All charges dismissed against Midland Trinity administrators

Jury selection began Monday at around 10:30 a.m.

About 300 potential jurors showed up to the Midland County Courthouse.

Those jurors were then released at 1 p.m. and are expected to show back up to the courthouse at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday.

The jury for the trial was selected on Tuesday at 6:20 p.m.

All 12 jurors were sworn in, with two alternates. Half of the group is made up of men, and the other half women.

The trial is slated to start on Wednesday at 8:30 a.m.

The trial officially began on Wednesday morning.

The day started with opening statements in a full courtroom made by the prosecution and the defense.

In a fairly short opening statement, the prosecution brought up that teachers and administrators are expected to keep students safe when they are at school. The prosecution went on to say that these administrators failed to do that. They also said that the the teen who made the sexual assault complaint in this case has suffered emotional and physical damage from the incident.

Meanwhile, the defense gave out lengthy opening statements by four different lawyers.

The first being Frank Sellers, who is the lawyer for Chrystal Myers. In opening statements, Sellers suggested no other students corroborated the teen's story and that the administration had no intent to cover anything up.

He also suggests that Midland Police detective, Jennie Alonzo, took the teen's mother's word for what happened and made the arrests before investigating further.

Dan Hurley, who is the lawyer for Todd Freese, spoke about Freese's good character as an educator, father, husband and grandfather. Hurley also suggested there was no "cause to believe" there was anything to report and that the teen's mother sent an email to Freese about how well he handled the situation.

Brian Carney, the lawyer for Shelby Hammer, spoke about the public arrest of the administrators and said that he was not allowed access to them for some time after they were arrested. Carney also suggested Hammer had no cause to believe there was anything to report.

Allison Clayton, lawyer for Adrianne Clifton, suggested Clifton was barely involved at all. Clayton said Clifton was part of two administrative meetings about school policy with the teen's parents and the parents of the person who allegedly touched the teen. She also took notes for Shelby Hammer.

Three witnesses also took the stand. This included a records analyst for the Department of Family and Protective Services, a program coordinator for Midland Rape Crisis and Children’s Advocacy Center and the teen who made the sexual assault complaint.

The teen who made the complaint gave her account of what happened, saying she was being grabbed on the butt and breasts by a boy at school in 2019, something she said happened often. The touching escalated to the boy allegedly unbuttoning her pants and touching her in the groin area under her pants, over her underwear.

The teen said she told one of her classmates about what happened and that classmate went to an administrator, Todd Freese. She said she was called into Freese's office about the incident and she told him what happened. She said the boy was also called in.

The teen then said she had a meeting with Chrystal Myers, Freese and another teacher where she told them details of what happened. She said she was eventually moved out of all the classes she had with the boy she says assaulted her.

Eventually she left Trinity and decided to transfer to another school because what she said happened to her had an impact on her. She said after the Midland Christian School arrests, she felt she wanted to tell her story. She was interviewed at the Midland Rape Crisis and Children’s Advocacy Center.

The defense then interviewed the teen, Frank Sellers first asking something along the lines of if she would ever make light of the situation or post on social media about the trial. The teen said no.

The defense then pulled up a TikTok video made by the teen. The first frames were a NewsWest 9 article about the trial with video of the teen and TikTok audio from the TV show "Euphoria."

The defense continued to question the teen until the trial was adjourned. It will continue Thursday at 8:30 a.m.

Frank Sellers and the defense picked up with where they left off the day before, with the teen who made the complaint on the stand.

The defense recounted statements the teen said Wednesday, including her saying she never had a crush on the boy and that the harassment occurred frequently.

The teen said she didn't tell her parents the whole truth until later, but told CPS the accurate whole truth. She mentioned she didn't think anyone would believe her.

The defense then started playing a video recording of the teen's interview with the program coordinator for Midland Rape Crisis and Children’s Advocacy Center on Feb. 22, 2022.

The video was about an hour and a half long, and in it she recounted the sexual encounters she had with the boy, which, according to her, happened every other day for four months. 

In the video, the teen said the last time it happened was the worst time. She said it was in Spanish class, the place it happened the most, and the two were working on a project together.

The boy allegedly grabbed the teen's leg and slowly brought his hand closer and closer up. He allegedly started unbuckling her belt and unzipping her pants. She said she looked over to her classmate who was sitting next to her and mouthed "help."

The student allegedly didn't know what was going on and laughed. The defense later questioned this, given the layout of the classroom.

After class, the teen said she grabbed everything and left. She said she broke down in the hall and told a friend about it, alerting them to not tell anyone. The friend then told Dean Todd Freese.

During gym class, the boy was sent to the dean's office and reportedly came back angry. The teen wasn't called to the office until the next day, where she told the dean everything that happened from September 2019 to December 2019.

She recounted more instances of the harassment happening, including in gym class and Spanish class. She mentioned how she didn't think she could stop it because the boy was tall, muscular and was the star quarterback of the football team.

She thought everyone would believe him instead of her. She thought her perception was a "cheerleader who lies a lot."

She then recounted the first time the harassment happened. She said in Spanish class in September 2019, he grabbed her butt as they were exiting the classroom.

She said he then texted her later with something along the lines of "wanna make this an everyday thing?" to which the teen responded with "sure". She explained she was young, about 12 years old, and didn't know what sexual assault was at the time.

She mentioned how she saw a lot of the situation as her fault, as early on he would text her "can I still do it?" and she would respond with "yes." She mentioned this was early on, and reiterated how she was 12, didn't know what was going on and thought that he was loving her.

She said she never actually told him no, and that she would just look at him a certain way to indicate she didn't want it. She said she didn't want him to hate her.

She also mentioned in the video how she had a crush on him in August, before the assaults started to happen.

After the conversation with the dean, she allegedly had a meeting with Chrystal Myers, the head of the Middle School. The teen mentioned that she never talked to Shelby Hammer, the head of the school, her family did.

When questioned by the defense about this, the teen mentioned a "gag order" being in place.

This made the defense call for a break and move for a mistrial, which was denied by the judge. The judge said there was no gag order, and when the jury returned, the judge instructed them to disregard the last statement regarding the gag order.

Following a recess, the defense continued to question the teen, taking turns between each defendants' attorney.

A lot of what was asked was about where she was touched specifically. The defense made the point she was not touched on the vagina, but the pubic bone, and the teen agreed.

The defense also asked the teen if there were certain people her parents didn't want to prosecute, to which the teen said yes. Those two administrators were Adrianne Clifton and Chrystal Myers.

The day ended with a forensic digital analyst, brought up by the state, who said he was involved in the case by collecting digital evidence from the administrators after they were arrested.

The court adjourned around 5 p.m. and will be back in session tomorrow at 8:30 a.m.

The day began with the state bringing up an investigator from Kerr County who works in digital and computer forensics. He was present during the search warrant in 2022, after being reached out to help.

He explained that it takes about a week to copy each 6-8 terabyte drive and there were ten drives, which meant it took about ten weeks to copy all the drives. The copies made were the working copies.

He also mentioned how he didn't talk to any of the defendants. 

During cross examination, the defense asked the investigator if it was possible to retrieve deleted Instagram messages, to which he said it was possible.

This was asked due to the fact that the teen who made the complaint and the boy communicated using Instagram messenger, and the messages were unsent after receiving them.

After the investigator, the teen's friend who reported the harassment to Dean Freese took the stand. He said he was the teen's friend and they had a few classes together. He claimed he felt that they were close friends, which the defense later questioned.

He explained the day the teen told him about the harassment, saying when she approached him, she seemed to be in distress and had been crying. He asked her what happened and she told him about the harassment she had been receiving.

The friend thought that this was inappropriate for someone her age to be going through and felt the right thing to do was to tell the authorities.

He said he decided to tell Freese because he had gone to him about things before and felt like he could trust him.

The prosecutors then showed the friend a transcript of his meeting with Freese, and how Freese told him not to talk to anybody else about this. 

The friend said he had another meeting with Freese on Jan. 21, 2020. This time with more information and knowledge of the situation. He made it known that both meetings were his decision and he wasn't called in for either. 

During cross examination, the friend told the defense that the defendants never did anything wrong to him personally. He also told them that the teen could be a "drama queen" sometimes.

After a break, an evidentiary hearing occurred involving the teen who made the complaint's mother. 

The evidence in question was a confidentiality agreement signed by the mother.

After deliberation, the judge ruled that the evidence in question would not come into play.

After the hearing, the jury was brought in and the mother testified. She explained why she chose Trinity for her children; including because that's where her husband went, she knew their reputation was respected and she liked how the classes were smaller.

The teen started going to Trinity when she was 2 years old until her departure when she was 13. Her mother describes that before the incident she thrived at the school, being involved in several extracurricular activities, including dance, soccer and twirling. The mother made it known that she didn't force her to do any of these activities and it was all her daughter's decision.

The mother also talked about how she herself became extremely involved within Trinity School, and how it felt more like a community than a school.

The mother stated the teen loved and enjoyed school and talked about how she was seen as a "leader" by her 5th and 6th grade teachers. This was until 7th grade.

The mother said she thought things were okay, and her daughter was diligent and put in effort at the beginning of the school year, but she noticed a drastic change in December of 2019.

She explained how she found out about the harassment, when she found messages on her daughter's phone that freaked her out. She questioned her daughter about it and the teen was honest and told her what was going on. This was later told to her father later that night.

After communicating, the parents decided to send an email to the school to address the situation. They decided to email Freese on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2019.

On the next Monday, they hadn't heard anything back from the school, and received a phone call from a friend who heard about what happened to their daughter, confusing the mother.

She called the school after hours and the call went straight to voicemail. The parents then decided to go talk to Mr. Freese in person, going in at 10 a.m. on that Tuesday, four days after the initial email.

Upon arrival the mother, father and Freese figured out the email went into his spam folder so he did not see it. 

The mother said she had multiple different meetings with administration after the incident occurred. One of the meetings was suggestions for sexual assault curriculum. The witness said that turned into a meeting about her daughter and the incident that happened.

In cross examination, the defense pulled up text messages between the mother and one of the mother's friends. Soon after the Midland Christian arrests, she texted her friend, "Don't be surprised if cops show up at Trinity."

In other text messages to the same friend she said, "MCS stuff is hurting our real valid case."

In text messages, the mother was worried after her friend told her a teacher by the name of Mellissa McCabe could be arrested. McCabe was reportedly in the room when the girl told administrators what happened. The defense argued she knew as much information as Chrystal Myers, but the mother asked the prosecution not to charge her.

The court adjourned at 5 p.m., they will likely pick back up with the defense interviewing the mother as a witness. The trial will resume Monday at 8:30 a.m.

Frank Sellers and the defense continued their cross-examination of the mother of the teen who made the complaint. 

The defense had asked the mother to read over a transcript of her interview with Detective Alonzo over the weekend. The mother revealed that she did not read over the transcript as requested by the defense.

The defense showed an email sent from the mother to prosecutor Jennifer Lively from Nov. 16, 2022. The email said that Melissa McCabe wasn't privy to the situation, and shouldn't be prosecuted. It also explained how her daughter was comfortable around McCabe.

She also said in the email that she felt innocent people would go down in the investigation. Another key point was that she said Adrianne Clifton also didn't have enough involvement to be prosecuted.

They brought another longer email the mother sent Lively on Nov. 28, 2022. The email was titled "Moment of honesty - (to be read in bed & not during hard work hours)" followed by her daughter's full name.

In the email, she explained that she was upset with Trinity for a number of reasons. These reasons included a girl having green hair, a student cross-dressing, the school teaching students as young as 3rd grade about racism and white privilege during the BLM movement, among other reasons. She had mentioned in the courtroom the previous week how she felt Trinity wasn't a "Christian" school anymore. She thought her daughter was becoming a different person because of this.

The defense then showed a video of the teen's text messages that allegedly revealed to the mother that her daughter was being sexually harassed by the boy.

The text messages were a back and forth between the teen and her then "friend boy" as her mother called him, later clarified as her boyfriend at the time.

The conversation started off with her saying how the boy who allegedly sexually assaulted her had texted her. The boyfriend told her to tell him to "f off" and how she needs to tell someone at school.

The teen stated how she couldn't and wasn't going to. The boyfriend told her that she needed to and to do it for him. The defense pointed out how the teen doubled and tripled down on how she wasn't going to tell anyone.

The last message discussed by the defense was the teen stating "trust me camp was wayyyy worse." The defense asked about this camp and the mother said she didn't know, as her daughter had attended several cheer camps in various cities.

The defense moved on to the teen's medical records.

The mother claimed that her daughter was diagnosed with PTSD by a medical professional because of the incidents. However, the defense presented all the medical records they could obtain of the teen and they didn't see a PTSD diagnosis anywhere.

They did find anxiety and depression, but no PTSD. After she looked through the records on the stand, the mother claimed that she didn't see the record she had of the appointment, and noted how she didn't just make it up.

The defense then talked about the teen's transition from Trinity to Midland Christian School. They pulled up the school application from Aug. 31, 2020. When the defense asked if she was truthful on the application, the mother said that you can lie on an application if it meant it would protect her daughter.

The application showed that when asked if her daughter had ADD, the mother wrote "no," which the defense said was false, as she had been diagnosed earlier that month.

Another question was if her daughter had or ever saw a medical professional about an emotional or behavioral problem. She answered with "no," even though her daughter was diagnosed with anxiety and depression, among other diagnoses. 

The defense asked the mother if she thanked Myers for everything she did and gave her a gift in the summer of 2020. She claimed she didn't remember.

They then brought up several Facebook and Instagram posts that the mother had posted.

The first one presented was an Instagram post she posted shortly after the administrators were arrested. The post was about how her daughter had just won a prestigious award during a pageant. They then showed several Facebook posts after the alleged sexual assault, where the mother added hashtags such as #dontcallCPS or hashtags along those lines in her posts. 

During Dan Hurley's cross-examination, he mentioned the telephone game and how people's stories can be mixed up if told by too many people. He mentioned how children can do this but also parents can as well.

He discussed how the mother and father of the teen were very involved at Trinity, and the father was even a member of the board of directors for the school.

The mother herself raised $2 million for the school during a gala event she started, where she created auction items. She also helped create a program where school supplies were readily available for parents who needed them for their children.

After being questioned, the mother said that she believed several other people should have been charged.

Brian Carney presented an email from the father to Chrystal Myers from Feb. 7, 2020. The email praised Freese, Hammer and Myers for their role in the investigation. The rest of the email doesn't address the situation again and instead is more about his daughter's history class.

After lunch, the defense continued to question the mother.

They asked the mother if she had been in contact with District Attorney Laura Nodolf. The mother said she had Cc'd her on emails sent to the prosecuting attorney on the case, and that Nodolf had called her after the four defendants were indicted. Other than that, she said she may have spoken to Nodolf in passing.

The prosecution also brought in a boy who was called into Freese's office after the incident allegedly occurred. The boy said he remembered telling Freese everything he knew, that being that the girl was touched on the bottom.

The prosecution then asked if he had heard about the girl getting touched in the front area and he said yes, although no statement that Freese wrote that day indicated he told him that. The defense reiterated he never told Freese that. 

A former school nurse also testified about her daughter being with the girl who said she experienced the sexual misconduct.

When the girl testified last week, she mentioned she had the nurse's daughter with her. The nurse testified that sometimes her daughter would be with other students, but not often.

The mother took the stand once again after these witnesses testified, as they flew in from Houston. In her continued questioning, they asked if she liked Adrianne Clifton. She said she did not, but she also doesn't understand why Adrianne Clifton was there.

Brian Carney also pulled up an email the mother sent Detective Alonzo, asking if she could possibly get a restraining order against Shelby Hammer. This was after the indictment and after seeing her at the Midland Country Club.

The defense also spoke about the legal definitions of sexual assault, saying the girl did not experience it because she was not technically touched on the vagina.

Near the end of the day, the state presented the Texas teacher certifications for each of the defendants.

The trial will continue Tuesday morning at 8:30 a.m.

The day started with the defense cross-examining the principal of Trinity's Upper School, that being grades 9-12.

The principal, knowing each defendant for about five years, praised them. He said Myers had "impeccable character." He said Freese was loved by the students and was even asked to give the 2021 commencement speech. He said Hammer was the "cream of the crop" out of the eight Head of Schools he's worked for. He also said Clifton was truthful and honest. Later on he said he'd consider them friends.

He said he didn't interact with the teen who made the complaints directly. However, he did mention how the boy who allegedly made the sexual assaults was a respectful and great kid. 

The defense asked if what the boy did was against the principal's perception of him, which he agreed with.

The state then brought in Midland Police Department Detective Jennie Alonzo, the officer who made the arrests of the Trinity administrators. 

Alonzo went through her background, including how she's been with MPD for 10 years following her 10-year tenure with the Army, where she served in Iraq and received leadership positions. Currently, she's a night shift patrol officer, but before she worked in the Crimes Against Persons unit for about seven years.

During those seven years she worked on hundreds of cases, including this one and the Midland Christian School case.

In February of 2022, she was assigned the case by her sergeant after the teen made the complaint. The case started with a forensic interview with the Midland Rape Crisis Center, an interview shown to the jury last week.

Alonzo said she only watched the interview from another room and didn't ask questions unless she needed clarification or follow-up questions.

Her workflow was to listen to the interview and listen for elements of offense. She said the first offense was when the teen said the boy touched her breast, which was indecency with a child offense. The next part was when she said he moved her hand on his clothed genitalia, which was a second offense of indecency with a child. 

The state read out Penal Code Chapter 21, specifically the definitions of sexual contact (any touching of genital or breast area with intent to arouse) and indecency with a child (sexual contact with a child younger than 17 years old). They made it known that the word "vagina" was not in the definition.

The state mentioned how it might be common for a 12-year-old to not know correct terms for genitalia. In the video the teen states how he touched her "vagina" over the clothes.

She then started talking about other disclosures. She mentioned how the teen had reported this to Freese.

The next step was to meet with the teen's parents. Alonzo mentioned how she met with them once, maybe twice, and she never met with the teen who made the complaint.

She explained how she doesn't interview the child victims and relies on the forensic interview. She said the children had been through enough already and shouldn't have to tell their story again. She said that's how she was trained.

In her hour-long interview with the parents, she said they mentioned Freese, Clifton, Hammer and Myers and how they met and/or reached out to them on more than one occasion.

After both interviews, Alonzo determined that the offenses were indecency with a child for the boy and failure to report with intent to conceal for the defendants.

This led to another investigation where Alonzo got a search warrant for the school to get electronics data. She said she doesn't know what came from that. She mentioned how she also attempted to interview the suspects. 

They arrested the defendants and requested a subpoena from the Trinity School. She received documents from the subpoena after the arrests. She read parts of these documents to the jury, including a meeting between Freese, Myers and the parents where Freese said the boy admitted to touching the teen's butt three times. Other meetings in the documents included interviews with students.

After receiving this information, Alonzo still had no concerns about the search warrant. 

After a break, the defense then cross-examined Alonzo. Frank Sellers noted to the fact that Alonzo had no knowledge of the family before this case, and had no evidence to consider them trustworthy.

Sellers asked Alonzo if kids lie sometimes, to which she responded with yes. She also agreed that they can't rule out the possibility that the teen lied. 

Sellers goes through the days from the initial forensic interview to the arrest, which was Feb. 22-25. Alonzo revealed she didn't talk to any other witnesses on any of those days leading up to the arrests.

Sellers asked how many people she had arrested with this offense (failure to report) before Feb. 13, 2022, and she said none. He then pointed out that within a three week span she had arrested nine people for this offense (these arrests as well as the Midland Christian arrests).

Alonzo mentioned how she doesn't know if she can talk about the Midland Christian arrests since she's being sued in that case. The jury were cleared out and a discussion was had. The judge decided that they should stay away from specific facts of the Midland Christian arrests.

The defense asked Alonzo if she had interviewed several key people in this case; including the Spanish teacher, the then boyfriend, the teachers and the other students involved. Alonzo has not interviewed any of them. Alonzo explained that the reason was because she was waiting for the case to be true billed.

The defense mentioned the teen's messages. Alonzo agreed that prior to this case she had done several search warrants for Instagram, Facebook and other cell phone applications. 

However, in this case, she didn't attempt to get the teen's messages because she thought that the Instagram messages were deleted forever. The defense then did a callback to a forensic expert who testified last week, who said it was possible to retrieve those messages. Alonzo said if she had known that was possible she would have searched.

After lunch, the defense continued to ask Alonzo questions. They asked Alonzo how she decided to arrest the four.

Alonzo said she brought the information she had to the District Attorney's office. She said she spoke with Laura Nodolf and Nodolf instructed her to handle the case like she did the last one, in reference to the Midland Christian arrests, so Alonzo arrested the Trinity administrators.

Retired Trinity teacher Melissa McCabe also took the stand. She told the prosecutors that she was the girl's "safe person," and proceeded to talk about what the girl said in the meeting with her, Myers and briefly Freese.

McCabe said in the meeting, the girl told McCabe and Myers she was pinched on the bottom and the boy had sent her nude photos. She also said he asked her for nude pictures, but she had refused. McCabe said the girl briefly showed where she had been touched by the boy, she pointed out to McCabe and Myers it was just below the navel. At the end of the meeting, McCabe said Myers asked if the girl felt safe and the girl said yes.

McCabe said she asked Myers if she was going to make a report referring to the nude photographs of the boy, and Myers said yes.

McCabe said Brian Carney told her she was possibly going to be arrested and he suggested that she should get a lawyer.

McCabe also told the defense that the prosecution offered her immunity, but she turned it down because she wanted to give her testimony with no strings attached.

The defense then asked McCabe about the character of each defendant, to which McCabe only said positive things about honesty and hard work. People in the gallery of the courtroom started crying when she was speaking on this matter.

Alonzo took the stand once again and Brian Carney again asked about the arrests. Alonzo started to get teary-eyed.

At one point, Carney asked Alonzo, "if you had to do it all over again, would you?" Alonzo responded with, "no, sir."

All charges against the Midland Trinity administrators were dismissed. 

Late Tuesday night, the Midland County District Attorney's Office requested a meeting to discuss the official court record of the testimony of Midland Police Department Sergeant Jennie Alonzo. The Counsel for the state had doubts about the accuracy of matters testified by Sergeant Alonzo.

Official court reporter Melissa Crooks was requested to prepare a reporter's record of Alonzo's testimony. 

All parties involved met early Wednesday morning to discuss the reporter's record. 

The decision to dismiss all of the charges happened at 12:30 p.m. following the meeting that started around 9 a.m. 

NewsWest 9 received the "State's Motion to Dismiss" documents.

The document cites that Sgt. Alonzo testified about meeting with District Attorney Laura Nodolf and two others. Alonzo also testified that in the meeting, D.A. Nodolf told her to get the arrest warrants to arrest the administrators.

The dismissal documents claim that this meeting never took place. Therefore alleging that Alonzo falsely testified and the state can no longer use her testimony as evidence in this case. The document said she is "no longer a credible or reliable witness."

The district attorney's office later released a statement doubling down on what they said in the dismissal documents.

Midland Mayor Lori Blong released the following statement on the dismissal, which the city said would be their only comment on the matter:

"On Tuesday, April 26, 2023, the District Court granted the DA’s motion to dismiss the case against four Trinity administrators, concluding the trial proceedings.

In matters of criminal investigations and trials, it is important to note that the court system, the district attorney’s office, and the police department act as three independent entities which provide checks and balances on one another. The Midland Police Department is a City of Midland department, but the courts and the district attorney’s office are entirely separate and apart from the City.

The initial arrests in this case were made by the police department, with a warrant issued by the court, and at the direction of the district attorney’s office. Certainly, this will continue to be a topic of conversation and consideration among our city leadership and Council, as well as throughout our community in the days ahead.

This has been a difficult season in the lives of many Midland families. My prayer is that the events of yesterday will be the first step toward healing."

Trinity School Board President Michael McWilliams also chimed in, releasing the the following statement: