East Texas

By CASEY KNAUPP
Staff Writer

TYLER - An 11-year-old victim who says she was forced to dance and perform sex acts at the "Mineola Swingers' Club" testified Tuesday for more than five hours before the judge broke early and let the jury go home for the day.

The trial of Patrick "Booger Red" Kelly began with testimony from the victim, who will return to the witness stand on Wednesday morning. The 41-year-old Tyler man is charged with engaging in organized criminal activity because he allegedly forced the girl and her brother to have sex with each other on Aug. 1, 2004, for profit. He faces five years to life in prison if convicted.

The girl was questioned by prosecutors for about 15 minutes and by the defense for the remainder of the day. Defense attorney Tina Brumbelow wasn't finished asking the girl questions when 241st District Judge Jack Skeen Jr. recessed for the day. For the last several hours of her testimony, the girl yawned repeatedly and held her head against the microphone between answers.

The victim identified Kelly, whom she knows as "Booger Red," in the courtroom and said one of the "kindergartens" she attended, where she and other children learned how to touch each other's private parts and dance, was at "Booger Red's" house. She said Shauntel Mayo and Sheila Sones taught the boys and "Booger Red" and Jamie Pittman taught the girls.

After kindergarten, the kids would go to the club in Mineola, where she and her brother played "Doctor," in which their private parts would touch, she said. "Booger Red" watched the children and sometimes did "nasty stuff" to "all the little kids," including herself, her siblings and her young aunt, she said. The girl danced with Ms. Mayo and "Rose," whom she said was Kelly's wife, in a room with a stage in it.

She said the grown-ups got money from the audience for the children's performances but the kids got nothing. She said people videotaped them in the "sex room" at the club and at Kelly's house.

Ms. Mayo and Jamie Pittman gave the children "silly pills," which made them act "silly" and "crazy," she said.

The victim said she stopped having to go to the club when she got taken away. She said she was scared when Child Protective Services came and took her and her brother away from their home.

Ms. Brumbelow asked the girl to detail rooms in the club, which she had earlier drawn a diagram of for Texas Ranger Phillip Kemp, who investigated the case. She was also asked to describe her uncle, "Michael," and two other men she said worked the cameras in the "sex room," but she said she didn't know their names.

She said some of "Michael's" children also would be in the "sex room" at the club. The girl was asked about other children she saw at the club; she gave first names of some but didn't know their last names or who their parents were. She also gave descriptions of other adults but didn't know their names.

The girl said once at "Booger Red's" house, they burned videotapes of the children and costumes they wore in a burn pile behind his house. She said about 50 videos were burned and about 20 costumes, which she described.

She described the inside and outside of Kelly's house, drew a picture for Ms. Brumbelow and described his neighbors. She said she had been to his house more than 60 times.

The victim also described two men Ms. Mayo and Jamie Pittman would get their "silly pills" from and was asked to draw the size of the yellow pills she took.

When asked by Ms. Brumbelow what "nasty stuff" she and the other children had to do at the club, she said they had to touch each other's private parts. When asked what she called her private parts, she held down her head and said she only called them private parts.

Other than at the club, the girl said she was touched by a lot of people, including Jamie and Dennis Pittman, "Booger Red" and Jimmie Sones. She said she's never been touched by anyone after she was removed from the home by CPS.

The girl said she talked to Ranger Kemp twice and once told him about seeing "Booger Red" choke a lady, who lived in his trailer park, and drag her body into the woods. She said Kelly and the lady were arguing and Kelly began choking her with his hands and after he took her somewhere, she never saw the woman again. She said she didn't know the lady's name and none of the adults there tried to stop Kelly or call the police.

The victim said she told her foster mom, Margie Cantrell, that a building she was interested in buying was the club where the children danced. When the girl described the inside of the building without entering it, she said Mrs. Cantrell immediately took her and her brother to the Mineola Police Department but "they didn't have nothing to do with it."

She said she then talked to a lady with the Children's Advocacy Center (CAC) but told her no one had molested her or her brother. She said she didn't tell the woman everything that happened because the lady showed her that cops were watching them and one of the cops, whom she had seen earlier at the Mineola Police Department, gave her "an evil look." She said she didn't feel safe talking to the woman with the officer watching.

When they were driving away from the CAC, the girl said she told Mrs. Cantrell to go back to the CAC and they did but the lady "wouldn't let us speak."

"This case is about pure evil," Assistant Smith County District Attorney Joe Murphy told the jurors. "You will hear a gruesome account of child abuse."

He said the kids were taught in kindergarten, starting at age 5, and began learning how to perform sex acts on dolls, then themselves and each other. They were taught at an early age not to tell anyone or their dogs would be hanged or the kids would be locked up in a cave without food, he said.

Mothers had sex with their sons, brothers with their sisters and aunts with their nieces and nephews, Murphy said. "They were forced to do indescribable acts and these acts were their life," he said.

The day they were removed by CPS, the children began showing signs of sexual abuse; they went through several foster homes because some foster parents couldn't deal with their behavior, he said.

Murphy said several of the children were separated from each other when they began to make outcries about the abuse. He said after the Mineola Police Department closed the case in 24 hours, Ranger Kemp did a thorough investigation.

He said the children were afraid to talk because they thought no one would believe them. "The nightmare you hear is their life," Murphy told the jurors.

Defense attorney Thad Davidson reserved his opening statement until after the state rests its case.

The victims consist of the 11-year-old girl, her 9-year-old brother and her 7-year-old sister, as well as their 9-year-old aunt. They have each testified in the previous two trials of Kelly's co-defendants. In each of those trials, each child, as well as a 15-year-old daughter of one of the co-defendants, testified briefly and was not cross examined by defense attorneys.

Although the club is in Wood County, the defendants were charged in Smith County because they lived here and reportedly held "kindergarten" at their houses. Prosecutors claim the offenses began and ended in Smith County when the children left and returned to the homes.

Ms. Mayo and Jamie Pittman have been convicted and sentenced to life in prison and face additional charges. Dennis Boyd Pittman, Rebecca Pittman, Shelia Darlene Sones and Jimmy Dale Sones, await trials.

Defense attorneys Tina Brumbelow and Thad Davidson confer during Assistant District Attorney Joe Murphy’s opening statement at the trial.
(Staff Photo By Jaime R. Carrero)