I remembered Bell’s words as Judge Varney gaveled the court session to a close at five thirty that Monday after four hours of testimony that made my cousin sound like a monster.
Detective Guy Pedelini had gone on the stand first. He’d testified about discovering the body and identified evidence that the district attorney wanted admitted. Chief among them was the semen sample collected off Rashawn Turnbull’s body. It matched Stefan’s DNA. The prosecution also introduced blood matching Rashawn’s that was found on the pruning saw discovered in my cousin’s basement.
Naomi did her best to get the sheriff’s detective to say these things could have been planted, but he was skeptical in the extreme, and the jury took note.
Even more damaging to Stefan’s case was the testimony given by Sharon Lawrence, a teenager I recognized as one of the Starksville girls Jannie had trained with the prior Saturday. On the stand, she was pretty, articulate, and devastating.
Strong began her examination of Sharon Lawrence by getting her to admit that she was ashamed to be there but determined to tell the truth “for Rashawn’s sake.”
The jury reacted sympathetically. I reacted sympathetically.
Sharon Lawrence had been in one of Stefan’s twelfth-grade gym classes. She said there was something between herself and my cousin right from the start.
“Coach Tate was always looking at me,” she said.
“Did you like that?” Strong asked.
Lawrence looked in her lap and nodded.
“Coach Tate make advances toward you?”
The girl nodded again, flushing and kneading her hands. “I knew it was wrong, but he was…I don’t know.”
“Smart? Good-looking?”
“Yes,” she said. “And he seemed to care about everyone.”
Stefan glared at a legal pad during this entire exchange, scribbling with a pen and shaking his head.
“He seemed to care about everyone,” Strong repeated.
“Yes.”
“But especially you?”
Lawrence said, “I guess so. Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing for a while. It was just like flirting with each other.”
“And then?”
“It went further,” she said quietly.
“When was this?”
“Like, a few months after Billy Jameson and Tyler Marin overdosed and died, and a week before Stefan killed Rashawn.”
“Objection!” Naomi cried.
“Sustained,” Judge Varney said. “The jury will ignore that.”
“So tell us what happened,” Strong said.
You could see Sharon Lawrence wanted to be anywhere but in the courtroom as she mustered up her energy and said that after the two overdoses, my cousin became obsessed with finding out who the drug dealers were.
“He talked about it in class,” she said. “Asking anybody who knew anything to come forward.”
“Did they?”
“I don’t know. And it didn’t matter anyway, it was all a bunch of lies.”
“Objection,” Naomi said.
“Overruled,” Judge Varney said.
Strong said, “Can you tell us why you think they were lies?”
“Because Coach Tate was the one dealing the drugs,” Lawrence said.
“Objection!”
“Your Honor, with the court’s indulgence, Miss Lawrence will explain the basis of her contention.”
“Proceed, but you’re on a short leash, Counselor.”
“What makes you think Coach Tate was dealing drugs?”
“He told me,” Lawrence said. “He showed me.”
“Where were you when this happened?”
“At his place.”
“How did you come to be at his house?”
“At school that morning, he’d asked me to stop by,” Lawrence said. “He said Ms. Converse would be down in Raleigh at a doctor’s appointment.”
I glanced over at Patty Converse, who looked stricken.
Strong said, “And Coach Tate showed you drugs?”
“Yes.”
“Did you do drugs with Coach Tate?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of drugs?” Strong asked.
Lawrence bit her lower lip, which was trembling. “I don’t know all of it. Cocaine for sure. And, like, maybe some meth. He called it a speedball. But I think he put something in my soda too.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I woke up a couple of hours later in his bed,” she said, looking at her lap again. “I don’t remember how I got there. But I was naked and…sore.”
“Sore where?”
“You know,” she said, and she started crying.
Strong approached the box, gave her a tissue, said, “You’re doing fine.”
Lawrence nodded, but she wouldn’t look up.
“Was the accused there when you woke up?”
“He came into the room.”
“Did he acknowledge having sex with you?”
“Kind of.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“He said we shared a little secret now. He said if we didn’t keep the secret, I could end up like Billy and Tyler.”
“The kids who overdosed?”
Lawrence nodded and broke down again.
After Sharon had composed herself, Strong asked, “Was the sex consensual?”
“No,” she said forcefully.
“But you’d gone to Coach Tate’s house. You’d done drugs with him. You’d flirted with him. Certainly you must have thought sex might occur.”
“Maybe I did. But I was never given the chance to back out or say no.”
“He just drugged you.”
“Yes,” Lawrence said, her shoulders trembling.
“And he raped you?”
“Yes.”
“How old were you when this happened?”
“Seventeen.”
“You report it?”
She hung her head, said, “Not at first, no.”
“How long did you wait until you reported the rape?”
“Like, the day after they arrested Stefan?”
“Seven days,” Strong said.
“I wish I had come forward straightaway,” Sharon Lawrence said, oozing pain and sincerity. “If I had, maybe that boy would be alive, you know? But I’d seen what Coach Tate was really like, and I was scared for my own life.”