Strangler

by Corey Mitchell

  “Tell the jury what you mean when you say ‘give you a real spanking.’”

  “He gave us a real spanking if we did something he didn’t like,” Amber recalled. “Like, when we were younger, we had lots of energy. We would go to bed at bedtime and then, like, wake up at two in the morning and run around the house. And he didn’t like that too much. So, he figured if he yanked us by our hair and threw us over his knee and tanned our hide and spanked the bottom of our feet really hard, we would stay in bed and we wouldn’t get back out because our feet would hurt. So, he would call that a ‘real spanking.’”

  “What would happen when your dad would leave the house as far as keeping y’all in the house? Tell us about that,” Siegler queried.

  “He was pretty particular about the locks on the doors and having our windows superglued shut, because he was paranoid of burglars, he would say. So, if he left for work and we weren’t out of there to go to school in time, we were just kind of trapped in the house.”

  “How did he feel about y’all getting your hair cut?”

  “He didn’t like it.”

  “And tell us about the hot chocolate when you were little.”

  “He would put something in it, because it tasted funny and it made me feel drowsy.”

  “Did that happen very often?” the ADA inquired.

  “A couple of times.”

  “I think the question that the jury would like to know from you today, Amber, is tell us how you are doing today.”

  “I’m doing really good. I’m really happy with my life right now,” Amber professed with a somewhat hesitant smile.

  “What are your plans for the future?”

  “I’m currently enrolled in a school—like, a do-at-home-school kind of thing for dog training.”

  “I think we could all say that we wish you luck in that. Okay?”

  “Okay,” the young lady responded.

  “Pass the witness.” Siegler ended her direct examination of Tony Shore’s oldest daughter.

  “Any cross?” Judge Cosper asked.

  “No questions, Your Honor,” Alvin Nunnery answered, per his client’s wishes.

  * * *

  Next up for the prosecution was Tony Shore’s youngest daughter, Tiffany Shore. The young lady walked up to the witness stand, was sworn in, and sat down.

  Kelly Siegler approached Tiffany with a smile. “Ma’am, could you tell us your name, please?”

  “Tiffany Lauren Shore,” she responded confidently.

  “How old are you?”

  “Nineteen.”

  Tiffany continued to testify that she lived out of state, had a good job, and was attending college.

  “Tell us a little bit about your sister. What’s she like? The jury just got to hear from her, but you describe her for us.”

  “She is different. She’s had kind of a rocky past. She seems to be trying to make better of herself now. She just got married and she’s pregnant, going to have a baby. So, it looks like she’s trying to start a new life for herself.”

  “When y’all were growing up, was she diagnosed or called autistic?”

  “Yes, she was.”

  “Do you know what autism is?”

  “I have a general idea, just a learning disability.”

  “Do you think that Amber is autistic?”

  “No, I do not.”

  “And why do you think people said she was?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “How do you feel about her learning ability or disabilities or all that?”

  “I feel that if she puts her mind to it, she can get something done, that she doesn’t have a learning disability. She has problems focusing on things that’s she’s disinterested in, but I think that’s common for anybody.

  “I think the only thing that’s a setback for her,” Tiffany continued, “is that she spent her whole life being told she was autistic and that she wouldn’t amount to anything and that she couldn’t learn. So, that is disturbing on her part, I would think. But I would say, given the opportunity and the encouragement, that she would do fine.”

  “Besides being called autistic,” Siegler asked the younger sister, “what else was she called when y’all were little?”

  “Just, I don’t know, special, retarded.... It was just highly enforced that she had a learning disability. Everybody was really set on that, whether she had one or not. It was like they wanted her to have a problem.”

  “How did Amber treat you when y’all were growing up?”

  “Kind of like I was the one that was going to get somewhere. She kind of treated me almost like a caretaker, like I was always the better one, you know.”

  “When is the last time before today that you’ve seen your dad?”

  “June of 1997.”

  “And how do you feel about being here today to testify, Tiffany?”

  “Apprehensive, anxious, kind of sick to my stomach, and nervous.” Tiffany appeared calm despite her words.

  “Tell the jury how old you were when your parents got divorced and you ended up living with your dad.”

  “I don’t really remember. I guess I was pretty normal when I moved in with my dad. Just in school. I was in advanced-learning classes in school. I did all right. I had friends,” Tiffany responded, but she apparently misunderstood the question.

  “Did there come a time when you and your sister went to stay with your grandmother in 1997, that you told your aunt Gina something for the first time?”

  “Yes.”

  “And is she the first grown-up, the first person, that you told this to?”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “What did you tell her, Tiffany?”

  “I told her I was being molested by my father and that I was afraid to live with him anymore.”

  “Tell the jury what was about to happen that made you be afraid to come back to Houston,” Siegler requested.

  “My sister was going to go live with my aunt Gina for a year for school purposes and I would be living alone with him,” Tiffany answered.

  “And why were you afraid to live alone with him?”

  “I was just afraid that being alone, there would be nobody around; that he would have more opportunities to do more things to me.”

  “How long had he been doing those things to you?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. As far as I can recall, between the ages of ten and twelve. I have reason to believe that things went on when I was a child, but I don’t know. I don’t really remember any of my childhood at all.”

  “We won’t go into all the details of it, but what do you mean when you say ‘the things he was doing to you’?”

  “Just inappropriate touching.”

  “On your private part?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Was there a time when you were eleven years old and you were washing up in a bathtub?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what was your dad doing to you this time you remember from the bathtub?”

  “He was touching me inappropriately.”

  “Can you tell the jury what you remember about the hot chocolate, growing up?”

  “If we had friends over when I was between the ages of, like, ten and twelve, he would always have us drink hot chocolate. And I always remember just falling asleep shortly after that.”

  “Would the friends drink the hot chocolate too?” Siegler wondered.

  “Yes. There was a certain point where my sister and I became suspicious of it and didn’t want to drink it anymore. It tasted funny too.”

  “Did your dad ever do anything to you when you were little that had to do with the sheets of the bed?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Tell us about that.”

  “When we got in trouble and we would cry about something, he would tie us up in our sheets and smother our face with a pillow and tell us we were not allowed to cry in his household.”

  “Was there a place where your dad threatened to send Amber when he
got upset with her?”

  Tiffany nodded. “He would threaten to send her to an institution.”

  “And when your dad would leave the house, how would he keep y’all in the house?”

  “All the doors in the house had dead bolts on them and he locked all the dead bolts. And all the windows were either glued or nailed shut so that they didn’t open.”

  “And when you were little, did you think that was unusual?”

  “No.”

  “When you told your aunt Gina and your grandma in ’97 in California about what was going on, you also talked to some police officers back then, did you not?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And you were videotaped by that lady from the Children’s Protective Services?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And you were asked to go see a doctor about a sexual assault exam?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Did you want to do that?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I was uncomfortable with my body and being exposed to the people.”

  “And what do you mean by that, you were ‘uncomfortable being exposed’?”

  “Just uncomfortable being undressed.”

  “How about when it was just you, all by yourself, undressed?” Siegler probed.

  “I was just uncomfortable being undressed by myself,” Tiffany declared, “around other people, just at all.”

  “Did you wear a lot of clothes back then?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I was ashamed of my body, and if I was covered in layers of clothes, nobody could see it. Just kind of, like, hiding.”

  “Besides just how you felt about your body, how did you feel about yourself back then?” the prosecutor asked.

  “I hated myself. I had very little self-esteem. I basically just wanted to die.”

  “Are you seeing a counselor?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “And have you been seeing a counselor for a while?”

  “When I moved to California, I went to counseling for three-and-a-half years. I was released from counseling and therapy, and recently, about a month ago, I started counseling again.”

  “And tell us, Tiffany, how you’re doing in your life now?”

  “I’m doing well for myself now. I have a good job. I have a good boyfriend. I’m in a good relationship. I like where I live. I have a decent roommate. I can pretty much trust the people that are in my life right now.”

  “And how do you feel about your father now?”

  “He’s dead to me. He’s my biological father. I have people in my life that have been a part of my life for the past seven years that are just like parents to me and I see those people as my parents, not my biological parents, as my parents. They’re just flesh and blood to me. That’s all.”

  “Pass the witness.” Kelly Siegler had concluded her questioning of both of Tony Shore’s daughters.

  Once again, Shore’s defense team elected not to cross-examine the witness. “No questions,” stated Gerald Bourque.

  Judge Cosper excused Tiffany Shore from the witness stand.

  CHAPTER 61

  Wednesday, October 27, 2004,

  Harris County Courthouse,

  1201 Franklin Street,

  Courtroom #337,

  Houston, Texas.

  The prosecution wanted to make sure the jury heard a clinical psychiatric evaluation of Anthony Allen Shore and what may have driven him to rape and kill young girls. Assistant District Attorney Terese Buess interviewed Dr. Sharon Burns, a registered sex offender treatment provider, and a professional counselor for Burns, Crimson & Associates, located in Houston, Texas.

  Dr. Burns was a specialist in the field of “sex offender treatment.” To receive such a distinction, she had to conduct nearly four hundred hours of sex offender–specific training with various authorities, such as FBI agents, a psychopathy specialist, and renowned sex offender–treatment therapist, Dr. Robert Hare.

  Dr. Burns was also a veteran of courtroom testimony. Buess asked the distinguished witness to “tell the jury, please, what sex offender treatment is.”

  “Sex offender treatment is a cognitive behavioral program,” Dr. Burns asserted. “By cognitive, I mean the thoughts, thinking patterns. Behavior actually stems from how we perceive a situation and what we think about it.

  “So, when we work with sex offenders,” she continued, “we work on helping them understand the offense and the victim’s point of view and what they’re really doing so that they can learn to control the behavior, because once the thoughts change about an action, our actions change, or the thoughts change about a situation or an individual, our actions change.”

  “A lot of people that come for sex offender treatment,” Buess asked, “what kind of people are they? How is it they come to be in your program?”

  “They’re all kinds of people,” Dr. Burns answered. “We do have both men and women. We have people as young as eleven years of age through their eighties. There’s no specific background as far as age, race, sex, kind of job, level of education, how much money they earn, or what part of the country they’ve lived in. It’s a behavior that crosses a lot of different boundaries.”

  The doctor continued, “Many of them are incest offenses where they might have someone who, for whatever reason, became close with a child and used that child to meet needs that they weren’t meeting appropriately in other ways.”

  “The people who come, who sign up for your course, do they do that just voluntarily on their own, come and pay their fee and take your course?” Buess asked. “Why are they there?”

  “Actually, the vast majority—I’ve only had one voluntary client—the vast majority are court-ordered once they’ve been identified as having committed some type of sexual offense, anywhere from exposure to rape to incest. But the most we see have female victims, children and adults.”

  “Incest and rape?”

  “Primarily.”

  “Is it about sex?” prosecutor Buess asked in regard to rape.

  The doctor shook her head and said, “It’s about power and control. Most of the individuals don’t feel as though they have self-control and so they try to control others in their environment and they use others to meet their needs, however inappropriate that may be.”

  “And is that even more so when it’s a child that’s the victim.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  Buess then had Dr. Burns lay out the normal testing procedure for a new patient. Dr. Burns informed the jury that she administers four tests to each patient. She tests intelligence levels, tolerance for drugs and alcohol, a personality test, and a social-functioning test. For sex offenders, Dr. Burns also includes a multiphasic sexual inventory, which helps her determine what may drive a sexual offender to commit such an act.

  “Did you score and review the test results for Anthony Shore?” Terese Buess queried.

  “Yes, ma’am, I did,” Dr. Burns answered.

  “What year did he take that battery of tests?”

  “I believe it was ’98.”

  “Did he complete all of the tests that you asked?”

  “He completed them all.”

  “And tell the jury what level his intellectual functioning was at.”

  “Superior range,” replied Dr. Burns. Shore briefly glanced up at the doctor and then glanced back down at the defense table. “Oddly enough, when you got somebody that’s on either end of the intellectual functioning range, you run into more problems.

  “There are obvious problems whenever they’re in the mentally challenged range,” Dr. Burns declared, “because you have to repeat and repeat and repeat. And they may not understand things.

  “On the other hand, the superior side, we run into problems because they think, ‘Well, I know more than anybody else. I know more than you, and I can play games with what you give me.’”

  “What was the level of abstract reasoning
that you saw for Anthony Shore?” Buess asked.

  “Again, superior, extremely high.”

  “Any evidence of any kind of biological brain damage?”

  “There was no organic brain damage indicated at all.”

  “Let’s talk a little bit about his emotional functioning,” Buess suggested. “Was that evaluated as part of the battery of tests?”

  “That is in the personality assessment,” Dr. Burns confirmed.

  “And what was the result on that?”

  “That Mr. Shore liked to be in control, that he liked to align himself with—actually, it said that he would adopt a cotherapist’s role.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Anthony is good at hearing information and saying it back,” Dr. Burns replied. “And what he would do is, if you align yourself with the therapist and you focus on the other members of the group—but if you put yourself in the therapist’s role and are pointing out other people’s problems, you can sound like you have a lot of knowledge and you can sound like you know the right material.”

  “When you do that, does it elevate you away from the group of sex offenders that are there for treatment?”

  “It does.”

  “Talk to the jury, please, very briefly, about his personality functioning. What features were you seeing there?”

  “Grandiosity.”

  “What is that? What is grandiosity?”

  “Which is, ‘I count more than you do. You don’t really matter. I’m what’s important.’ Most people realize . . . there’s a balance in that. Of course I want to elevate myself, but not to the extent that I think my needs are greater than yours. What I want matters to me and nothing about what you want matters.”

  “What else did you see?”

  “Narcissism. Narcissism is self-love taken to the extreme. That person—you put those two together and they know everything about everything and it’s about them. ‘I’m wonderful.’”

  “Is there an example of behavior that you could give the jury of someone who’s narcissistic?”

  “For the narcissist, it’s just about them. They don’t care about anybody else. They just want their life to be easy. And other people are really not people. There’s not enough importance attached to other people. They have trouble with relationships because it’s not ‘Well, honey, you don’t feel well today? Why aren’t you up taking care of me?’