Dr. Robert Heyl, a private family physician, was instructed by law enforcement to conduct a physical examination of the now 10-year-old girl. The exam occurred two days after the alleged assault in June 2013.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did not find any injury,\u201d Heyl told jurors on Tuesday, Jan. 13.<\/p>\n
A prosecution witness, Heyl explained the physical examination in detail. Informed the alleged victim was only touched, Heyl said on direct examination that his findings were expected. On cross-examination, Heyl added that his findings would also be consistent if no crime had been committed.<\/p>\n
On the witness stand for about a half-hour, jurors also submitted written questions for Heyl. After a brief discussion with attorneys, Chief District Court Judge Doug Walker allowed Heyl to respond.<\/p>\n
Addressing jury queries, Heyl testified the then-8-year-old reported normal anxiety for undergoing such a medical procedure.<\/p>\n
A member of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, Heyl has been a practicing physician since 1978. He currently has a private practice in Cortez.<\/p>\n
Police witness<\/p>\n
Detective Gary Stevens of the Cortez Police Department also testified on Tuesday. He led the investigation, which resulted in a multiple-count indictment of both sex and drug charges against Andrew Allmon, 55, of Cortez.<\/p>\n
Stevens said he never personally interviewed the alleged victim or her older sister, the only eyewitness in the case. He did observe a social worker conduct a forensics interview of both girls.<\/p>\n
A routine procedure in child sex assault cases, a forensics interview includes questions to determine a child\u2019s mental capacity and understanding. Jurors were shown a redacted version of the forensics interview with the eyewitness.<\/p>\n
On cross-examination, Stevens testified that leading or suggestive questions from authoritative officials, whether police, parents or social workers, could influence a child\u2019s statement. He also confirmed that jurors didn\u2019t see the entire forensics interview.<\/p>\n
A jury of 14 was selected last week to hear evidence in the case. Two jurors are serving as alternates; meaning only 12 will determine the verdict. If convicted, Allmon could receive a life sentence.<\/p>\n
A Montezuma County grand jury indicted Allmon on nine counts of child sexual assault and four drug offenses. The defendant allegedly committed the sexual assault offenses within six weeks of inviting a homeless family to move into his Cortez home. A 2008 convicted sex offender, Allmon allegedly abused the youngest of three daughters after allegedly drugging the father of the minor child with Oxycontin.<\/p>\n
For live courtroom updates, follow @tcbCortez on Twitter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dr. Robert Heyl, a private family physician, was instructed by law enforcement to conduct a physical examination of the now 10-year-old girl. The exam occurred two days after the alleged assault in June 2013. \u201cI did not find any injury,\u201d Heyl told jurors on Tuesday, Jan. 13. A prosecution witness, Heyl explained the physical examination […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21,13,524,525],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-115155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-sexual-assault","tag-trials"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115155"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=115155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}