Jury Doles out 50-Year Sentence to Gray-Haired Child Molester

A child’s pink Old Navy shirt and a little girl’s black dress with rose patterns lay next to the bed in the master bedroom of Theodore Gregory Meyer’s Louise St. home on March 20, 2014, when a San Angelo SWAT team and several investigators entered to execute a search and arrest warrant.

Meyer, who had watched two 9-year-old girls over the course of Spring break that year, was wanted on multiple felony counts of sexual abuse after one of the girls told her father she’d been harboring a secret about the 63-year-old ex-firefighter.

Photographs depicting a home cluttered with die-cast cars, pornographic materials, children’s play-things and an eerie lineup of seven wood-carved faces hanging from the fireplace mantel—one for each deadly sin—were flashed on a screen in Judge Jay Weatherby’s 391^st District Court at trial begin on Monday, detective Kelly Lajoie and CSI technician Robin Johnson testifying to the significance of the items seized.

Meyer, clad in a blue, white and black plaid button-down with loose jeans, showed his age in appearance and posture. With wavy gray hair combed over to the side and large glasses, he appeared somewhat reproachful as he listened to the testimony against him, sometimes shaking in what appeared to be disagreement as he sat next to defense attorney Kirk Hawkins.

It had been a little over 13 months since his home was searched and he was arrested, and in less than three full days a jury of eight women and four men would find him guilty of continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14, sentencing him to 50 years without parole.

Evidence stacked heavy, the state called law enforcement officers and investigators on day one, who testified that they had seized multiple small paintbrushes, Crayola washable paint, two back scratchers, Gold Bond lotion, latex gloves and a patch of mattress with a spot of green paint on it during the March 20 raid.

The narrative unfolded the following morning in court, when the jury heard the harrowing tale of abuse in the victims’ own words; one examined and cross-examined remotely and taped, the other live in the courtroom.

“…[One of the victims] told her father that she and [the other girl] had been giving Mr. Meyer massages, rubbing his feet and back,” 51^st Assistant District Attorney John Best stated in opening arguments. He explained that the girl’s father then told her mother, who spoke to each child individually but received the same story,”…that they had not just been massaging Mr. Meyer’s feet and back, but they had been massaging his genitals as well.”

Meyer was also accused of having the girls paint his body with Crayola washable paints, and indeed several bottles in different colors were found in a cooler in his bedroom, a green one left loose on the floor.

Both of the girls talked about the abuse, which started during the summer of 2013 and ran until December, then picked up again in 2014 over Spring Break.

“It was emotional,” Best characterized the testimony given in the courtroom on Tuesday. “Our victim was very tearful and obviously upset, but she was able to articulate to the jury what the defendant had done to her and her friend, so it was very powerful testimony.”

Best described the feeling in the room during the little girl’s testimony as sad and heartbreaking, noting the trauma of having experienced the abuse and being asked to retell the story in a courtroom.

At least one of the girls has since been put into counseling, he said, and her therapist, Kelly Martin, testified to the impact the abuse had left on the child on Tuesday as well.

After Martin concluded her testimony, the state rested, the defense calling Meyer as its only witness.

On the stand, Meyer claimed that he’d awoken to find the girls playing with his genitals and had put an end to it after he woke up. He maintained his innocence throughout the course of the trial, but when the case was turned over to the jury at 5:47 p.m. Tuesday, they saw something different.

After roughly two and a half hours of deliberation, the jury returned a unanimous verdict of guilty. The trial continued in the punishment phase on Wednesday, when the state called back Kelly Martin and one of the victim’s mothers, who spoke about the effect the abuse has had on the lives of the girls and one of the mothers. The defense didn’t call any witnesses.

At 10:58 a.m., the jury went into deliberations for sentencing, and returned their verdict of 50 years after roughly an hour 20 minutes of discussion.

Meyer was originally charged with continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14 and two second-degree felony counts of indecency with a child sexual contact. The state dropped both of the indecency counts and proceeded only on the first-degree felony continuous abuse charge.

Although the charge is labeled a first-degree felony, state law provides that in cases of continual abuse, the minimum punishment will be enhanced from five to 25 years, with a maximum of 99 years or life. Parole is not an option for felons with continual abuse convictions.

After the trial, which was prosecuted by Meagan White with John Best assisting, Best offered the following statement:

“We’re obviously very pleased with the verdict and the sentence,” Best said. “I can tell you that in the closing argument, in punishment, we asked the jury to send a strong message to the community to reflect the seriousness of the crime, and they did. I was thinking about the fact…[that] this is Child Abuse Prevention Month and it’s fitting that this trial fell during this month and we got a guilty verdict and we got a harsh sentence for Mr. Meyer for what he did.”