Sexual abuse leads to murder in the family
”alexplore“
West Witness's Theory Attacked
By LIZABETH HALL, The Hartford Courant
Prosecutors on Tuesday rejected a psychiatrist's conclusion that
Chasity West was driven to kill 7-year-old Jarrell Cuyler by an
implacable rage against the boy's mother ignited by childhood
sexual abuse.
Assistant State's Attorney Rosita M. Creamer accused Dr. Walter
Borden of inviting West to claim sexual abuse as the reason
behind killing Jarrell three years ago, and of irresponsibly
accepting whatever West and her family told him as the truth.
"Did it ever occur to you that she blames everybody else but
herself?" Creamer asked during her cross-examination of Borden in
Hartford Superior Court.
West was convicted of capital felony for the murder of Jarrell in
his Windsor home on July 9, 1998. Jarrell was the son of West's
cousin Tammi Cuyler and of Arnold Cuyler, with whom West was
having an affair. Jarrell's 2-year-old sister, Lindsey, was also
attacked but survived.
The jury must now determine whether to sentence West to death or
to life imprisonment. Defense lawyers are asking the jury that
convicted West to spare her the death penalty. They say she was
mentally impaired at the time she committed the crime.
Creamer also challenged Borden's giving the alleged sexual abuse
greater weight than West's statements that she felt fed up and
frustrated over Arnold Cuyler's continuing ties with his ex-wife
through their two children.
Borden interviewed West on three occasions - once before the July
13 guilty verdict and twice after. It was during his second
visit, Borden said, that West divulged that Wallace Henderson,
Tammi Cuyler's father, had sexually assaulted West when she was 4
years old - "something she had never told anyone before."
He said Joyce West, Chasity West's mother, also said Tammi Cuyler
had confided in her that she had been sexually abused by
Henderson. Members of Tammi Cuyler's family have said the
allegation of abuse by Henderson is not true. Borden said Tuesday
that West disclosed the abuse after he asked if the man of her
childhood nightmares was someone she knew in real life.
Creamer, deriding the claims as uncorroborated, fixed upon West's
own admission to lying. West lied, she said, to family members
about her affair with the children's father, to police about her
whereabouts on the night of the crime, and to authorities about
having planted a story as a nurse at the Cheshire Correctional
Institution that Tammi Cuyler owed an inmate drug money. Like
Henderson, that inmate was also dead, Creamer said.
"If the story about sexual abuse is untrue, doesn't your whole
diagnosis fall apart?" Creamer said.
Borden, a consultant for the state Department of Children and
Families, stood by his conclusions, saying he did his best to
draw the truth from West, her family and family friends he
interviewed. He said West's poor performance in school, her
emotional neediness and statements about compulsive genital
washing all added up to the trauma of being sexually abused.
Defense lawyer Hope C. Seeley responded to Creamer's assertions
that West and her family fabricated the sexual assaults by
introducing a note of a meeting she had with West's parents
shortly after their daughter's arrest. The note documented Joyce
West's contention that Tammi Cuyler had told her of abuse by her
father and "at least one other person."
When Creamer objected to the introduction of the note, Seeley
said she was willing to testify as a witness to that meeting.
Also under cross-examination, Borden acknowledged that West did
not expend the trauma-induced rage he said was behind her attack
on Cuyler's children. He added that she would only be a danger to
"male sexual offenders."
After pointing out to Borden that West's employment records at
the men's prison in Cheshire showed no violence, Creamer
completed her examination.
She said, rhetorically, "Jarrell and Lindsey weren't male sexual
offenders, were they?"
Court proceedings are to continue today.
--
"Then the Lord said, 'Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah
is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down" Genesis 18:20,21
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's ASS" Exodus 20:17/Deutoronomy 5:21
"Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is an ABOMINATION"
Leviticus 18:22 "And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of
them have committed ABOMINATION: they shall be put to DEATH" Leviticus 20:13
"And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed
with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and
receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error." Romans 1:27
"Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?
Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, not adulteres, nor
HOMOSEXUALS (arsenokoitai), nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor
revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God." 1 Corinthians 6:9,10