Posted on 05/08/2002 2:42:33 PM PDT by ThreeYearLurker
ROSEBURG -- The 6-year-old daughter of Brian and Ruth Christine took the stand Tuesday afternoon despite a second attempt by the defense to exclude her testimony.
Wearing a bright pink shirt and stroking a stuffed rabbit named Rosie, blond-haired Bethany Christine told the jury haltingly that she felt sad and scared after her father "pointed a gun at the people" on her last birthday, the day she and her sisters were taken by their father from two social workers at an Interstate 5 rest area.
Bethany looked straight at Rick Wesenberg, the prosecuting attorney, while answering his questions and made little eye contact with her parents, who were seated at the defense table.
The girl also said yes when Wesenberg asked her if she saw someone wearing something on their head soon after her dad drove them away in the van. "Was it Mama Ruth?" he asked. "Yes," she answered. "What was on her head?" "A wig," she said. "Did you know who she was at first?" "No," she said. "Did you know who she was when she took the wig off?" "Yes." "Did you get in another car and go for a drive?" Wesenberg asked. "Yes," she answered. "A long one."
Douglas County Circuit Court Judge William Lasswell found the girl competent to testify after asking her a series of questions to determine whether she knew right from wrong and if she understood what a lie was.
Bethany told the judge she lives on a farm with two dogs named Lucy and Ben, four cats and no sheep. "We have cows," she said. The three girls were placed in the custody of Ruth Christine's parents, who have a dairy farm in England, after the children were recovered in Montana.
Before the competency hearing, Edgar Steele, the defense attorney, asked the judge to exclude testimony from the Christines' daughters because it wouldn't add enough to the case to justify the potential harm to the children if their testimony resulted in a jail sentence for their parents.
Afterthe girl's testimony, Steele asked Bethany if anyone had told her what to say on the stand. After the girl nodded, Steele asked her who, and the girl pointed at Wesenberg. Steele also asked Bethany if she knew what a wig was.
"No," Bethany said.
Ruth Christine, who is free on bail, ran from the courtroom in tears after Steele asked Bethany whether she called anyone else by the name "Mommy" except Ruth Christine. "My grandma," she said.
Questioning Bethany a second time, Wesenberg asked her if her grandparents had been present every time he talked with her. Bethany said yes. "Did you tell the truth today?" he asked. "I tried to," she said.
Jurors saw numerous pieces of evidence, including the .357-caliber Magnum handgun Brian Christine allegedly pointed at the two Oregon social workers.
The state took the Christines' three daughters into protective custody July 31, 2000, after investigating allegations of neglect when the family was living in a converted school bus in Grants Pass. A year later, on Aug. 1, 2001, police say Brian Christine used a gun to reclaim his children after a state-supervised visit with the children in Grants Pass. The incident occurred at a I-5 rest stop as a van was transporting the girls back to their foster home.
Jurors heard testimony from an employee of a car rental company in Hamilton, Mont. The employee said that a few days after the abduction she rented a car to Matthew Gerawan, who faces charges in the kidnapping. Brian Christine was driving the rental car when he was stopped for speeding in Montana, and he was taken into custody after police became aware he was wanted in Oregon.
Shortly afterward, police found Ruth Christine and the children in a rural Montana home.
The Christines, who describe themselves as devout Christians, are on trial on charges of kidnapping and robbery, which are Measure 11 crimes that carry mandatory sentences of between five and seven years.
Two witnesses testified that the Christines turned to prayer during the days following the abduction. Jeff Kellum, pastor of a church in Frenchtown, Mont., said Ruth Christine and her children spent one night in a motor home located next to his family's. "She asked to pray," he said.
Wolfgang Hochholdinger, an FBI agent who interviewed Brian Christine after he was taken into custody in Montana, said that at one point during the interview, Brian Christine asked to pray.
"He got down on his forearms and knees on the ground and stayed there for about two minutes," Hochholdinger said. "I asked him what he was praying for, absolution or guidance?"
"He said, 'For deliverance.' "
The trial continues today. You can reach Alice Tallmadge at 541-741-6256 or by e-mail at a.tallmadge@worldnet.att.net.
Kids miss their meals---parents get stoned to death!
spots a ding on a fender---
everything checks out...
license--plate--tags---
You have no moving violations---insurance is current...
We're going confiscate--maintain--use your vehicle---
hasn't been washed for some time---
oils dirty--needs changing--ball joints are dry---needs some grease...
after we think you deserve it---go through the proper procedures...
will test you--your car in police chases...
oh yeah---
who do you think you are---
abusing public property the way you did...
you should be shot on the spot---
for how you abused this priveledge---
to drive on our property!
If I was you...
I would get out of town and don't come back before we rough you up---
lock you up and throw away the key!
ps...don't get lippy with me mam--sir!
We may revoke your right to breathe!
The kids were delivered out of the hands of the pedophiles/satanists in gov't and sent to England. The gov't seeks REVENGE and wants to IMPRISON the CHRISTIAN parents. How? Simple, the gov't lies. Good is content to co-exist with EVIL, but EVIL will always hunt down GOOD to destroy it! It happened before the Jews were rounded-up in Germany and it's happening again.
goes after Bill Gates--Elian and the taliban blows up NY--Pentagon---
chinacom/plo bill at Georgetown blames the republicans--VRWC!
All true!
What about Saint Paul's admonition to Christians to obey those in authority?
Or are you saying that he wasn't REALLY a Christian?
‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again.‘ (John 4:13)
"Western society lives by the patronage of scientists and technocrats. Scientific sophistication enables us to manipulate many of the material details of our existence, to suit ourselves. But most of that which makes for contentment cannot be supplied by science. Matters such as relationships; getting along with people. Though we need others, they are a problem for us. We are let down by them, and they betray us. Sometimes they annoy us by pointing out to us that we have let them down."
"Though technical brilliance has fitted us to build great cities, where most of us live, those cities can be very depressing. Sometimes they are downright ugly. They stink. They are impersonal. They make us feel small and insignificant. The information age has succeeded in forcing us to identify ourselves by a number. It's hard to not feel as if we are no more than a consumer unit; a voting unit; a unit of labor, rather than a unique center of spiritual consciousness. Many feel that the system has beaten them. They have given up, and become angry, frustrated, and suicidal."
"There is an important difference between the world of Jesus and the woman at the well, and our world. Theirs was girded by a theistic world view, ours is not. In both public and private sectors God is not a necessary hypothesis. This is a secular age, and we have begun to pay a high price for it. Once an individual has embraced the notion, that the ultimate reality is stuff, then that person has no tools with which to make sense of his own personality."
"If the ultimate truth of existence is mere physics, we are left... strangers and afraid---in a world we never made."
"God, water our thirsty selves with your own great personality."
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