5.Roberta Thornsberry — Direct (Recall) (Part 1)
76 linesROBERTA THORNSBERRY, being first duly sworn, testified as follows:
COURT CLERK: Once you're seated, state your full name, spelling your last.
ROBERTA THORNSBERRY: Roberta Thornsberry, T-H-O-R-N-S-B-E-R-R-Y.
DIRECT EXAMINATION By Mr. Secor:
MR. SECOR: Good morning, Ms. Thornsberry. You've talked to this jury before in the first phase of the trial. A lot of the things about your life and your family's life. But when you testified before, we sort of started at Tim, Jr's., birth and went forward from there. Okay?
MR. SECOR: You remember that?
MR. SECOR: I just want to make sure your microphone is on. So I want to touch on some things about -- excuse me, your life before Tim, Jr., was born and we've talked about them before and I know that some of them are difficult. So I'm not going to ask you to go into detail, but I just want to make sure that the jury hears some of these things from you. Is that all right with you?
MR. GRAHAM: Objection, Your Honor. If I could approach.
(Whereupon, a bench conference was held in the presence of the jury but out of the hearing of the jury.)
THE COURT: I've got to put something on the record. So you all step in the jury room and I'll have you back here in a few minutes. Don't discuss the case.
(Whereupon, the jury was excused from the courtroom.)
THE COURT: All right. The issue discussed at sidebar was, again, the social history of the family and the Court consistently, in guilt/innocence side of the case directed the Defense to only ask questions from Tim, Jr's. birth forward. So that's about 1981, I think, from the records. Mr. Secor, I'll hear you on why you think that, in mitigation, you believe the Defense should be able to go back further than that.
MR. SECOR: Yes, sir. May I just run through these points of fact?
THE COURT: You may.
MR. SECOR: Thank you, sir.
MR. SECOR: Ms. Thornsberry, I'm just going to run through these things quickly just because I want the Judge to understand that these are things from your life rather than hearing them from me. Okay?
ROBERTA THORNSBERRY: Okay.
MR. SECOR: You were from Kentucky originally, right?
MR. SECOR: Born in 1951?
MR. SECOR: Your mother was Bernadine, right?
ROBERTA THORNSBERRY: Correct.
MR. SECOR: And at age three, your mother, Bernadine, brought you to an orphanage. Is that right?
ROBERTA THORNSBERRY: She didn't bring us. She had already left. The State just kind of moved in and they're the ones that put us there.
MR. SECOR: Okay. But at age three, you and two of your siblings began living in an orphanage. Is that right?
MR. SECOR: And the whole time that you spent there was about how many years? About four or five?
ROBERTA THORNSBERRY: Three, four.
MR. SECOR: Okay.
ROBERTA THORNSBERRY: I think I was like four when I went in. Four or five.
MR. SECOR: And, at least, at one point during those years that you were in the orphanage, your dad came and brought you and your siblings home for Christmas, right?
MR. SECOR: And then, after Christmas, returned you to the orphanage?
ROBERTA THORNSBERRY: The orphanage was closed. So he left us on the Court House steps with a note saying that he couldn't wait. We had to go back.
MR. SECOR: Yes, ma'am. And you would have been somewhere around five years old or so?
ROBERTA THORNSBERRY: Five or six.
MR. SECOR: And your siblings, the two that were with you, were they older or younger?
ROBERTA THORNSBERRY: Older.
MR. SECOR: Eventually, your mom brought you and your siblings home from the orphanage because she had gotten divorced from your dad and married another man, right?
ROBERTA THORNSBERRY: Right.
MR. SECOR: And that man's name was Ted Montane, correct?
ROBERTA THORNSBERRY: Right.
MR. SECOR: And you were eight years old when you came home from the orphanage to your mother and her new husband, Ted Montane?
ROBERTA THORNSBERRY: Right.
MR. SECOR: And how many days -- from the day that you came home from the orphanage, how many days went by before he started molesting you?
ROBERTA THORNSBERRY: The very next day.
MR. SECOR: And how long did his sexual molestation of you continue?
ROBERTA THORNSBERRY: Until I became pregnant. And then, after I had the baby, when he talked me into leaving. And then I just became like his little prisoner until I was 17.
MR. SECOR: So how old were you when he raped you and impregnated you?
ROBERTA THORNSBERRY: Eleven.
MR. SECOR: And the child that you gave birth to at age 12 was who?
ROBERTA THORNSBERRY: Timothy Ray, Jr., Sr.; I'm sorry.
MR. SECOR: Senior. Tim, Sr. Tim's dad, right?
MR. SECOR: What was your -- when Ted Montane took you and Senior as an infant away from the protection of your mother, what was your life like? How did he treat you?
ROBERTA THORNSBERRY: It was like hell. He was very abusive. I was --
MR. SECOR: Did he beat you?
ROBERTA THORNSBERRY: Yes. I was petrified of him. I literally thought he could read my mind.
MR. SECOR: And you stopped going to school, right?
MR. SECOR: And that was -- the fifth grade was the last grade you ever went to?
ROBERTA THORNSBERRY: That was it.
MR. SECOR: And Ted Montane impregnated you two more times. Is that right?
ROBERTA THORNSBERRY: Correct.
MR. SECOR: And he forced you into occupations that he could benefit financially from, right?
MR. SECOR: Exploited you and your body, right?
MR. SECOR: And did he move you and your children around to try to keep --
ROBERTA THORNSBERRY: Everywhere.
MR. SECOR: -- people away from you? And you lived as far away as Florida, California, Arizona and Maryland?