By SHARON MONTAGUE

Salina Journal

After presenting about a dozen witnesses and numerous bags of exhibits, prosecutor Jon Whitton stood before the jury of 11 women and one man Friday in the Saline County district courtroom.

"Now, you know," he told the jurors in the rape case against Kendall Brown. "Now, you know how hard it is to be a 13-year-old girl in Salina, Kansas."

Whitton talked about how three 14-year-old girls, classmates of the 13-year-old victim at Lakewood Middle School, "sold her out," convincing her that if she had sex with Brown, who then was 36, he would give them methamphetamine, and the girls would protect her from bullying at school.

The girls made the victim crawl through a small, built-in cabinet in Brown's house and into an unfinished attic cubby hole, where candles illuminated pink insulation and exposed framing lumber, and a bottle of whiskey was stashed in a corner.

A juror grimaced and shook her head as Whitton described the scene.

After the victim had sex with Brown, Whitton said, Brown rewarded the girls with a bag of salt.

The victim, Whitton said, "was not the most gifted person in her class. She was not the most liked person in her class.

"But (the victim) is entitled to the protection of the law, just like anyone else."

Whitton urged jurors to find Brown, now 39, guilty of the charges against him related to that Oct. 10, 2005 incident -- rape, aggravated indecent solicitation and representing a noncontrolled substance as meth.

The jurors complied.

After less than 30 minutes of deliberation, they returned to the courtroom and announced they had found Brown guilty on all charges.

District Judge Rene Young set sentencing for 9 a.m. April 22.

Trying to cast doubt

Defense attorney Jack Sheahon didn't present any witnesses during the trial, and Brown declined to testify in his own defense.

But Sheahon told the jurors, during his closing statement, that the state hadn't proven its case.

Sheahon said something happened at Brown's house on Oct. 10, 2005, but because of conflicting stories told by witnesses, it was impossible to determine exactly what that was.

He said several witnesses testified that Ashley Davis, one of the victim's classmates, threatened to beat up the victim if she didn't have sex with Brown. But then, Sheahon said, Davis denied that she threatened the victim.

Also, Sheahon said, one of the girls testified that the three girls stayed just outside the cubby hole while Brown and the victim had sex, while others said they were downstairs. The girls also gave differing accounts of how long the alleged sexual encounter lasted, and how they knew where to look for the supposed baggie of meth.

"Those inconsistencies add up to reasonable doubt," Sheahon said.

But Whitton said the inconsistencies could be attributed to the time that had passed since the events, and that the girls told, essentially, the same story.

The girl said she agreed to have sex with Brown, but the act was considered rape because the girl was 13 years old -- under the age of consent.

Sheahon suggested that the state hadn't proven that the girl was 13, because no birth certificate was presented.

However, Whitton presented, as evidence, state-issued identification cards listing the victim's date of birth.

The DNA evidence

Sheahon also attempted to cast doubts about scientific evidence.

James Newman, a forensic biologist for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, testified Friday that fluid collected from the victim's vagina during a rape exam the evening of the incident contained DNA consistent with that of Brown.

But Sheahon suggested that there might have been problems with collection of the evidence.

Beth Komarek, a nurse at the Saline County Jail, used Q-tips to swab inside Brown's cheeks to obtain samples to be analyzed for DNA. Those samples were compared with the fluids taken from the victim.

Komarek testified Friday that she initialed the package containing the Q-tips, but as she examined the package on the stand, she could not find her initials.

"People make mistakes," Sheahon said, in his closing statement to jurors. "Machines make mistakes."

Whitton said the evidence was collected by professionals, and that law enforcement officers and medical professionals were meticulous in their handling of that evidence.

Whitton said Newman followed stringent procedures in his DNA analysis, and determined that, at the most, only 1 in 6 trillion people could have contributed the DNA found on the swab taken during the victim's rape exam.

"We have shown you visually, orally and mathematically that Kendall Brown had sexual intercourse with (the victim)," Whitton said.

nReporter Sharon Montague can be reached at 822-1411 or by e-mail at smontague@salina.com.

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