Defendant in rape case to go to trial

She said it started as verbal abuse.

Then it turned physical, with allegations that Edward E. Thomas groped and fondled the then 15-year-old girl. From there, she said, it progressed to the point of countless rapes, over a one-year span.

Sixth Judicial Magistrate Judge Rebecca Stephan heard enough reason on Friday to bind Thomas, 43, over for trial on charges that he raped the teenager, now 17 years old.

The case goes back to October 2005, when Thomas was charged with three counts of felony rape and one count of aggravated indecent liberties with a child.

On Friday, both the accused and his alleged victim finally got their day in court. The preliminary hearing had been continued four times since the charges were filed. Most of the continuances were due to crime lab delays in processing DNA evidence, evidence the defense said was critical to ensure a fair trial. However, no DNA was admitted as evidence at the Friday hearing.

During the hearing, Judge Stephan and others in the courtroom heard a 45-minute videotaped interview with Social and Rehabilitation Services social worker Sherry Hill, in which the girl gave the following account of the alleged crime.

In that interview, she said Thomas would single her out, calling her names and blaming her for petty incidents.

The girl said that when she was around age 13 or 14, Thomas slammed her head into a door and, on another occasion, punched her in the face.

The teenager spoke of an incident in which she alleged that Thomas touched the inside of her legs while she was driving a Chevrolet S-10 on a rural county road. She said there was an incident in 2002, when the defendant fondled her inappropriately above the waist while she was sitting on the couch watching a movie. In July 2004, she said, the advances became worse. She said Thomas tried to unbutton her pants on several occasions, but that she resisted each time.

"He was all over me," she said in the taped interview. "He wanted me to have sex with him."

One night in July 2004, again while she was watching a movie, she said, he ripped off her clothes and raped her. The girl said she tried to stop the assault, but he was too strong.

In the taped interview, the girl said she told investigators that he raped her at least 30 times and that she tried to fight him off in the first several attacks but later would "just lay there and cry." She said he even tried to get her to touch him, but she refused.

The girl said she finally told her boyfriend about what had been happening and he told his mother, who urged her to tell her mother and, later, Bourbon County Deputy Sheriff Mike Feagins.

She said she had hesitated to tell anyone at first, because Thomas had told her he would kill himself and she would be guilty when his children grew up without their dad.

"He said, 'You better not tell anyone, because it would ruin both of our lives,'" she said.

The girl also testified in person at the hearing. She began crying on the witness stand when asked why she initially didn't tell her mother. She said she wanted to protect her mother and "keep her heart from being broken."

The last incident allegedly occurred on Sept. 13, 2005, when her family left town to attend her aunt's funeral, but she stayed behind. She said Thomas picked her up from school and took her to his home in the 2000 block of Grand Road in rural Bourbon County, where he was living at the time. She said she was getting ready to go to see her boyfriend and, after she changed clothes, Thomas threw her on his bed face first and raped her.

Thomas' attorney, Bob Farmer, questioned what he said were inconsistencies between what the girl told investigators about where the incident occurred and what she said about it at the hearing. Farmer also questioned a statement the girl had made to authorities about having fought off Thomas during a molestation attempt, and he asked how she could successfully fight off those attempts but not the numerous rape attacks.

Farmer asked her why she continued to be around Thomas if he was supposedly violating her.

She said in response that she didn't want the other children there to be alone with Thomas, putting them in jeopardy of possible abuse, as well. However, Farmer said, the girl had not told authorities that Thomas had abused the other children.

Farmer asked her why she stayed with Thomas and didn't go with her family to attend her aunt's funeral.

"Why would you put yourself at possible risk?" Farmer asked.

She said she did not want to take off work or miss school and that's why she didn't go with her family to the funeral.

The defense attorney asked the girl about why she cleaned off physical residue after the incidents, and she said she didn't want it on her. Farmer asked her if she knew about sex education and how the DNA process worked -- that it could have been "proof positive" that a rape occurred.

He asked her why she didn't yell so the other children could hear, since they were staying with Thomas at the house on Heylman Street.

The girl responded by saying the children "should not have to see that, something that severe," and that's why she didn't scream out.

"This is a house of cards," Farmer said during his closing statement. "There's no physical evidence at this time."

A formal arraignment in the case against Thomas has not been set as of press time.

Thomas is currently being held at the Southeast Kansas Regional Correctional Center, 204 S. National Ave., in lieu of $100,000 bond.