Opening arguments begin in child-rape trial
The morning of June 15, 2014, the woman said, she planned to take her 2-year-old granddaughter to swimming lessons.
But when she picked her up, the girl’s usual level of excitement was gone, the woman said Tuesday in Hamilton County Criminal Court. “She just looked sad. And then she had some bruises on her face.”
She took a picture, sent it to a family member and said the girl looked “pitiful.”
Then she drove the eight minutes to swim practice. The girl didn’t want to play in the shower afterward like she usually did. And it looked like she had blood in her nose — but that was probably just ketchup from breakfast, the grandmother reasoned.
The grandmother said she wasn’t truly concerned until the final minutes of the car ride home. That’s when the girl said she had been hurt.
Jurors heard the grandmother’s testimony during the opening day of Michael Skellenger’s rape trial. Police and prosecutors said the 29-year-old man raped the girl on June 14, 2014, and that she told her grandmother about it the next day.
The woman and her granddaughter will not be named to protect the child’s identity, according to Times Free Press policy.
During opening statements, Skellenger’s defense said jurors need to consider several facts before judging a man who was falsely accused.
First, a qualified official never performed a forensic interview of the child, said Brandy Spurgin-Floyd, one of Skellenger’s attorneys. A forensic interview is a structured conversation with a child that’s designed to draw the most accurate information about a potentially traumatic situation.
In this case, Spurgin-Floyd said, law enforcement immediately confronted Skellenger after the girl’s grandmother went to the hospital and then the Children’s Advocacy Center.
During his first statement, she said, Skellenger had “flashes” of memory but couldn’t recall the entire evening of June 14 because he’d been drinking. During the second, two law enforcement officers
grilled him for more than two hours. They called Skellenger a liar, baited him with leading questions, and finally coerced him into a confession, she said.
“Mr. Skellenger, finally, after all of this pressing, succumbs to the influence of the law enforcement officers,” Spurgin-Floyd said. “Today, he is trusting the justice system to work for him.”
When prosecutor Leslie Longshore led the grandmother through questioning, she repeatedly asked the woman if the child was present during specific parts of the reporting process.
Although no one explicitly said it in court, during previous hearings, Skellenger’s defense has asserted that several adults discussed the allegations until it planted a false belief in the child’s head.
Jonathan Wilson, another one of Skellenger’s attorneys, focused on the grandmother’s motivation during his cross examination. He asked why the grandmother sent a picture of the girl, calling her “pitiful.”
“I wasn’t trying to prove anything,” the grandmother said.
He asked if the grandmother noticed anything odd when she changed the child’s diaper after the swim lesson — but before the car ride home.
No, the grandmother said.
Judge Tom Greenholtz dismissed jurors around 5:30 p.m. The trial resumes in his courtroom today at 9 a.m.
Contact staff writer Zack Peterson at zpeterson@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6347. Follow on Twitter @zackpeterson918.