Ex-Texarkana pastor acquitted in rape case

TEXARKANA — A man who has served as a pastor at local churches and now lives in California was acquitted Tuesday by a Miller County jury of three counts of rape.

David Jerome Keener, 36, was accused of sodomizing a female relative nine years his junior beginning when she was 9 and he was 18 at Keener’s family’s home in Texarkana. At one point, the jury sent a note to Circuit Judge Kirk Johnson indicating they could not agree on a verdict.

After about two hours of deliberations, the jury returned three acquittal verdicts. Testimony in the case began Monday afternoon and ended Tuesday evening.

“When we started this, I told you all that it was going to be crazy, that it was going to be messy, it was going to be unbelievable,” Fayetteville lawyer Brandon Pickett argued in closing remarks. “There is reasonable doubt, plain and simple.”

Pickett, who represented Keener along with Fayetteville lawyer Seth Bowman, argued that the woman’s story was too incredible to be believed. The woman, now 28, claimed that Keener sodomized her in a back bedroom of Keener’s family’s home while her parents were at work or adults in the home were in a front living area socializing.

Deputy Prosecuting Attorneys Connie Mitchell and Kristian Robertson pointed out that the woman began making outcries of abuse to friends, church leaders and family members beginning when she was 15 or 16.

The allegations were not reported to law enforcement until March 2018.

The jury was shown text from private messaging sent via social media between Keener and a sister of the woman in which Keener purportedly apologizes for wronging her.

Keener denied he ever saw the message and claimed it was a fake.

No charges remain pending against Keener in Miller County.