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

by Gay Courter

  “Was your daughter naked?”

  “No, she covered herself. I’d hand her a towel over the rod.”

  “Have you ever molested or sexually abused your daughter?”

  “No. As God is my witness”—Red raised his hand, then swiveled to face the jury—”I never touched Alicia.”

  Walt lowered his voice. “Do you love your children?”

  “Yes,” Red whispered. “I love my daughter and both boys, even after what they’ve said about me.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Stevenson,” Walt Hilliard said somberly.

  Grace Chandler moved her podium so it was facing Red. Even though she was much shorter than he was, she seemed to loom over him as her voice lowered and slowed. “How many times have you been married?”

  “Five.”

  No matter how many lists of dates and names I made, I was never able to derive a logical series of Red’s marriages or relationships because the information from the children, documents, and legal sources conflicted. Some said he had been married five times, others six.

  “What was your name before it became Stevenson?”

  “Hamburg.” Red explained how he was later adopted by his ex-wife’s father.

  “Have you ever been arrested for a felony?”

  Before his attorney could object, Red responded that he had been arrested once for making a false statement, but Walt Hilliard wouldn’t allow this to be clarified.

  Under questioning, Red explained that the children’s mother was Tammy, who had been abusive to Rich, neglectful of the other children, and then ran away with another man.

  “Who is Dawn Leigh Pruitt?”

  “A friend of Alicia’s.”

  “Where is she living now?”

  “In the Clearwater area.”

  “Do you know why she moved?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t her father tell you it was to protect her from you?”

  “No.”

  “You admit you often helped your daughter wash her hair. Did she call you ‘Shampooman’?”

  “It was something we started when she was little, and it stuck.”

  “Did you ever call her your little lollipop?”

  “We had lots of silly names, like most families.”

  “How old was she when you stopped helping her wash her hair?”

  “Thirteen or fourteen.”

  “Don’t you think that it is a bit odd for a father to be entering the bathroom with his sexually mature daughter and helping shampoo her hair?”

  “I didn’t see anything wrong with it, besides I gave her a towel.”

  “Do you expect the jury to believe that you went in there and handed her a towel, which she put around herself with the shower fully running, and then you shampooed her hair?”

  “I keep several towels in the house.”

  “You heard your daughter describe an incident when she was nine and you came into the bathroom at the marine shop and sexually attacked her. Did you ever go into that bathroom when she was there?”

  “I might have handed her toilet paper or something.”

  “Do you know how it feels to be raped by a man?” Again Hilliard objected.” Did you ever sleep overnight at the marina with your son Rich?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “There had been some thefts of outboard motors and we were trying to prevent that.”

  “Was there a bed for either of you to sleep in?”

  “No, we used sleeping bags.”

  “Did you get into the same sleeping bag with your son?”

  “We only had a two-man bag.”

  “Did you touch his genitals or ask him to touch yours?” Grace asked.

  “No, I wouldn’t do that to anyone after what was done to me.”

  “What was done to you?”

  “When I was seven I was raped in an orphanage.”

  “You lived in an orphanage?”

  “Yes, my mother put me there when she couldn’t take care of me. My father left me when I was a toddler.”

  “What happened when you were raped?”

  “Four men gang raped me, so I could never inflict that kind of punishment—that pain—on someone else.”

  “How do you discipline your children?”

  “I try to use the reward system for good behavior.”

  “Where did you learn that?”

  “I took a parenting class when Rich was in grade school.”

  “Why were you taking that class?”

  “It was recommended when I had a hard time controlling Rich.”

  “Before that, did you ever spank Rich?”

  “Yes, before taking the class, I thought that was what you were supposed to do.”

  “Did it help?”

  “Rich had so many problems I never could control him.”

  “Is that why you abused him?”

  “I never touched my daughter or my son or Sunny either. I don’t know why they would say those things about me.” Red looked out at the audience. “Anyone who would do something like that belongs in a jail.”

  This was the end of the defense’s list of witnesses. Grace Chandler said that she wanted to have a rebuttal witness, so there was a brief adjournment. While this was happening, Mitzi Keller came forward and introduced me to Cynthia Schenker.

  “Dee Smiley’s a liar,” Cynthia said excitedly. “I was working for HRS then and my job was to transport Alicia back to the shelter. It was getting late, so I went over to where she was standing with Dawn and I heard what she said to Mrs. Smiley.”

  Grace Chandler, her arms filled with file folders, was in the aisle. I tapped her shoulder. “This woman claims she was a witness in the HRS parking lot.”

  Cynthia told the prosecutor her version of the incident.

  “Would you be willing to testify?” Grace asked.

  When Cynthia agreed, Grace told her to come to her office at once.

  Lillian was amazed. “I don’t believe this. How did that woman just happen to be in the courtroom?”

  “In ‘Perry Mason’ every trial has a surprise witness,” I said.

  “Well, I’ve never seen one in real life before.”

  When the court resumed, the jury was removed and a procedure called a Richardson hearing was held to determine whether or not the prosecution could call someone who had not been placed on the official witness list. Grace had to explain that until a few moments earlier she had not known, nor could have known, of the existence of Cynthia Schenker, who insisted she had been present when Alicia supposedly recanted.

  Then the surprise witness took the stand to explain why she had been in the courtroom. “I had been working for HRS at the time and had been involved with Alicia. I cared about the kid, and when I heard that this might be the last day of the trial, decided to come to see how it turned out for her.” She said she never expected that something she had overheard in the parking lot might be of use in the trial.

  The judge decided to allow the new witness to testify but wanted to give the defense time to take her deposition. Because it was so late, he adjourned the proceedings until Monday afternoon.

  Mitzi met me on the courthouse steps on Monday carrying a paper cup of coffee. She pointed to the delicatessen across the street. “Guess who’s having a cozy breakfast over there?” She made a disgusted face as she described seeing Jeremiah and Red Stevenson fawning over Dee Smiley and some other lady in tight pants.

  When court reconvened, the former caseworker, Cynthia Schenker, described how she had been in the HRS parking lot with Dee Smiley and had overheard Alicia tell Dawn that she was sorry for the mess and wished that they were not going their separate ways.

  “Did she indicate the story about her father’s molestation was not true?” Grace asked.

  “No, she was apologizing to Dawn because her friend had to be interviewed by the police.”

  Walt Hilliard challenged Cynthia’s version. “Isn’t it possible that Alicia told Mrs. Smiley some
thing that you might not have heard?”

  “No. I was tailing Alicia so she could not get in anyone else’s car, and I was especially vigilant with Mrs. Smiley. That woman has a rescue fantasy about these kids.”

  Walt Hilliard then questioned Cynthia about her past. “Is it true that you left your job at HRS because you were under the care of a psychiatrist?”

  “Yes, but it had nothing to do with the job. I was raped on a visit to California.”

  “Is that why you are especially protective of girls like Alicia?”

  “I care about them, but I was a caseworker long before I was attacked.”

  Next the prosecutor called Stan Milton from the Palomino Ranch as a witness to rebut Cory’s testimony about being a light sleeper to prove that he could have slept through his father’s molestation of Alicia.

  Under oath, Mr. Milton explained that the shelter portion of the ranch housed difficult children who were considered at high risk for running away, so they had personnel on awake duty around the clock. Those on the night shift were required to keep a written log of every time a child woke up for any reason, including trips to the bathroom, walking around, or nightmares.

  “Are there any references in the log to Cory Stevenson getting up at night?”

  “None.”

  “Was he easy to wake in the morning?”

  “Not the hardest I have ever seen, but certainly not the easiest either.”

  “Would you characterize Cory Stevenson as a ‘light sleeper’ in comparison with other boys his age?”

  “No, I would not.”

  There was a break before the closing arguments. Grace was pleased the way the order of the trial ended because that meant she would give the first closing argument as well as the last rebuttal. “There is always some psychological value in having the last word.”

  At the moment I didn’t see that she needed that, for her side had, to my mind at least, been far more persuasive. The Shampooman revelations had been devastating. Nobody on the jury could think it proper for a father to be helping a daughter in the shower after she reached puberty. Sunny Rhodes’s testimony had been backed with solid medical evidence. Cory had appeared young, sweet, yet naive. Just because he had not seen something did not mean it did not happen. The most damaging evidence against Grace’s case were Dr. Leif’s unsatisfactory gynecological examination and Red Stevenson’s portrayal of himself as a frustrated father trying to discipline a wayward daughter. Several times people had mentioned that Alicia had wanted to hang out with an older Afro-American boy. In this southern town, with a retirement-age jury, prejudice about little white girls and big black men had to have an effect.

  Grace Chandler moved her podium in front of the jury. Like a diver about to attempt a forward dive with a half twist she closed her eyes in preparation, then began to speak. First she thanked the jury for their patience and their wisdom, then suggested they rely on the collective memories of what they had heard to put together a complicated case of children molested by the person they should have trusted the most to protect them: their father.

  Reviewing the charges, Grace stated that the real issue was to determine whether or not Mr. Stevenson, an adult male over the age of eighteen, did, in fact, place his penis in his daughter’s vagina before she was twelve years of age at a location in this county.

  “Whether or not you like Alicia Stevenson or Richard Leroy Stevenson, Sr., is not the issue. Your only concern should be: did Mr. Stevenson commit this crime against his daughter or not. The judge has ruled that you may consider the evidence that he may have committed the same type of crime on Sunny Rhodes and Rich Stevenson, Jr., which demonstrates a clear pattern of criminality. In each incident with Alicia, Sunny, and Rich look at the similarities: a child was available, and because of Richard Leroy Stevenson’s propensity, he did perform a sexual act with them. You heard Mr. Stevenson testify that he himself had been the victim of a sexual crime when he was a child. This is not surprising. We have long known that a victimized child often grows up to continue the cycle of abuse, reproducing the same vile acts generation after generation. “

  Grace stepped back and stared in Red’s direction. “The defendant admitted he was abused as a boy. The defendant admitted he had his daughter on the seat of his mower, but he left out the fondling, which his daughter so poignantly described. In fact, he left out a great deal while still being forced to confess that he did share a sleeping bag with his son in the marine shop and routinely shampooed his adolescent daughter’s hair when she was undressed in the shower.

  “The defense attorney will probably point out the inconsistency in Alicia’s statement as to what age she was when various sexual acts occurred. But use your common sense. Imagine what it was like to be a fifteen-year-old girl who finally was prodded to admit what had been happening in her home for many years. Imagine how you would feel when that whispered confession is broadcast through the HRS abuse registry and filters down to the local police. The sheriff comes to your door and asks if it is true. You are taken from your home in the middle of the night, and immediately are asked to put your most intimate secrets on paper. You are alone. It is almost three in the morning. You are upset and sleepy. In your mind sexual molestation began when someone touched your private parts. To you, that was at the age of five and continued from then on, escalating to full penetration at the age of nine. Suddenly these ages and dates are crucial, but if you are the victim they blend together as part of the same crime: father-daughter incest.”

  Grace leaned on the rail in front of the jury. “Mr. Hilliard will try to put doubts in your mind. He will ask you to consider whether Mr. Stevenson could have penetrated his daughter in a flaccid state. But please recall that Alicia was able to explain that her father became hard. Remember, this happened when Alicia was only a nine-year-old girl, someone far too young to have familiarity with specific sexual details. She only knows what she felt, that it was happening—and happening to her.

  “You have heard about the crowded sleeping arrangements in the Stevenson household, and yet Peggy Abbott, who was the stepmother in that house for the longest period of time, admitted she and her husband sometimes took turns sleeping at their shop, leaving the perfect opportunity for abuse. Also, Mrs. Abbott reported that in the last few years of the marriage, sex dropped off, and Alicia testified that around the same time, the rate she had sex with her father increased. For all intents and purposes Alicia was Mr. Stevenson’s wife. A man may shampoo the hair of his wife in the shower, but his teenage daughter?” There was a long pause as the question lingered in the air. “And yet we have had multiple reports, including one from the defendant, that they played the Shampooman game until long after Alicia was a fully developed young woman.”

  The prosecutor went back to her notes. “Dr. Boggs, the psychological expert, reviewed the many symptoms Alicia presented that showed a troubled child crying out for help. Another signal is self-mutilation, and you heard Dr. Leif say she carved initials into her ankles. In fact, there were so many indicators that a concerned neighbor picked up on the clues. But the defense will dwell on the fact that in some areas this child’s memories are vague. Dr. Boggs explained that frequently abused children block painful memories. Even normal adults tend to remember the highs and lows of a relationship more than the average daily incidents, so it is not surprising that Alicia was able to have excellent recall of the crucial moments when she was first fondled in the tool shed and when she was first penetrated in the marine shop bathroom.

  “Another question is why Alicia delayed reporting the incest for so long. Dr. Boggs said that disclosures often are not made until the abused child confides in a trusted adult during adolescence. Isn’t that what happened here? Mrs. Smiley was someone Alicia saw almost every day, someone who had shown concern for other children, someone who had been there when her brother’s friend drowned.

  “Dr. Boggs mentioned that disclosure often comes after a traumatic event. If you look at the dates, you will notice
that there were two disturbing incidents in the Stevenson household a few weeks before Alicia revealed her secret: Rich Jr.’s best friend drowned and Cory was arrested. Also, note that both of these events involved Mrs. Smiley, since she helped out at the creek and it was her son who was arrested with Cory.

  “And speaking of young Cory Stevenson, remember Dr. Boggs’s mention of the accommodation syndrome and denial of abuse? You may find it difficult to believe that another child in this home, young Cory Stevenson, could be there during years of abuse to several children and not know it. But this was the only home, only security he knew. He understood what happened to children who made trouble because his older brother had been sent away at the age of five. While we don’t know if he was ever abused, we do know that he had a vested interest in denying abuse because if he admitted it, he would lose his home just the way his brother did.

  “Now let us look at the similarities between Alicia’s story and Sunny’s. Very often there is a pattern to these crimes, and one can easily be observed here. Mr. Stevenson starts with fondling, then leads to penetration. Both Sunny and Alicia reported the open bathrobe, being violated on the couch. The only difference is that Sunny had a grandmother she trusted with the secret. When Sunny told, she was protected. Alicia had nobody to tell.

  “You cannot overlook the fact that Sunny Rhodes was immediately taken to the hospital and underwent treatment for sexual assault. At the time Sunny said her stepfather had been the perpetrator and there were no other likely suspects. Dr. Diller described the actual injuries she sustained due to an attack in her genital region. Unfortunately, there was never a similar examination performed on Alicia Stevenson prior to the onset of sexual maturity, and the estrogen effect may have masked the evidence of penetration of an immature female. Yet, while there may not be absolute physical evidence of sexual abuse, the doctor has testified that two fingers could be easily inserted in Alicia Stevenson’s vagina during an examination, more than enough to permit the entrance of a mature male penis.”

  Grace’s voice took on a new fervor. “As adults we may see this differently than the children. But look at it from their point of view. Alicia may have told people she was ‘sorry for the mess.’ Of course she was. She had no concept of what telling would mean. Isn’t it ironic that the perpetrator continues to sleep in his same bed at night while all three of his children have lost their home, been separated, and placed into HRS custody?” Grace said, pointing to Red. “That man remains in his home, and it is his children who are punished. It is the children who are bounced from one foster home to another. It is the children who have to get on the stand and be humiliated, embarrassed, scrutinized, and punished.”