Opinion ID: 2460452
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Incidents and Accusation

Text: Sellers lived with C.M. and her 13-year-old daughter, M.R.C., in C.M.'s home. Sellers and C.M. had previously been deployed together in the Army National Guard, serving in Kuwait. Sellers' relationship with M.R.C. became strained, and C.M. and M.R.C. began to argue about him. The worst of these arguments occurred in early December 2007. On December 3, 2007, C.M. went to her sister's home to talk about the situation. C.M. asked her sister to try to talk to M.R.C. to find out what was bothering her. The sister did as asked the same evening while making dinner with M.R.C. When M.R.C. learned from the sister that Sellers was going to ask C.M. to marry him, M.R.C. told the sister that Sellers had touched her. Upon urging by the sister, M.R.C. also told C.M. that Sellers had touched her up top and down below. Later that evening, C.M. told Sellers that M.R.C. had said he touched her breast and down there. C.M. told Sellers she would get him some help. When Sellers left for work the next morning, however, C.M. took M.R.C. to the police station to report the incident. C.M. and M.R.C. arrived at the police station at 6 a.m. and met with Officer Joshua Lowe to give an initial report. Lowe interviewed C.M. and M.R.C. and prepared a report before referring the case to a detective for further investigation. M.R.C. reported that Sellers put his hands up her shirt and felt her chest and touched her on her pubic area. Lowe asked a series of yes/no follow-up questions, including whether Jerry had put his hands down her pants. M.R.C. said Sellers had not done so. M.R.C. believed that the touching incident occurred around Saturday, November 17, 2007. Lowe asked M.R.C. if she was home alone with Sellers when the touching occurred, and she replied that she was. In addition, in response to Lowe's question about how Sellers went about touching her, M.R.C. said that Sellers just walked up and touched her. Lowe eventually would testify that his purpose with the initial interview was to get enough information to see if the matter warranted calling in a detective to conduct a forensic interview. At 10 a.m. the same day as the Lowe interview, Detective Michael Yoder interviewed M.R.C. at the Heart to Heart Advocacy Center. M.R.C. told Yoder that she did not get along with Sellers and worried that he would divert her mother's affection. M.R.C. also told Yoder that the touching incident occurred around Thanksgiving; she thought it happened on November 16. Describing the incident, M.R.C. told Yoder that between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m., she went to lie down with her mother on her mother's bed. M.R.C. lay on one side of the bed and her mother on the other, and the two held hands. Sellers joined them on the bed, lying between M.R.C. and her mother with his head level with M.R.C.'s waist. Sellers put his arm over M.R.C.'s leg, then moved his hand so it was between M.R.C. and the mattress, and then moved it from touching her stomach to her chest. M.R.C. told Yoder that when Sellers' hand had reached her breast, he moved his hand around over her breast. Sellers then stopped touching M.R.C. and left the room to go check on the family's dog, which was making noise in another room. M.R.C. told Yoder that Sellers then came back into the room, checked to see if her mother was asleep, lay back down, and put his hand on M.R.C.'s leg. He moved his hand up to M.R.C.'s pubic area. Sellers then got off the bed again and walked over to her mother's side of the bed to see if she was still asleep. He then walked to M.R.C.'s side of the bed and started to push M.R.C.'s shirt up. At that point, M.R.C. squeezed her mother's hand and woke her up. Yoder asked M.R.C. if there had been any other incidents in which Sellers touched her inappropriately; and she said there was another incident the previous Halloween. M.R.C. said that Sellers touched her on her buttocks when she, Sellers, and her mother were cooking in the kitchen. M.R.C. also reported a third incident, in which she hugged Sellers goodnight and he grabbed her on the buttocks.