Waco woman testifies of sexual abuse when she was a teen

WACO, Texas (KWTX) - A Waco woman testified Wednesday she was 15, drinking Pink Whitney vodka and “smoking weed” with her best friend when her friend’s godfather sexually assaulted her at a Homan Avenue residence in March 2020.

Her friend’s godfather, Michael Ross Parker, 32, is on trial in Waco’s 19th State District Court on two counts of sexual assault of a child, second-degree felonies enhanced to first-degree felonies because of Parker’s criminal past.

The woman, who is now 20, told the jury of seven women and five men that she dropped out of University High School her sophomore year after a close friend was murdered and another was killed in a car wreck within days of each other and she fell into a depressed and anxiety-ridden state.

At the time, she lived with her mother and grandmother. She testified her mother worked at night and slept during the day, and they often had a contentious relationship. During those times, she stayed with her best friend, Daisha Elliott, on Homan Avenue, telling jurors that on the afternoon she was sexually assaulted, she was drunk and high on alcohol and marijuana supplied to them by Parker, who was 27 at the time.

She testified she was alone at the home with Elliott and Parker when Elliott got a text message from Parker, who was watching TV in another bedroom. He told Elliott he wanted to perform a sex act on the teen, she said.

She said that while she was not a virgin, she had not experienced what Parker was proposing. So she agreed to go into the bedroom with him.

“I had a lot of thoughts running through my head,” she said. “I was thinking, did I want to let him do it or not, was it too late to say anything?”

She said after the sexual act, she got up to leave and Parker asked where she was going.

“He said, ‘We are going to finish.’ I didn’t stop him. I just laid there,” she said. “I was thinking, ‘Stop, you don’t have to do this’, but I was scared.”

She said Parker sexually assaulted her and she went into the bathroom and started crying. A year later, the teen would tell a forensic examiner, Kerry Burkley, and Dr. Soo Battle, a sexual assault examiner, that she experienced pain and bleeding after the assault. Burkley and Battle also testified Wednesday.

The woman testified she didn’t tell Elliott about the assault, and the pair donned matching shirts that Parker made for them, went to the mall with friends and posted social media videos later that evening.

While she was acknowledged that she was depressed before and tried to take her own life by overdosing on over-the-counter pain relievers “multiple times” and cutting her wrists, she said her emotional state in the aftermath of the sexual assault alienated her from her mother and friends and landed her in a psychiatric ward.

She finally told her mother about the assault a year later, she said, during an argument at her grandmother’s house. She said she grabbed a piece of glass and locked herself in the bathroom. Her mother broke open the door and asked her what was happening.

“I said, ‘If you really knew me, you would know I’ve been raped,’ and I slit my wrist one last time and passed out,” she said.

Prosecutors Tara Avants and Jessica Washington rested their case after the testimonies of Battle and Lee Carter, a Waco psychologist.

In defense testimony Wednesday, Parker’s attorney, Brian Pollard, called Elliott, who testified remotely from Michigan.

Elliott, now 19, told jurors she is very close to Parker, her godfather, saying, “He took care of me like my Dad couldn’t.” She said she, too, suffered from depression and Parker saved her by convincing her not to take her own life.

She denied that she, Parker and the teen were ever alone in the Homan Avenue residence that day, telling jurors that there were at least seven other people, including four children, at the home the entire time she and the teen were there.

She denied that Parker, who has six children with five different women and another child on the way, ever texted her about having sex with the girl and said the two of them were never alone in the same room together.

She also denied that Parker gave them marijuana and the vodka that day. She called the woman a liar and told Avants during cross-examination that she has no idea why she would make up the story about Parker sexually assaulting her. They are no longer friends, she said.

In other defense testimony, Elliott’s mother, Shannon Williams, and Shana Perez, Parker’s pregnant girlfriend, both testified that Parker is a good person and an “entrepreneur” who they said would not sexually assault a young girl.

“He’s my best friend,” Williams said. “I opened up my home to him.”

Pollard rested his case Wednesday evening. Avants and Washington hope to call a rebuttal witness Thursday morning who reported that Parker sexually abused her in 2008. Visiting Judge Roy Sparkman will conduct a hearing before ruling on whether the testimony is admissible over Pollard’s objections.

If convicted of sexual assault, Parker faces from five to 99 years and up to life in prison. The charges against Parker were enhanced to first-degree felonies because of a felony conviction in 2016 for possession of amphetamine for which he was sentenced to three years in prison.