Two towns reflect on assault

WINK Neita Vaught said Friday afternoon that she knows just about everyone on Rosey Dodd Avenue and Fifth Street. That includes Pam White and Anthony Lee Bishop, who live in the blue, run-down house across the street from her. She said she knew the teens from Wink High School often went inside to drink there at night.

"The kids don't have much to do here except the football game," the outspoken 83-year-old self-described "grouchy grandma" said. At the same time though, White and Bishop would "also come pick me up when I fall down."

So she didn't think Bishop would have sexually assaulted anyone, despite the suspicions of the Winkler County Sheriff's Office, whose deputies arrested him in connection to the assault of a 16-year-old Kermit teen that reportedly took place in that blue house. They arrested White earlier Friday as an accessory.

But she was even more concerned about her grandson, Jason "Iceman" Vaught, who was arrested that same morning, also as an accessory.

"He (was) over there drinking," she said. "I wouldn't say he touched that girl."

Less than an hour after Jason's arrest, before the word reached Kermit, waitress Amanda Plunkett, 21, suspected the police were after Iceman.

"They're (Bishop and Joel Hernandez) hanging out with Iceman," Plunkett said while she was waiting tables at Jerrie's Café, which was packed at lunchtime.  "He's one of the guys."

Plunkett graduated from Wink High School/Junior High School and remembered Bishop and Hernandez, the other Wink student accused of sexually assaulting the Kermit teen, from her freshman years while they were sixth graders.

She said Hernandez and the Kermit teen were ex-fiancés. Even though Plunkett didn't personally know the victim, she said he heard that the girl from Kermit had a fight while in Kermit High School last year and was transferred to Wink.

As for Hernandez, she said he and his friends sometimes tried "hard stuff" amongst themselves.

She didn't know Bishop. Neita Vaught knew nothing about Hernandez.

Winker County Sheriff's Chief Deputy George Keely expected a lot of people throughout the two towns to know about the reported assault and to know about the two students his fellow deputies arrested.

"You make an arrest in Wink and everybody knows about it," he said.

He recalled a murder case several years ago that had to be tried outside of Winkler County because of the notoriety it generated locally, but said he believed he could find a jury to try the people suspected of taking part in the Sept. 21 sexual assault.

"I think it could held right here. You'll get a fair shake," he said.

Dwayne Dempsey, an M & P Construction worker in Kermit, probably won't be one of those jurors. He personally knew nothing about any of the people involved in the case, but since it was reported, he heard of all of them.

"This kind of stuff don't happen here," he said. "Even if it does, you don't usually hear about it."

He still thought it was possible that this was being blown out of proportion between the two towns while he ate at Jerrie's Café Friday.