Mother: fear caused girl to lie
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Fear of repercussions caused a change in the date of an alleged rape of a 13-year-old girl, according to testimony Tuesday afternoon in the trial of Raul Manuel Magallanez Jr. in Lyon County District Court.
Magallanez is on trial for raping the girl and is charged with multiple counts of sexual and alcohol offenses against the girl and two other young girls.
The mother of the 13-year-old girl testified that the girl’s fear of what her father might do had caused her daughter to say one of the incidents of sexual intercourse occurred on Oct. 4, 2006. She later said the incident happened on Nov. 1, 2006.
The girl will be identified as Girl No. 3, to protect her identity; other underage witnesses will be similarly identified. Prior to her testimony Tuesday afternoon, her brother, mother and father were called to the witness stand.
Testimony established that Girl No. 3 had met Magallanez when she was visiting a friend’s home. The friend and her family are longtime friends of Girl No. 3 and her family. The friend’s brother was a frequent companion of Magallanez.
Girl No. 3’s brother testified Tuesday that he caught her riding in Magallanez’s car after discovering on Oct. 4, 2006, that she was not at the family’s home as expected. Girl No. 3 had been communicating with Magallanez by cell phone and text-messaging him since they met.
Girl No. 3’s brother said he followed the defendant’s car, which pulled into an alley. The brother drove alongside the defendant’s car, and Girl No. 3 got out and got in her brother’s truck.
“I had a pretty long talk with her. I told her that she didn’t need to be running around with somebody that old,” the brother testified. “Mom and Dad had already told her not to .... We didn’t want her to get into trouble over this.”
Girl No. 3 is grounded
When the young man told their parents what had happened, Girl No. 3 was grounded, her mother testified.
In addition, she was not allowed to be home by herself, she rode the school bus to her grandparents’ house after school and was not allowed to use the family’s computer, which she had used to communicate with Magallanez. Her cell phone was taken away for about two weeks.
“We explained to her that he was too old and she shouldn’t be having anything to do with him,” the mother testified. “At the time I didn’t know how old he was. We thought he was 21.”
Girl No. 3’s mother testified that her daughter had been “reliable and responsible,” holding a babysitting job at least two evenings a week and used her wages to pay for her cell phone and other extras.
After the mother and her husband grounded Girl No. 3, they believed she was following the family rules. They allowed Girl No. 3 to spend a weekend night with two of her friends while the girls babysat a child, who is a sister of one of the girls.
Girl No. 3 called her mother the following morning and asked to come home. She seemed upset, the mother said. She testified that her daughter said the girls had argued about something “stupid” and it was nothing.
The mother of one of the other girls called later that day and asked to meet with Girl No. 3’s mother. The woman was disturbed about Magallanez’s relationship with two of her children and Girl No. 3, her mother testified.
“She told me that she had talked to (her own daughter) about Manuel because (her son) had been running around with Manuel,” Girl No. 3’s mother testified.
She added that Magallanez and her son had been at the babysitting job when two of the girls had left the house.
The other girl’s mother said “they weren’t sure what the story was,” she testified. “At that time, the girls were not telling everything.”
The woman told Girl No. 3’s mother that the woman’s son “... was with this Manuel and that he was bad and that she tried to keep (her son) away from him and that (the son) kept doing everything this man told him to do.”
Girl No. 3’s mother said she went to her husband’s workplace to tell him what she had been told. The parents confronted Girl No. 3 about whether she had been with Magallanez, she said.
“We asked her if he had touched her, if he had had sex with her, anything like that,” Girl No. 3’s mother testified.
Contacting police
Girl No. 3’s parents said nothing sexual had happened. The parents went to the police department to talk with an officer about the situation with Magallanez.
The officer talked to Girl No. 3 alone and she continued to deny any sexual involvement with the defendant.
“The next day I went to work and it was just eating at me that she wasn’t being honest, that she wasn’t telling me the full story,” the mother testified.
She later took her daughter aside and explained the need for honesty; she talked to the girl about sexually transmitted diseases and, because the girl could have contracted something to make her very sick, asked if she needed to go to a doctor.
“And she broke down and started crying and said, ‘Yes,’” the mother testified.
The mother called police. Girl No. 3 told the officer that on Oct. 4, when her brother caught her with the defendant, they had gone in her brother’s car to Soden’s Grove and had had sexual intercourse with Magallanez, the mother testified.
Girl No. 3’s mother testified the date changed because she and her husband knew about Magallanez and had told their daughter to stay away from him after her brother caught them together.
Because Girl No. 3 had continued to see Magallanez without her parents’ knowledge, she initially had used the wrong date.
The mother testified that her daughter told her the defendant came to the house where she was babysitting on Nov. 1 “and that she had gone outside in his car and had sex with him then.”
After Thanksgiving, Girl No. 3 told her mother, “she had gone in (Magallanez’s) car and he took her to his house, gave her alcohol and wanted her to have sex.
Girl No. 3 had said ‘no,” the mother testified, beginning to cry — “and he forced her to.”
She said the girl had not told the truth earlier because she did not want her father to know.
“She was scared (of) what her dad would do,” the mother testified. “... Because she thought if her dad knew that Magallanez had hurt her, then he would do something bad.”
She said her daughter “broke down crying and said she was going to tell the truth. She was tired of lying.”
Hiding details
The girl, who began testimony later in the afternoon, said she and the defendant had daily contact. He told her she was beautiful and talked to her about sex; she told him “that I wanted to lose my virginity to somebody I really cared about.”
He asked her to take “chest pictures” of herself with nothing on her upper torso. She said she did that with a cell phone and forwarded the photos to Magallanez’s cell phone.
After the sexual encounter on Nov. 1, Magallanez warned her repeatedly not to tell anyone what had happened.
“He told me that I couldn’t tell anybody because he would get in really big trouble,” she said, “... and it wouldn’t be good because I wouldn’t be able to see you. ... He always told me that he loved me and that he never wanted to be without me. He told me he wanted me to run away with him.”
Later, the defendant’s cautions became more intimidating, when the two walked to Walnut Park and he reiterated the importance of not telling.
“I felt kind of threatened, like,” she said, inhaling audibly and pausing, “I don’t know.” He was acting “really mean.”
She said that she had been afraid to tell her parents the absolute truth because she thought they would be angry with her. She worried especially about her father.
“I just feel like he wouldn’t be able to stand looking at me any more,” the girl said.
More testimony
She was expected to continue her testimony when court resumes at 9 a.m. today.
Earlier on Tuesday, another teenager testified about his experiences with alcohol and sex at Magallanez’s house in the fall of 2006.
The witness, whose name will not be used because of his age, was 13 years old when in the summer of 2006 he began riding around in Magallanez’s car and “hanging out” with him.
A long-term friend of the teen had introduced him to the defendant, he said.
The witness testified that Magallanez took him and his friend to the defendant’s home in the 1200 block of Walnut Street, where a small group gathered.
Others at the house included another 13- or 14-year-old boy, a young adult male and a 14-year-old girl, identified as Girl No. 2.
Magallanez invited the witness to pour himself a tumbler of vodka, the witness said. During the evening, he had three tumblers of vodka, which he said he “chugged really quick” and a mixed drink of vodka and grape soda, which he sipped.
“I started to feel weirder, my head was light, my throat burned,” he said.
Girl No. 2, whom he knew by sight, had been sitting on the front porch of the defendant’s home. She was behaving strangely, he said.
“She was acting loopy,” the witness said. “Crazy, like, just random stuff.”
He said he saw people smoking marijuana, but he had not seen anyone giving alcohol or marijuana to the girl.
He said that she and Magallanez were talking before he saw the pair go into the bedroom together.
“They ended up having sex,” the witness said.
Lyon County Attorney Marc Goodman asked how he knew they had had sex.
“Because you could hear the bed hittin’ the wall,” the witness answered.
He said that later a friend of his went into the bedroom with the girl and had sex.
The witness said that he then went to the bathroom and Girl No. 2 came in.
“Did you end up having sex with her, too?” Goodman asked.
“Yes, I did,” the teen said.
His friend began talking to the girl when they returned to the living room and he “ended up having sex with her again,” the witness said.
He said Magallanez became angry that Girl No. 2 had had sex on Magallanez’s mother’s bed.
“... because he’d told them, ‘No sex on my mom’s bed, whatsoever,’” the witness recalled.
The teen did not remember Magallanez in the bedroom or videotaping others and Girl No. 2.
“I’ve heard rumors about videos that were found in the house but other than that I don’t know anything about videos,” the witness said.
Inappropriate touching
The witness testified that he and his friend had touched Girl No. 2 inappropriately, but did not remember the girl dancing or removing her clothes.
He said he initially had not told the truth about the drinking he had done at Magallanez’s house.
“I lied to (detective) Lisa Sage,” the teen testified. “... (I)f anybody found out I was drinking, I wouldn’t be able to play sports,” he testified.
In a subsequent interview, the boy admitted he had been drinking.
Police Det. Sgt. Carlton L. Heller testified earlier Tuesday and brought to the trial items taken from Magallanez’s 1991 white Honda coupe, which was seized through a search warrant executed at the defendant’s home in early December 2006.
Samples of the car’s upholstery were sent to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation laboratory for testing. The results have not yet been introduced in court.
Heller said that among the evidence seized from the car were e-mail printouts and a hand-written letter alleged to be from Girl No. 3.