Lost Girls

by Caitlin Rother

  “He would say, ‘I want to kiss you,’ or he would kiss me or something, and I told him I didn’t want to, and I said it wasn’t right, since he had a girlfriend and I had a boyfriend,” she testified.

  “Did he proceed to try to kiss you after you said that?” prosecutor Dave Hendren asked.

  “Yes. I just told him, maybe if there was people around, I would, but right now I don’t want to.”

  “Why did you say that?”

  “Because I just didn’t want him to come near me, really.”

  He stopped for a while, then he picked her up and carried her upstairs to his bedroom, telling her to close her eyes, as if it were a surprise. He put her on his bed and got on top of her again.

  “I’m not really sure what he was doing,” she said. “Then he stopped and we walked downstairs.”

  They went back to the couch in the living room, where “there were several times he got on top of me, and there were other times we were just sitting there. And I remember at one point we were standing by the couch and I know he was, like, holding on to my waist or something, and he put his hands down my pants ... behind me.”

  “On what part of your body?”

  “My butt.”

  Monica said she couldn’t remember the sequence of events very well, but at one point, he put her up against a closet door in the kitchen and pressed up against her. But it was downstairs in the living room where things started getting more serious. He unzipped her pants, pulled her underwear halfway down her thighs and put his hand on her private area. But, she said, “he didn’t go inside.”

  “Excuse me?” Hendren asked.

  “He didn’t go all the way,” she said. “He was rubbing himself against me and touching me places... . He wouldn’t stop, and he would try to take my pants off and I told him I didn’t want to. I tried holding on ... and then he hit me... . I told him to stop... . He was suffocating me. He had his hand on my mouth, and I couldn’t breathe, and I got pretty fuzzy after he hit me, and I’m not sure if I blacked out.”

  “At some point inside the house, did he say, ‘You know what? I really can’t take this anymore’?”

  Monica said, yes, that was before he put her on the couch, and before he hit her. “I think I was standing up, and he said that he was going to take me to school or something, and I was grabbing my stuff together, and that’s when he just put me on ... the couch, and he said he just couldn’t take it anymore.”

  “Tell me about him hitting you.”

  “He hit me in the face, and I didn’t feel anything... . I couldn’t feel anything.”

  Hendren asked her for more details about where and how many times John hit her, but she said she didn’t remember much other than that he hit her with one hand, and put his other hand over her mouth because she was trying to scream.

  “I probably did, but all I know is that no one could have heard me,” she said.

  “What did you think, based on your being there, that he was going to do?”

  “Probably rape me.”

  But then John shifted gears and stopped hitting her, she said. When she sat up, he hugged her. “He said something like, ‘I didn’t mean to do this,’ and I think I said, ‘I couldn’t believe this,’ and I went out the door, and I didn’t know what he was doing behind me, and I just ran out of the gate.”

  Monica said she wasn’t sure what had happened to her shoe, but she knew she didn’t have it on when she ran outside. She was so scared that she didn’t even care about grabbing her backpack. She just ran for the first house with an open garage door. When she rang the doorbell, a lady answered.

  “I couldn’t really talk. I was just holding on to my pants, because I didn’t get a chance to zip them up, and I had told her what happened.”

  After Monica recounted being so upset that she threw up in front of the police, Hendren asked, “You are still sometimes scared today?”

  “Yes.”

  On cross-examination by William Halsey, Monica admitted there was an older boy she “might see sometimes,” but Hendren objected when Halsey tried to prove that this boy was eighteen, and that she was comfortable being romantic with an older male.

  Instead, Halsey asked Monica if she remembered telling Erika or John that she wished people weren’t around so she could have sex with him.

  “No, I never said that,” Monica said. “I said I might have kissed him if people were around, but only because I wanted to get him off me.”

  “In other words, you have agreed to kiss him, but you wouldn’t agree to do anything else?”

  “Yes.”

  She said the last time she’d been at John’s was some months before the incident. After Halsey prompted her, she also admitted to coming over earlier that week, but there was no drama to her story. She said she went upstairs, knocked on the door and called out to John, who said “he would be down,” then she came downstairs to wait for him.

  Sue Ann Jones, the neighbor to whom Monica ran to, testified that the girl’s face was so swollen after the assault that she’d barely recognized Monica at the prelim that morning. She said Monica didn’t want to call the police because she was scared of “having people know what happened.”

  Next, Sarah went over her interaction with John at the waterfall, explaining how things ended. “I pushed his hand away, and I said that I think it was time that we left,” she said.

  Under cross-examination, she acknowledged that when he kissed her, she kissed him back.

  In the end, the ninety-minute proceeding was short but powerful enough to convince the judge to send the case to trial.

  “It appears to the court the offenses alleged in counts one through five of the complaint have been established,” Judge Jay Bloom said. “There is sufficient cause to believe this defendant is guilty thereof. He is, therefore, ordered held to answer.”

  Chapter 13

  John Gardner called William Halsey’s office on April 26 for a status update. He inquired if any plea bargains were being discussed, not because he wanted one, but because he was curious.

  He says he is interested in not having to register as a sex offender because he wants to be a teacher, Halsey’s assistant wrote in a message.

  It was Halsey’s idea to offer a plea bargain to prosecutor Dave Hendren. Halsey had been chief defense counsel at the Camp Pendleton Marine Base, a position similar to a public defender. He also had been a JAG officer, trying numerous rape and assault cases. But he soon came to “a very firm conclusion that the facts were so bad in this case that ... the Dream Team wouldn’t want to try it,” he said, referring to O.J. Simpson’s defense team. The victim had not only done well at the prelim, but she was willing to testify again at trial.

  “She couldn’t have contrived running out of the house,” he said. “That is a clear indication she was terrified and hurt, and exactly what she was, a victim of assault.”

  Hendren seemed equally interested in settling the case. “I don’t think it was because they were scared of putting her on the stand [again],” Halsey said.

  But, continuing to maintain that he had done nothing wrong, John fought against the plea bargain idea with what Halsey described as “irrational belligerence,” even after miserably failing a lie detector test. John stubbornly maintained that he hadn’t sexually assaulted Monica. He simply refused to accept that they couldn’t win the case. Halsey figured John was either a pathological liar or had a narcissistic complex, which made him so egocentric that he couldn’t see the natural consequences of his acts, even when they were explained to him.

  “There was no one who could have tried this case and won it,” Halsey said, but John wouldn’t listen. In early May, the attorney suggested that his client seek a second or even a third opinion from some other defense attorneys, emphasizing the need to show them the police report.

  Halsey also advised him in writing: If convicted, indeed you will be sentenced to state prison and the minimum turn that any of the charges carries is three years, the maximum be
ing eight years. I would strongly urge you to get a second opinion from a competent criminal attorney as to whether they would recommend a disposition with a plea bargain and/or going to trial with the state of evidence as it is.

  John did seek opinions from other attorneys, who, apparently, gave him the same advice. The probation report, submitted later, quoted John as saying that he only accepted the plea because three lawyers told him he would “get reamed” if he took the case to trial.

  Halsey said he tried showing Cathy the police report, but she remained steadfast in her support for her son. “Part of the problem is that he lied to his mother and sister,” and manipulated them, the attorney said in 2011. “They believed him. They’re not bad people. The mother, in my opinion, sacrificed too much for this kid... . I don’t think it’s fair. They’ve been punished for the sins of the son.”

  On May 31, 2000, John pleaded guilty to two counts of lewd and lascivious acts and one count of false imprisonment. The sentencing option for each count of lewd acts was three, six or eight years; and sixteen months, two years or three years for the other count.

  Cathy believed that Halsey was not representing her son effectively because he was distracted by health issues that were affecting his young daughter. But when she tried to find her son a different attorney, she was told it was too late.

  “Would you tell your child to accept this plea bargain?” she recalled asking Halsey.

  “You’ve got public opinion going against you,” she quoted him as saying. Even if he was just “in the wrong place at the wrong time, he’s a big guy and she’s believable.”

  John admitted to the facts of the crime and signed the plea agreement, which was entered into court records that day: I unlawfully touched Monica, a child under 14, by humping her with the intent to gratify my sexual desires. I also unlawfully touched Monica, a child under 14, by touching her vaginal area with my hand with the intent to gratify my sexual desire. I also intentionally and unlawfully restrained Monica without her consent and against her will by violence.

  The plea agreement form, which was also signed by the judge, noted that he questioned John to make sure that he entered his plea and admissions freely and voluntarily, and that John Gardner understood the “nature of the charges” and the “consequences of the plea and admissions,” and that there was a “factual basis for same.”

  On July 20, 2000, Dr. Matthew Carroll, a forensic psychiatrist, evaluated John Gardner and issued a damning prognosis. Excerpts of his analysis were repeatedly quoted in the media years later, after John was arrested for the murder of Chelsea King:

  The fact that the defendant takes no responsibility whatsoever for his actions makes him an extremely poor candidate for any sexual offender treatment. There are sex offender treatment programs available in the community, however, the success rate for these tends to be low. The most successful patients in these cases are individuals who fully admit the gravity and extent of their actions. In this case, the defendant makes no such admissions. In my opinion, the defendant would not benefit from sexual offender treatment.

  Because John had not taken any medications since high school, had graduated with a good grade point average, and subsequently managed to hold a job, Dr. Carroll determined that John wasn’t dealing with any significant symptoms of ADHD, let alone a more serious condition.

  The defendant does not suffer from a psychotic disorder, he wrote. He is simply a bad guy who is inordinately interested in young girls. However, his predilection towards younger girls is a problem. He manifests significant predatory traits and is a danger to the community. The defendant is a poor candidate for probation.

  Dr. Carroll was also concerned that John was caught trespassing at his high school after graduating, a behavior that he found disturbing. The doctor was also disturbed by an odd statement John made about his fiancée, Patricia, that she’d gotten an abortion because she was afraid she could not raise a child by herself.

  Dr. Carroll recommended the maximum sentence allowed by law.

  A month later, Dr. Divy Kikani, the same psychiatrist who had treated John for bipolar disorder in his teens, reevaluated him. The doctor stated in his report that John had admitted to “inappropriate sexual relations” with two “minor females,” one who was thirteen and one who was fourteen. He said John also complained of problems with impulsivity and anger management, exhibited symptoms of mood liability, and described feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, despair, and excessive panic and anxiety about his upcoming sentencing hearing.

  Dr. Kikani said John was still suffering from bipolar disorder, with some symptoms of impulse control disorder, but no psychotic features. He also wrote that John does admit to being extremely remorseful about the crime he has been convicted of against the young females.

  He noted that although John hadn’t been in therapy for five years, he needed to be. Kikani recommended medication and psychotherapy in a structured environment: ninety days of inpatient treatment, then six months to a year of outpatient treatment, with therapy twice a week to deal with his problems related to “anger management” and “poor impulse control,” treatment he would be happy to provide.

  John’s mother, who was working at the Community Hospital of San Bernardino at the time, wrote a letter to the judge asking him to follow Dr. Kikani’s recommendations and offered to cover her son’s treatment through her insurance. Cathy expressed her regrets, writing that she wished she could turn back time and undo everything. But because that wasn’t possible, she hoped John could get the psychiatric treatment he so obviously needed. She loved her son and said he was “a good person,” and although she realized that he could learn by accepting consequences, what he really needed was intense therapy.

  Through treatment, my son can be rehabilitated and contribute something meaningful back to society, she wrote. He accepts full responsibility for his actions, however, I do not believe that maximum punishment would be effective in getting him proper treatment.

  Some of John’s friends wrote positive character declarations, which were entered into the court record. They read as if he were a completely different person than what Monica had described.

  Never once in the whole time that I have known John have I ever felt threatened or scared, his ex-girlfriend Jenni Tripp wrote. John is the one person who has made me feel completely safe in this world. Even after we broke up, we are still the best of friends. From the depths of my soul I don’t believe that John did this. It would be going against every fiber of his being to hurt someone who needs defending.

  Jessica Graman, who met John in choir during his senior year, said she’d known him since she’d moved to Running Springs four years earlier, when he’d helped her “fit in.”

  He’s been nothing but a brother to me, she wrote. He helped me try and get through things, warning me of mistakes I was about to make, but always being there if I ever needed someone to cry on. John has the biggest heart I’ve ever known in a guy ... . I believe John will continue to grow and become a great man, husband, father, and he will always be a great friend and brother to me.

  Given his complicated relationship with Cathy, John went in search of another maternal figure, which he found in Vergie Lightfoot, an artist neighbor who was the mother of his good friend Ryan. In her declaration, Vergie wrote that she lived four houses down from John, and he came over almost every day. He was always someone she could depend on to help her out, whether it was shoveling her truck out of the snow, giving her a ride somewhere or digging a forty-five-foot-long trench to help resolve her septic tank issues. He also carried her groceries and tore out walls, windows and shower tile to assist with her home renovations. But never once, she said, would he take any money or a gift from her in return. He was happy just to talk over coffee and pie. Being an artist, she believed that she was one of the few people who truly understood him as the abstract thinker he was.

  John has very deep-rooted feelings and is acutely sensitive, she wrote. He has always been empa
thetic and sensitive to making my life much easier... . I know in my heart of hearts John Gardner is a rare and good breed. I hope he gets the chance to do something wonderful with his life.

  Sometime after his conviction, John had a falling-out with Ryan, and he lost his friendships with Ryan and his mother, both of whom declined to be interviewed for this book. “She was really great with him, so it was a big loss when that friendship kind of ended,” Cathy recalled.

  Patricia wrote that John had always been kind and compassionate to her, noting how she’d had to initiate their first kiss: That is why I couldn’t believe that he was being accused of forcing himself on a girl. I practically had to force myself on him and he even knew I liked him... . I have never doubted for one second that if I needed him there he would be there to help me or just to comfort me.

  The probation report, which judges typically read before handing down a sentence, included the highlights of an interview the probation officer conducted with John on July 5. In that interview, the officer wrote, John still denied that he’d even brought Monica back to the condo. He said it was his day off and he was looking for friends to hang out with when he stopped at the gas station and was arrested. The officer noted that John described the relationship with his mother as “somewhat strained,” and said it would be better if they each had their own places. He also said that his uncle, his stepfather and his biological father were alcoholics.

  John told the probation officer that he’d wanted to be a math teacher, enter the military or join a police department, but he couldn’t pursue any of those careers now with this felony on his record. Instead, John said he would go back to school to earn some sort of technical degree such as a contractor so that he can get back on his feet and begin making money right away.