Cape Girardeau sexual abuse case moves forward

The victim of sexual abuse was the first and only witness to testify Tuesday at the Cape Girardeau County Courthouse against the man who allegedly molested her sporadically for three years.

The victim, now 19, told the court that Kenneth G. Higgins first molested her when she was 12 and the sexual abuse stopped after she turned 15 years old.

Higgins was charged in June with two counts of first-degree statutory sodomy.

Associate Circuit Judge Scott Thomsen found probable cause to move the case forward and transferred it to another division of the court.

The victim testified that the molestation occurred while she lived with at two locations in Cape Girardeau.

"He would make me touch him inappropriately and he would touch me inappropriately," she said.

The victim also described the final time Higgins allegedly molested her, which was while the two were napping together sometime in 2006. She said Higgins tried to force her to have sexual intercourse with him.

Asked by the prosecution about what made the abuse stop, the victim replied that she asked him many times to quit and after she turned 15 "it just stopped."

While questioned by Higgins' attorney, Malcolm Montgomery, the victim testified that the two often napped together and that her mother didn't disapprove. And although the girl told the court the molestation occurred up to four times a month for almost four years, she couldn't remember specific details on the dates, times or the type of abuse that happened between the first and last time Higgins allegedly molested her.

The victim said she reported the sexual abuse to authorities after her fiancee's mother encouraged her to attend counseling at the Southeast Missouri Network Against Sexual Violence.

Higgins, who has been released on a $75,000 bond, is scheduled to appear in court before Circuit Judge Benjamin F. Lewis on Oct. 12.

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