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	Youth Pastor Found Not Guilty By Mike Perkins The Herald-Press [Huntington] April 23, 2007 http://www.h-ponline.com/articles/2007/04/23/news/003notguilty.txt In her closing argument, Huntington County Prosecutor Amy Richison called the child molestation case against Kevin Whitacre "a classic he said/she said." The Huntington Circuit Court jury believed what he said. After less than 2 1/2 hours of deliberation, an jury of seven men and five women returned verdicts of not guilty in both felony child molesting charges against Whitacre, 33, a youth pastor at Good Shepherd United Brethren Church. "We praise God that justice has finally been served in our case," Whitacre said in a statement e-mailed to The Herald-Press Saturday afternoon. "My wife and I want to give Good Shepherd Church our extreme gratitude for their continual support, and for their countless prayers. "We continue to pray for (Whitacre's accuser) Š We thank the jury for an unbiased decision in this emotion-filled case." "We believed in Kevin's innocence from the start," said Rev. Stan McCammon, senior pastor at Good Shepherd and one of several witnesses who testified in Whitacre's behalf. "We've been praying that the truth would come out, and our prayers were answered." McCammon said Whitacre, who has been on paid leave of absence since his arrest in March 2006, will resume his duties "immediately" as the church's pastor of youth and young adults. "Personally, I'm very much at peace with the verdict," Richison said Saturday. "Everybody has faith that the outcome was God's will." The verdict ended a three-day trial that saw Whitacre take the witness stand in his own defense Friday afternoon. Asked by defense lawyer Bob Gevers if he molested the now-12-year-old girl during visits she made to his home on two occasions in the summer of 2005, he emphatically answered "No." Though he said he touched the girl's head and stomach to comfort her when she was ill, "I never touched her in any sexual way. I never touched her for any sexual purpose." In his questions to witnesses, Gevers sought to undermine the results of a polygraph test Whitacre took and failed and to provide alternate explanations for what the girl testified took place in Whitacre's apartment at Good Shepherd Church. Two examiners concluded that Whitacre's polygraph answers showed deception in five of six measured categories. Gevers introduced testimony from two expert witnesses who that technical problems with the polygraph equipment rendered the results all but inconclusive. "You are the polygraph," Gevers told the jury in his summation. "Each one of you." Gevers had told members of the jury in his opening statements Wednesday that the best determiner of truth, the "best polygraph," is a human being. The girl, who lives with her mother in another state, had visited Whitacre and his wife, Christia, in Huntington often but has had little contact with them since August 2005. After that visit she told her mother that Whitacre had laid down with her and touched her inappropriately during times that Christia Whitacre was not home. Whitacre told the jury that he laid down with the girl to comfort her after she had visited the doctor. The girl testified she awoke one day to find Whitacre looking at her underwear from her suitcase. Whitacre testified that he was packing her bathing suit and clean clothes for a church outing that day to the Indiana Dunes. Richison told the jury that Whitacre was uncooperative during questioning by prosecutor's investigator Ron Hochstetler on Nov. 17, 2005. Whitacre denied any inappropriate conduct with the girl from the outset but gave what Richison characterized as evasive answers to questions about his home address and the style of underwear he wore. The latter point related to details in the account the girl had given to Hochstetler in an earlier phone interview. Whitacre testified that while he and his wife live at the church apartment they also own a house in Columbia City. They maintain both residences and are in compliance with expectations of their employers - in his case the church, and in her case the Whitley County schools, for which she drives a school bus. In her final arguments, Richison appealed to the jurors to accept the girl's account of the time she spent with Whitacre. "You can't believe" both, she said. "It's a classic he said/she said." Richison noted that the girl's statements have remained consistent for a year and a half. Gevers seized on that, suggesting consistency "can come through rehearsal." "They didn't get one piece of corroborative evidence," he said of the state's case. McCammon and two other Good Shepherd staff members, children's ministry director Cathy Reich and director of worship Drew Wutke, took the stand Friday. All three said they had observed Whitacre's relationship with the girl during her visits and said it appeared to be sound and happy. Jan Gazard, a resident of South Africa who is Christia Whitacre's aunt, also said she observed a good relationship between the two when the girl would visit during a period in 2003 and 2004 when Gazard lived with the Whitacres. Jo Ellen Hueber of Columbia City, Whitacre's mother, also testified that her son and the girl had a good relationship, up to and including the two 2005 visits during which the girl said she was molested. Christia Whitacre, who is expecting the couple's second child, testified that she was badly shaken by the Nov. 17, 2005, interview in Hochstetler's office, which she said was the first time she or Whitacre was aware of the girl's allegations. Hochstetler interviewed her first, and when he asked about their address she told him he'd have to ask her husband. "We live in one place and our mailing address is in another place," she testified Friday, explaining her reluctance during the interview. "Sometimes it's kind of confusing." Gevers called the practice of interviewing the couple separately "a setup - 'I'll talk to your wife first and see what I can get out of her.'" "We are saddened by the path of an investigation that led to so much pain and damage not only to me, but also to my family and my church," Whitacre said in his statement Saturday. McCammon said the verdict provides a sense of relief for church members and staff. "This has been going on for a year and a half for us," he said, "and it's over."
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