Bible belt town reels as third child abuse trial begins

IN the windowless front rooms of a former day care centre in a tiny Texas community, children as young as five were fed powerful painkillers they knew as “silly pills” and forced to perform sex shows for a crowd of up to 100 adults.

There are more than 30 churches in Mineola and the closest place to buy alcohol is 34km away. Most of the town’s 5,100 residents would rather put the bleak past behind them, but jury selection got underway yesterday in the third swinger party case to go to trial.

Patrick Kelly, aged 41, is charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child, tampering with physical evidence and engaging in organised criminal activity.

Thad Davidson, Kelly’s attorney, said his client passed a polygraph test proving his innocence and worried about getting a fair trial in nearby Tyler.

In all, six adults have been charged in connection with the case, one of them a parent of three siblings prosecutors say were forced to perform.

Jurors deliberated less than five minutes in 2005 before returning guilty verdicts in the trials of the first two defendants, who were accused of grooming the children for sex shows in “kindergarten” classes and passing off Vicodin as “silly pills” to help the children perform.

“Once the kids were in [state] custody, everybody knew from day one there was something wrong with them,” Smith County Assistant District Attorney Joe Murphy said. “All the technical flags of child abuse were coming out.”

Jamie Pittman and Shauntel Mayo were sentenced to life in prison. Kelly also faces a life sentence, and Smith County prosecutors are hoping for another swift verdict.

The one-storey building, where prosecutors say four children — the three siblings, now aged 12, 10 and 7, and their 10-year-old aunt — were trained to perform in front of an audience of 50 to 100 once a week, has been vacant since the landlord ousted the alleged organisers in 2004.

According to a police report, the department first investigated a complaint in June 2005 in which the siblings’ foster mother said one of the girls described dancing toward men and another child said that “everybody does nasty stuff in there”.

In the second trial, Child Protective Services caseworker, Kristi Hachtel, testified: “I’ve seen a lot and I never in my wildest dreams imagined this.”

Permanent custody of the three siblings was given to John and Margie Cantrell.

Last week, prosecutors in California charged John Cantrell with sexually assaulting a child in the state 18 years ago. Ms Cantrell said her husband is innocent.