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

by Tonya Craft

  “Tonya Craft was a respected, wonderful, award-winning teacher. Is a respected, wonderful, award-winning teacher,” Doc said. “I hope to goodness she will be a teacher again.” He got a little quieter, and walked in front of the podium, and stood right in front of those jurors. “She wasn’t guilty of ever hurting a child. She didn’t ever hurt a child. She’ll never hurt a child,” he told them. He was almost whispering at the end. It was difficult to hear him from across the room.

  “Look at what’s happened. Look at what’s happened in this community,” he said. “It has to stop. You’re the only people that can stop it,” he said. “Thank you.”

  Chris Arnt’s final hour of closing wasn’t as fishy as Len Gregor’s on the surface. He started calmly and professionally, using a PowerPoint presentation to talk about evidence and the jury “putting together the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle” without knowing what the picture was from the cover of the box. He said evidence was like that, too. The jury was to keep hearing evidence, just the way the detectives kept looking for evidence, until they could discern what the picture was—beyond a reasonable doubt. They might not have all of the pieces of the puzzle in place, but there comes a point when there is no more reasonable doubt as to what the picture on that puzzle is going to turn out to be.

  I sat there wishing with everything in my heart that the detectives in my case had done what he described.

  Arnt’s closing statements didn’t look quite as fishy, but they were. At one point, he said that Kim Walker had got on the stand and confirmed that Chloe was at the after-Halloween party sleepover at our house, and that I’d contradicted her during my testimony—which was enough for Doc to jump up and object, “No. She did not say that.”

  Judge House overruled it and said, “He’s on closing.”

  “Whether I tell, or they tell you,” Arnt said, pointing back at our table, “it’s your memory that controls it.”

  Let’s hope they all have good memories, I thought. That jury wasn’t allowed to take notes. This “refresher” from the prosecutors might have been messing with their memories all over the place.

  Apparently in Judge House’s courtroom, anything could be said during closing or cross, whether it was factual or not. That’s not the way a court is supposed to work. I’ve read the statutes! There is supposed to be a basis established for any charge or accusation or evidence that is presented whatsoever. Why is the prosecution being allowed to bend that rule over and over again?

  For all I knew, the jury was listening to them and taking it all in, hook, line, and sinker.

  Arnt got more animated as he went along.

  He said if the girls were making up lies about me, they’d have said those lies in the very first interview. He tried to prove this by drawing a reference to the Bible, and the story of Jesus’s resurrection, and the Roman guards—a story that was confusing to me. I couldn’t make sense of it.

  He called into question the words that Ashley said on the phone message she left me the night of May 30—even though it had been played twice for that jury, and everyone heard those words themselves. He insinuated that she actually said something different from what we’d all heard, but then didn’t confirm what it was she might have said.

  He dropped to his knees to show the “level” I was on when I reprimanded Brianna Lamb and Lydia Wilson at Ashley’s birthday party. Then he dropped down again moments later and said, “Think back to Brianna’s testimony. She said she was just like this, on her knees, when she molested her.”

  He even talked over his allotted time by a few minutes. Judge House didn’t stop him. Arnt berated Doc, talking about him “prancing” over to embarrass their experts by showing them books that they hadn’t read. He compared me to “Tiger Woods” and Tiger’s “secret image” that nobody knew about.

  Then he made a big point to remind the jury about the tearful testimony of Jerry McDonald: “Would he have put his kid through this if it wasn’t true?”

  “You need to send a message to the Dream Team over there that this ridiculous conspiracy is a bunch of garbage,” he said. “You need to protect the innocent and hold the guilty to account for what she did in this case. You’ll also send a message to Chloe, Brianna, and Ashley that they will be protected. Their strength is worth it. You do that by filling out the verdict form: guilty on all counts.”

  I was a wreck. I wasn’t sobbing or showing very much in that courtroom, but I thought for sure those final words, combined with the girls’ testimonies, combined with the remembrance of Jerry McDonald’s testimony were going to put me away.

  As soon as Arnt’s closing was finished, the judge reread all twenty-two counts of my indictment to that jury. Every one of them struck me all over again, like twenty-two shotgun blasts to my stomach. He gave that jury a long list of very detailed instructions about their obligations and duties.

  Then he sent them off to deliberate my guilt or innocence.

  Chapter 65

  My team took me back to the house while Scott waited at the courthouse. I walked across the street and collapsed on the bed at Karen’s. I closed my eyes and tried to block out the world.

  Scott called us around 4:30 P.M. The jury didn’t have a verdict yet, so Judge House sent them home for the night. They wouldn’t be back until nine the next morning.

  That’s when I got up and left. I couldn’t take the waiting around doing nothing while everybody chitchatted and talked about what they thought went well or didn’t and what the jury might be thinking. I didn’t want to hear any of it. No one knew what that jury would do except the jurors.

  For the first time in two years, there was nothing for me to do. There were no more arguments to prepare, no research that needed to be done, no folders that needed to be organized. Nothing.

  So I left. I didn’t tell anybody where I was going. I just climbed into my old SUV and drove away. The way I saw it, this was the last night of freedom I might ever get. I wasn’t sure where I was headed. I just drove around for a while. I’m sure some of them were scared to death for me, so I called David just to let him know I was okay and not to worry.

  I wondered if anybody saw me as I drove. I don’t think they would have believed it if they did. What the heck would Tonya Craft be doing out driving around when her trial’s about to end?

  I eventually stopped at a Holiday Inn Express just off the highway. I decided to get a room. I checked in. I went up. I sat on the bed. I turned on the TV and watched some reruns of Friends. I didn’t want to think anymore. I didn’t want to be bothered. I turned my phone off. I knew there was nothing anybody needed to talk to me about until the next morning.

  At some point I walked across the parking lot and over the divider to a little Italian restaurant that had been there for as long as I could remember. I’d eaten there with my family in the past. It felt like I was choosing my last meal. I ordered a large serving of lasagna, saturated grease and all, to go.

  Sitting in the hotel room alone, watching TV and eating with a plastic fork, I made my peace with what was about to happen. I truly felt I had done everything I could to fight these allegations. I gave all I had to give. So if God wanted to keep testing me, I’d somehow find the strength to keep on fighting.

  I knew I’d be walking out one of two doors the next day: I’d either go back out the door I came in and start working on getting my kids back, or they’d walk me out through the door behind the jury, in handcuffs on my way to prison.

  At that point, honestly, whichever door it was, I was prepared to face it—because I knew that God would be right there with me. I knew the truth, and he knew the truth, and that was all that mattered. Either door would be hard. Either one would have a whole lot more fighting left on the other side. I wanted to go home. I did. But I knew my life was never going to be the same again. Not one bit of it.

  Nobody was upset with me when I got back to the house early the next morning. No one said very much at all. I went back over to the bed at Karen and Walt’s and wait
ed. I told everyone to leave me alone unless it was crucial.

  David walked into the bedroom at one point that afternoon to tell me that Scott had called from the courthouse. The jury was still out, he said, but somebody had called the court and made a death threat against me. The court was going to provide me with protection—law enforcement officers to lead me in and out of the courthouse, which was the absolute last thing I wanted.

  “I don’t want protection,” I said. “I don’t care what happens. I don’t care if there was a death threat!”

  Judge House was planning to lock up the courtroom whenever the jury came in with a verdict, and he planned to limit the number of spectators inside. I’d be limited to about thirty people.

  “Who do you want?” David asked. “We need to give Scott a list of names, like, right now.”

  “Out of all these people who love and support me? Are you kidding me? No. I’m not going to do it,” I said. “Get somebody else to do it. Go!”

  I have no idea who chose those thirty people.

  I couldn’t close the curtain tight enough in that room at Karen and Walt’s house. I couldn’t make it as dark as I wanted. I lay down on the bed and tried to enjoy the comfort of it. I tried to enjoy the fact that the bedroom was bigger than where I was headed. My body was so ravaged, I couldn’t help but fall asleep.

  “Tonya? Tonya,” my friend Tammy said, gently waking me late that afternoon. She was talking real calm and peaceful, like she didn’t want to scare me. David and Jennifer were both standing there with her, and I immediately knew why they’d come.

  “There’s a verdict,” Tammy said.

  I stood up like a ghost. I brushed my teeth. I changed into a pair of plain white cotton panties and a sports bra with no underwire. I walked out of that room and through the salon and across the street, where a bunch of the people I cared most about in the world had gathered with my team while I slept. I got into a car with Doc, Cary, and David for the drive down to Ringgold, down Highway 41, past the jail where I’d already suffered. I knew it was nothing compared to what I’d face in prison.

  We drove past the hordes of media and hundreds of people all gathered outside the courthouse. It looked like a sea of yellow. It bothered me to think how many people were going to be saddened and disappointed when that jury convicted me.

  We filtered back into the courtroom and an officer locked the doors. Judge House came in. The jury walked in. They all took their seats as I tried to breathe. I tried to slow my heart rate down, but I couldn’t. Not one of those jurors gave me an indication of what their verdict might be. Most of them were looking down or to the side, and if I had to guess, I’d say they looked pretty morose.

  “I understand you have reached a verdict,” Judge House said once they were all in place. “Will you please hand that verdict form to the bailiff.”

  The form got passed to Judge House first, and then he handed it over to a white-haired gentleman in a suit and glasses who positioned himself right in front of our table.

  “Mr. Stone, will you read the verdict?” Judge House said.

  Mr. Stone spoke in a booming voice, with a deep Southern drawl: “In this Superior Court of Catoosa County, State of Georgia … number 2008-SU-CR-534 … the State of Georgia versus Tonya Craft …”

  He took a pause that felt like forever and a day as he turned the page and arranged it just so in his hands.

  “Verdict,” he said. “We the jury find the defendant, Count Number One: Not Guilty.”

  I heard screams and shouts of joy erupt from the hallway and then again from outside the building as the news spread, like a wave.

  I tried to block it out. I stared at Mr. Stone’s lips, not wanting to miss one word. I could not cry. I did not breathe. There were twenty-one more counts left to go.

  “Count Number Two: Not Guilty.”

  My knees wavered. Scott put his hand on my back to support me.

  “Count Number Three: Not Guilty.”

  “Count Number Four: Not Guilty.”

  “Count Number Five: Not Guilty.”

  “Count Number Six: Not Guilty.”

  “Count Number Seven: Not Guilty.”

  Scott grabbed my shoulder. I could feel him bouncing all nervous in his shoes. Doc stood to my right, rocking back and forth a little bit.

  “Count Number Eight: Not Guilty.”

  “Count Number Nine: Not Guilty.”

  I started to cry a little. I couldn’t hold back anymore.

  “Count Number Ten: Not Guilty.”

  “Count Number Eleven: Not Guilty.”

  “Count Twelve: Not Guilty.”

  “Count Thirteen: Not Guilty.”

  “Count Number Fourteen: Not Guilty.”

  “Count Number Fifteen: Not Guilty.”

  I heard more cheers from outside on the front lawn. I started shaking.

  “Count Number Sixteen: Not Guilty.”

  “Count Number Seventeen: Not Guilty.”

  “Count Number Eighteen: Not Guilty.”

  “Count Number Nineteen: Not Guilty.”

  I bowed my head. Thank you, God. Thank you. Thank you …

  “Count Number Twenty: Not Guilty.”

  “Count Number Twenty-One: Not Guilty.”

  I started sobbing.

  “Count Number Twenty-Two: Not Guilty.”

  My head fell into my hands. Scott squeezed my shoulder, and Doc threw his arm around me and hugged me to him. I nearly collapsed. Scott and Doc held me up.

  “This Eleventh Day of May, Two Thousand Ten, Signed …” Mr. Stone continued.

  “Let’s go,” Doc said. He and Scott nearly lifted me by my arms and tried to rush me right out of that courtroom. If the death threat were real, that was when it would have come.

  The judge had ordered everyone to stay seated until the jury and everyone was out of the building, but a few people stood up, and he yelled, “Wait. Sit down! Y’all have a seat.”

  A female court officer put her hands on me and turned me back toward the table. I felt violated. I felt woozy. I wanted to push right past her and leave. Why should I have to stay even one second longer?

  Doc yelled to the judge, “May the defendant leave, Your Honor?”

  “I’ve already said that, yes,” Judge House said.

  Doc looked at the jury and shouted above the crowd, “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.”

  He half-held me up as we exited to the left, and I spotted Detective Stephen Keith standing by the door. Even in the middle of that rush, I paused to give that man a look of death. I was shocked to see his face in that courtroom, and in that split second of recognition, I wanted him to know what he’d done. I wanted to remind him that I’d had the guts to take the stand and face the jury, and he had not.

  I could hear the words of Judge House’s voice booming over everything as I made my exit. “You do not have to talk to anyone …” he said, talking to the jurors.

  My sobs were so big and I was shaking so badly, I barely remember getting down the stairs and out to the car. The media was a mob scene. People were cheering. We drove past them all and I thanked God for every one of them. I thanked God for seeing me through this. I thanked God for those jurors, who were given the ability to see the truth through all of the confusing mudslinging and character attacks. I prayed that God watch over Chloe and Brianna. I prayed that God keep watch on my baby girl, Ashley. I prayed that God keep watch over Tyler, too.

  Mommy’s coming, I said to them both in my mind. Mommy will be there soon.

  Part IV

  Freedom

  Chapter 66

  It was very strange to go from thinking I would sleep in a prison cell that night to getting whisked off in a limousine to catch a flight to New York City. After giving my first interview to Melydia Clewell in a room at my parents’ house, I followed through on a request to fly to New York for an exclusive interview on The Today Show.

  I barely had a moment to breathe. I barely had a moment to think about what I wante
d to say. Suddenly I was on the air on live television, sitting across from Meredith Vieira on a stiff sofa surrounded by blue walls and all sorts of cheering people on Rockefeller Plaza—in the city I’d come to in January with my handmade sign just trying to get anyone’s attention. It was, in the truest sense of the word, absolutely surreal.

  Meredith asked me what was going through my mind as the bailiff read “not guilty” on those twenty-two counts. I told her, on the one hand, it was a relief, and it was. But, I said, “It wasn’t a victory. There’s nobody that wins in this situation. And my whole heart had been taken, and I got half of it back, but until I get my children, I won’t have my entire heart back.”

  Meredith asked me if I was the victim of a witch hunt. I explained it a little more fully.

  “I believe I was possibly a victim of a perfect storm, as the children were as well,” I said. “I think that there are many attributes to this. One being there already were some friendships that were no longer friendships,” I said, “and whenever there was a certain situation between normal childhood behavior and pointing and touching, and then my name immediately got put into the mix, and then it turned into parental phone calls back and forth, and my name being brought up, ‘Didn’t Miss Tonya do this?’”

  Looking back, I think that was a pretty decent characterization of it all, especially considering how soon it was after the verdict. I’d barely had time for anything to set in, let alone to come up with the right words to say to an audience of millions of people.

  In the coming days, I’d make the rounds to Good Morning America, and The View, and Larry King, and Nightline, and all of those big TV shows. Some people misinterpreted that “media tour” as me looking for publicity for myself. That’s just plain false. I wasn’t the one calling the media. They were calling me. I’m not sure why I’d want or need any publicity after enduring that public trial for all those weeks. But people like to think what they like to think. The fact is, I had a message to share: This could happen to anyone. We need to pay attention to what law enforcement officials are doing when it comes to cases of false child-sexual-abuse allegations, to make sure they’re doing their jobs as investigators in order to help sift out the real accusations from the false ones. We need to make some changes to the legal system. We need to be careful what we do and say with kids, and how we question kids, and how we as parents can overreact to things we don’t like in a way that does more harm than good.