the ‘You’re a child-molester if’ list.”
I nodded. I was more than ready to finally speak up for myself.
“Tell me about wearing a thong,” Doc said.
“I do not have a thong bathing suit. I never have,” I answered.
“Tell me, if you were to wear a thong, does that mean you’re a child molester?”
“No,” I said.
“Now tell me about wearing a bikini.”
“Yes, I have.”
“Does that make you a child molester?” Doc asked.
“No.”
“How about changing clothes in front of other women. Have you done that?”
“I’m sure if I went shopping or if we were at the house and going somewhere it could have happened.”
“Does that make you a child molester?” he asked.
“No.”
“What about gettin’ drunk? Does that make you a child molester?”
“No.”
Doc took on a bit of a Georgia drawl as he said these things.
“What about mowin’ the lawn in shorts and a tank top. Does that make you a child molester?”
“No.”
“What about having premarital sex, does that make you a child molester?”
“No.”
“Have you done that?” Doc asked.
“Yes.”
“Have you mowed the lawn in shorts and a tank top?”
“Yes.”
“What about puking on the carpet after you eat food and drink alcohol. Have you done that?”
“Yes, I have.”
“Does that make you a child molester?”
“No.”
“If you have pictures of your children’s birthday parties, does that make you a child molester?”
“No,” I said.
“But we heard that child molesters have pictures of kids and parties,” Doc said.
The listing of all of these things in succession was making me feel sick.
“If you had sex with men that you didn’t marry, does that make you a child molester?”
“No.”
“If you had sex with women—have you ever done that?”
“No.”
“If you had done that, would that make you a child molester?”
“No.”
I kept taking sips of my water. My throat felt so awfully dry.
Doc asked me about my having kids do sleepovers with my kids, my babysitting kids, my choosing a career centered around children—all of those things that the prosecution seemed to insinuate would prove that I was a child molester.
He asked me if drinking at the wedding and jumping in the pool made me a child molester, to which I answered “no.”
Then he asked me if Sandra was drinking at my wedding.
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“I didn’t watch her.”
“Does that make her a child molester?”
“No.”
“If you’re a Boy Scout leader or a teacher or a priest and in a position of authority, does that make you a child molester?”
“No.”
“You’re a teacher. You were.”
“I am a teacher, and I am not a child molester.”
Doc asked me what happened to all of my classroom supplies, and I told that jury about the yard sale—giving it all away so it would go to a classroom where it was meant to be.
“How many years did it take you to assemble all of that stuff for your students?”
It took me a moment to find the strength to say it.
“Fifteen years,” I said.
I started to tear up. I didn’t want to lose it. I didn’t want to cry.
Doc then asked me how much money I’d had to raise in order to put on a defense for myself in this case, and that sobering thought dried my tears up pretty quick.
“I don’t know exactly, but between my parents cashing in their inheritance, and my parents refinancing their house … and having garage sales—it’s been over $500,000.”
“$500,000 of your parents’ inheritance, and refinancing houses, and garage sales to deal with this,” Doc said. “So if you raise and borrow and refinance and hocked an inheritance up to $400,000 or $500,000, go all over the country, and do everything you did to get ready for this trial, does that make you a child molester?”
“No, it absolutely does not.”
“What about these lesbian affairs that Mr. Henke suddenly remembered on the way to the courthouse? Any truth to that?”
“No. And—”
“What a guy,” Doc commented before asking me if I’d had affairs with Tammy, or Dee, or Jennifer, or an affair with Mike Potter—and even if I had, would it make me a child molester?
I said “no” to all of those things.
“Is there any more mud I could throw on you and ask you about that you can think of?”
“I’m sure anybody could think of something more,” I said. “I don’t know.”
Doc looked me in the eyes. He paused for a second. And then he said, “That’s all I have, Your Honor.”
That was that. That was the end of my direct testimony.
You know what I needed to do at that moment?
I needed to pee.
I unceremoniously asked the judge for a ba
throom break, which he granted. I used that moment away from the courtroom to try to prepare myself for the attack I was surely about to endure.
Chapter 62
“Miss Craft,” Len Gregor said. “You realize that money, no matter how much—money doesn’t buy the truth, correct?”
“It shouldn’t,” I said.
“It shouldn’t affect the truth, should it?”
“No, it shouldn’t.”
“And the truth isn’t some sort of a commodity, a product that you buy?”
I just sort of looked at him for a moment while gathering my thoughts, and he took it to mean that I didn’t understand him or something.
“You know what a commodity is?”
“I do, I—”
“It’s not something you buy.”
“No, you don’t buy the truth.”
“The truth simply exists, right?” he said.
“Yes.”
“As it relates to that, why did you and Mr. Lorandos have a discussion for the benefit of the jury about how much money you’ve spent on your defense?”
“It is seemingly impossible to defend yourself against allegations such as this, and I will do everything I can to prove the truth,” I said, reiterating that same brain tumor/child analogy I’d made less than an hour earlier.
He went on making a speech about how the amount of money either side spends on a case should have no bearing on the outcome of a trial. He then brought up the media attention this case was getting and compared it to other cases that have caught the attention of media—in which a lot of money has been thrown at a defense.
He didn’t have a question for me, so I had no response.
“And as it relates to the Gregor list, there really is no list, is there?” he said.
Again, I didn’t answer. Doc hadn’t called it the Gregor list. I just looked at him.
“You’re a child molester if you molest children. If someone inappropriately touches a child’s genitalia, they’re a child molester,” he said, and then paused.
“Are you asking me a question? What’s the question?” I asked.
“Yeah, do you agree with that or not?” he said.
