EDITOR’S NOTE: This story contains graphic descriptions of alleged child sexual abuse.
The mother of a girl who was allegedly raped and sodomized by an Odessa man when she was 5-years-old testified Wednesday she didn’t want to believe it had happened, but became convinced when a physical exam showed evidence of an assault.
The woman, who is not being named in order to protect the identity of the alleged victim, spent a couple of hours on the stand in the 358th Ector County District Court. Wednesday was the second day in the trial of Dakota Lee Hoyt, 30.
Hoyt is charged with three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child, a first-degree felony punishable by five to 99 years or life in prison.
Assistant Ector County District Attorney Melissa Rayne and defense attorney Scott Layh spent considerable time going over texts and emails the girl’s mother and Hoyt exchanged in the days after authorities were called about the alleged abuse and a sexual assault nurse examiner at Medical Center Hospital found an abnormality in the girl’s rectum.
In text after text, Hoyt repeatedly begged the woman to have the girl examined a second time, erroneously stating the nurse was on Child Protective Services’ payroll. The woman said she refused because she didn’t want to put her daughter through such an invasive procedure.
Hoyt also repeatedly questioned why the woman’s grandmother wasn’t being investigated as a possible suspect as she spent more time with the child than he had.
Several times Hoyt asked the woman to “have his back” and he also told her she didn’t have to hand her phone over to authorities without a court order.
“If they ever try to talk to you, you can’t just say ‘I don’t know,’” Hoyt said. “You’ve got to say mamaw coached her.”
The woman told Rayne it became obvious to her Hoyt was more interested in his well-being than her daughter’s. She also testified she once caught Hoyt watching pornography and masturbating under a blanket with all three of her children in the room.
Under cross examination from Layh, the woman acknowledged Hoyt actually did send her text messages inquiring about the welfare of the girl and her siblings. She also admitted her grandmother had been investigated a “handful” of times for allegedly abusing the alleged victim and her siblings. In fact, she admitted the alleged victim suffered a seizure when alone with her grandmother and was taken to the hospital where doctors thought she might have suffered a skull fracture.
When re-questioned by Rayne, however, the girl’s mother said the children were never removed from the home they all shared with her grandmother.
The girl’s mother also testified during Layh’s cross examination that she found sex toys in her grandmother’s room, the room she shared with the alleged victim and her sister.
The woman further conceded the nurse who examined her daughter never told her the abnormality she saw in the girl’s rectum could be caused by something other than being sodomized, including constipation.
Lastly, the girl’s mother agreed with Layh it would make sense for someone to repeatedly ask for a second examination to prove his innocence.
Judge John Shrode is presiding over the trial.
