TRIAL OF SEAN WRIGHT: Woman, 31, returns to Alaska to tell her story.
Published: May 18th, 2009 10:37 PM
Last Modified: May 18th, 2009 11:31 PM
It took her 10 years to tell what happened, and another 10 for the case to go to trial, but the woman, now 31, says she remembers it all.
Even in a system where the time between charges and verdict can be years, the Sean Wright child sex abuse trial is unusual.
"This is surreal," the woman said Monday as she prepared to walk into an Anchorage courtroom and, for the first time in more than a decade, see the man police say molested her starting when she was 9 years old.
Even after all these years, she still feels uncomfortable talking about it and doesn't want her full name used. Her first name is Nellie.
Back then, Nellie was a gawky kid who says she woke up early every morning to make sure her alcoholic mother got to work on time. Today she is a polished attorney from Boston with a circle of friends who have become her family -- a family without demons.
On the stand Monday morning, Nellie never looked directly at Wright, sitting at the defendant's table. Even though so much time has passed, she said the pictures of her mother's boyfriend sneaking into her bedroom still live in her mind.
Ten years ago Wright was charged with 19 counts of sexually molesting her and two other girls, allegations he denies. He has been fighting the charges and the state's efforts to bring him to trial ever since. Because of the statute of limitations, charges against one victim have been lost, leaving two, now grown women, and 13 counts.
By then, Nellie was 21, living in Everett, Wash., and working as a paralegal.
When the statements by Wright's stepdaughter got the investigation started, Alaska State Troopers, familiar with child abuse patterns, tracked Nellie down. When they told her about the new charges, Nellie started to sob on the phone.
Did he also touch you? the investigator asked.
Yes.
Suddenly, the secret she had hidden was coming out. She gathered family, friends and boyfriend at her apartment to tell them. She spoke to her stepmother. Then her father. He was the biggest hurdle, she said, for the same reason she didn't tell him when she was a child. Even at age 12, she knew her father would go after Wright and get himself in trouble.
After court Monday, sitting with his daughter, it was clear she was right to be concerned "I would have killed the son of a bitch," her father said.
Wright was charged in 1999, but he was out of state and it was years before the law caught up with him. There's a dispute about how hard they did or didn't try.
He was extradited from Minnesota in late 2004 and spent most of 2005 in jail. He bailed out and has been free on bail ever since, living in Alaska, working on the North Slope, working out of state, and moving on with his life. He has a new wife.
In 2007, Wright filed a federal lawsuit against the prosecutors and an Alaska Superior Court judge saying the law should have caught up with him sooner and therefore violated his constitutional right to a speedy trial. That case is still unsettled.
No one seems able to explain exactly why five years elapsed between his eventual capture and his trial.
And no one told Nellie in 1999 it would take 10 years. For all that time, she has had to plan class schedules, vacation time, much of her life around being available to show up in court.
On the stand Monday, Nellie detailed for the jury her mother's alcoholism, her parents' divorce, losing their home to foreclosure, eviction and a treacherous existence where she and her older brother bounced from house to house.
Rich & Rare whiskey and Xanax became staples of her mother's life.
When her mother met Wright, he was a positive influence. He made her happy. He supported her. He helped battle her demons, Nellie said. In the end, when her mother collapsed in 1995 with throat cancer complications, it was Wright who was by her side soaking up her blood, trying to save her life. It was Wright who ended up with her mother's ashes.
Outside the courtroom Monday, Nellie said she told only one person about the abuse back when it started -- a neighborhood friend. The friend told her mother, who then told Nellie's mother.
When Nellie and her mother talked, it was a typical night at home. Her mother was drunk and yelled at her. But, soon afterward, she kicked Wright out of the house.
It didn't last. He was back a week later.
Nellie still thinks about her mother's reaction. Was it denial? Did the alcohol ruin her judgement? Did she not believe, or just not care?
Wright's defense attorney John Bernitz is trying to paint a picture of Nellie as a competent, accomplished lawyer who never liked Wright and is lying. He said her brother was once accused of inappropriately touching a neighborhood girl, so if anyone abused Nellie, perhaps it was him.
On the witness stand, Nellie often touched her mother's ring, on her right hand. She talked about the mother she tried to nurse out of alcoholism, the mother she feels she failed when she was 12 years old and opted to live with her father Outside.
She never lived with her mother again because when her mother passed out at night and when her older brother wasn't in the house, Wright sneaked into her bedroom, she told the jury. She stopped wearing a nightgown and started wearing heavy sweats to bed. But he would remove those to get at her.
Nellie blames herself for what happened to the second little girl 10 years later. If only she had stood up for herself, if only she had told. It's one more regret she carries with her.
Asked on the witness stand what she thinks of Wright now, the grown-up Nellie said she had mixed feelings. He was there to take care of her mother and that meant the world to her. She will be forever grateful for that, she said.
When pressed, though, she settled on, "I hate him."
The trial continues today.
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