JOPLIN, Mo. —
Three more alleged victims took the witness stand Thursday to tell how James Terry molested them, including a 21-year-old woman who said she was abused by him at a church 10 years ago.
Terry, a 64-year-old Webb City man, is facing four counts of first-degree child molestation. The charges stem from the accusations of three girls and a young woman.
An 8-year-old girl testified at the start of Terry’s preliminary hearing a week ago that he had molested her four times since she was 3 or 4 years old. One of those times was near the Praying Hands statue in Webb City, she said.
The hearing in Jasper County Circuit Court in Joplin was extended a week at that point by Associate Judge Richard Copeland to permit the county prosecutor’s office the opportunity to present the testimony of three more alleged victims. At the completion of their testimonies Thursday, the judge found probable cause for Terry to stand trial on all four counts.
The young woman was preceded on the witness stand by two girls, ages 13 and 12, who told of instances of abuse by Terry in 2008 when they were about 8 and 7 years old, respectively. In each case, they said he would touch them through their clothing.
Under cross-examination by defense attorney William Fleischaker, one of the girls conceded that her memories of the instances are somewhat blurred and that she has wondered in the past if they might have been a dream. But she now believes it truly happened, she said.
The second girl described occasions when Terry touched her “in the wrong place.”
The 21-year-old woman testified that Terry abused her just once, about 10 years ago when she was 10 or 11.
“It’s just a very vivid memory,” she said.
She said she never told anyone about the matter until she was in college.
Fleischaker argued that the alleged victims had all described instances of “incidental touching” without any evidence that his client had been seeking gratification as required by statute to constitute molestation. An assistant prosecutor countered that the cumulative weight of the allegations against Terry from “girl after girl after girl” makes it clear that the several instances could not have been “incidental touching.”
Trial division
JAMES TERRY was ordered Thursday to make his initial appearance in a trial division of Jasper County Circuit Court on June 29. He is facing four counts of child molestation.
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Three alleged victims testify against accused molester
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