Physical evidence, interrogation focus of child-rape trial
Before they dressed the victim in a gown, they brought her into a hospital exam room and asked her a round of questions.
At first, the 2-yearold didn’t give much of a response. She talked about frogs and ponies.
Then, Ashley O’Barr, her nurse practitioner, asked point blank: What did the girl do the night before?
“She could have told me they played outside or played with Barbie,” O’Barr said Wednesday in Hamilton County Criminal Court. Instead, O’Barr said, the girl told her what she’d told her grandmother: That Michael Skellenger, 29, had raped her.
Jurors listened to O’Barr’s testimony as the Skellenger rape trial wound through its second day. Police and prosecutors say the child, now 4, told her grandmother about the rape in summer 2014, the day after it happened. Her grandmother, in turn, took the girl to a children’s hospital and later the Children’s Advocacy Center. The grandmother, who testified the day before, will not be named to protect the child’s identity, according to Times Free Press policy.
O’Barr confirmed Wednesday: The grandmother was not present in the room when she discussed the abuse allegations with the victim. She was present when pediatricians swabbed the girl for DNA, took pictures, and tested for evidence of abuse. It’s been a common talking point in the case since Skellenger’s defense attorneys claimed the child was influenced to believe a false narrative. But regardless, O’Barr said, any evidence of abuse could have been washed away in the pool, where the victim’s grandmother took her before she found out about the alleged abuse.
During her questioning with the pediatrician, prosecutor Leslie Longshore said the bruising under the child’s eye and a series of small red dots in various locations about her head caused by burst capillaries pointed to abuse. While O’Barr was on the stand, one of Skellenger’s attorneys, Jonathan Wilson, honed in on that same physical evidence.
He said the pain the victim reported could have been in reference to her eye. O’Barr said the girl reported no pain in a few body areas where she had reported the abuse, Wilson pointed out. He and Brandy Spurgin-Floyd, another defense attorney, also reiterated that a qualified professional never performed a forensic interview, which is a constructive conversation with a child designed to unearth the most accurate information about a possible trauma. As many in the courtroom noted, it is not the policy of the Children’s Advocacy Center to conduct such interviews.
In the afternoon, prosecutors played both interviews Skellenger gave to law enforcement. As Spurgin-Floyd argued in previous motions and in opening statements, detectives coerced Skellenger into confessing the crime during the second interrogation.
On Wednesday, she continued that path after prosecutors called Sgt. Greg Carson, of the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office, to the witness stand. Though Carson said he was “breaking down the lies,” Spurgin-Floyd said he was repeating specific statements to draw Skellenger in during the interviews.
Eventually, Skellenger confessed, Spurgin-Floyd said. But his confession, she said, matched law enforcement’s accusations — not the victim’s.
Around 6:30 p.m., Judge Tom Greenholtz dismissed jurors for the day. The trial will continue today in his Criminal Court at 9 a.m.
Contact staff writer Zack Peterson at zpeterson@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6347. Follow him on Twitter @zackpeterson918.