Jury convicts Cape man of molesting toddler

BENTON, Mo. -- After deliberating less than an hour and a half, a Scott County jury on Tuesday found a Cape Girardeau man guilty of felony statutory sodomy.

The jury deliberated for one hour and 17 minutes before announcing the verdict against Travis Sintell Turner, 34. Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 10.

"In my opinion, the jury can really see to the meat of the matter. The Beacon interview video was weighed heavily," Scott County prosecutor Paul Boyd said, referring to a video made by Beacon Health Center of the victim talking to a forensic interviewer.

The defense can file an appeal.

"It is our sincerest belief that an innocent man was found guilty today," assistant public defender Travis Bargeon said in a statement after the trial. "Our thoughts and prayers will be with Travis and his family in the coming weeks."

Boyd said the jury spent 25 minutes watching the video of the victim a second time, even though it was shown during the testimony of Beacon forensic interviewer Kathy Blevins.

"I'm going to encourage you to focus on the interview you watched," assistant prosecutor Tabatha Blakely said during her closing statement. "The defendant chose where this crime occurred. The defendant chose to have his 2-year-and-8-month-old daughter" perform a sexual act.

The victim had just turned 4 at the time of the interview July 5, 2012, nearly a year and half after the likely time period the molestation occurred. During the interview, she said "Daddy let me" perform a sexual act, "and I took a drink. I took a drink of juice," without any prompting from Blevins.

Blevins said the disclosure came before she expected.

"Who is Daddy?" Blevins asked.

"Travis," the victim responded.

In her closing statement, Blakely said the essential points of the victim's story never wavered from the initial disclosure June 30, 2012, to the now-7-year-old victim's testimony Monday.

"She told us who and what," Blakely said. "You heard from the state's expert and the defense's expert about accidental disclosure. When (the victim) told this, she did not know the ramifications. Through all of this, she stayed consistent. She has had ample opportunity to say it hasn't happened."

The defense, led by assistant public defender Amanda Altman, argued the victim's statement was inconsistent.

For her closing argument, Altman set up several display cards, most outlining inconsistencies from various versions of the victim's story, including the victim saying she was 1 year old at the time of the molestation; saying it was late at night in one statement and the sun was half-up in another; at one point saying it happened more than once, although the victim was clear on the video and in her court testimony it happened just once; and whether her older brother was present when the act took place. In one previous version, she reportedly said the brother told Turner to stop, then locked them in their room.

Altman included who the victim told -- at one point her grandmother in a previous statement -- and that she saw Turner arrested outside the window of the old house in Scott City where the victim once lived with Turner, which Altman said was impossible.

"This did not happen," Altman said in her closing argument. "This accusation is either the product of biased interviewing or source monitoring. This right here is reasonable doubt. This is every man's worst fear; we cannot make assumptions. Travis is not guilty of this crime, and I ask you to send him home."

"These aren't inconsistencies; this is a child," Blakely said in a redirect argument.

Altman argued the victim's mother implanted the idea of the abuse. The mother testified Monday she talked to her daughter about good touches and bad touches when the child was 2 years old.

"It's possible that she continued with that bias in the back of her mind," Altman said. "It's possible children believe something happened when they just heard about it."

"What motive would the mom have to put her daughter through all this? It was a year and half later," Blakely said of the mother. "She had moved on. She had no reason to make this up."

Spring Cook, testifying after interviewing the victim for the Missouri Children's Division, said the victim's brother, who also is autistic, disclosed to her a second instance of abuse from Turner.

The defense showed a second video in which Blevins interviewed the brother and was unable to ask him any questions.

The defense's main witness was childhood memory expert Julie Buck. She stated it would be unlikely for a 4-year-old to remember something that happened 16 months earlier. She added preschool-age children are the most vulnerable to suggestion.

"The major risk is that they will recall the descriptions they've been told," Buck said.

Buck also said, however, research indicated a 4-year-old would have the ability to remember events that happened when he or she was 2. She also said the details of childhood memories often fluctuate as the child ages.

"A lot of times, the perception is that our memory works like a video camera," Buck said. "Unfortunately, it doesn't work at all like that, and experiences affect memory."

Blevins said in her testimony Tuesday anatomical inconsistencies are a red flag for a false accusation. In the video, the victim gave a biologically impossible description of something that occurred during the abuse, although she clarified the statement shortly thereafter.

Bargeon questioned Blevins about the details of some of the victim's statements, which Blevins said could have been influenced by her perception of what was occurring.

"As an adult, yes, but based on her perspective ... their perception, their description may be totally different," Blevins said.

Boyd expressed both relief and melancholy after the trial.

"These cases are sad for both sides, but I can feel happy that we did our job. If we don't stand up for little people, nobody is going to do it," he said. "She can have some healing now that someone believed her."

bkleine@semissourian.com

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