Robert Abner Case

Defense in Robert Abner case claims clerk consented to sex

BY TIM POTTER
The Wichita Eagle
May 27, 2009

Jaime Oppenheimer
The Wichita Eagle

Robert Abner sits in Judge David Kaufman's courtroom during his trial in Sedgwick County District Court. He is charged with robbing, kidnapping and sexually assaulting Joyce Patterson and accused of holding her at his north Wichita rental home for about four days before releasing her.

Deputy Public Defender Jama Mitchell delivers her opening statement in Robert Abner's trial in Sedgwick County District Court. Abner is charged with robbing, kidnapping and sexually assaulting Joyce Patterson and accused of holding her at his north Wichita rental home for about four days before releasing her.

District Attorney Marc Bennett delivers his opening statement in Robert Abner's trial in Sedgwick County District Court. Abner is charged with robbing, kidnapping and sexually assaulting Joyce Patterson and accused of holding her at his north Wichita rental home for about four days before releasing her.

WICHITA - Robert Abner is the person on trial -- charged with robbing, kidnapping and sexually assaulting a Viola convenience store clerk while holding her for about four days last June. She clearly is the victim, prosecutors say.

But now that the defense team has its chance to speak out in court, it is attacking her credibility, contending she was a "participant" in sex with Abner.


In opening statements in Sedgwick County District Court on Wednesday, the prosecution argued that Joyce Patterson feared what Abner would do to her -- and her family -- and that although she submitted to him to survive, she never consented to sex. The defense argued that her demeanor and actions showed she consented.

Abner, 40, faces 10 charges, including six counts of rape and two counts of sodomy -- crimes the prosecution says occurred while he held her for about four days at his rental home in north Wichita, before leaving her outside her family's pastor's home...

During legal arguments while the jury was outside the courtroom Wednesday, District Judge David Kaufman and Deputy District Attorney Marc Bennett signaled that Patterson could testify:

• That Abner told her he was not going to kill her but that he had killed lots of other people.
• That Abner said he had a criminal record and had been in jail.
• That he told her his fingerprints were "in the system."

Deputy Public Defender Jama Mitchell argued that any such statements from Patterson shouldn't be introduced at trial because they would be "extremely prejudicial" to Abner and not necessary to prove the case.

But Kaufman ruled such statements would be admissible and said they were "highly relevant" to an argument over whether Patterson's "actions or inactions" showed she consented and whether she reacted out of fear.

In the opening statements, both sides provided new details about what allegedly happened during those four days last June.

Bennett, the lead prosecutor, told the jury that on a slow afternoon, an armed robber wearing a wild, bushy wig and sunglasses came into the rural store in southwestern Sedgwick County. The robber came up behind Patterson and told her, "Give me your money."

And according to Bennett:
When the robber told her to "get to the bathroom," she froze.
If he takes her to another room, she thought, "I'm dead."
After she hesitated, he grabbed her arm and said, "Let's go."

The robber was heavyset. Patterson is a small woman. He dragged her outside and behind the store to a car and told her to get in and stay down on the floorboard. The car was missing the front passenger seat. While she remained there in a fetal position, the abductor drove and drove, for maybe an hour, at times swerving as if to confuse her sense of direction.

During the long drive, he put a gun to her side and said, "Remember." Investigators later found a BB gun in Abner's car.

After they stopped, he blindfolded her, took her into a home and "hog-tied" her. At times, he kept her bound with duct tape and plastic zip ties or tied to him while they slept.

She didn't look at the man's face and pointed it out to him because she was afraid that he would harm her or her family if she could identify him, Bennett said.

The abductor told her he had noticed her daughter, who also worked at the convenience store and that maybe Patterson could persuade him to let her go.

"She knows what he wants," Bennett told the jurors, and continued with his narrative:

She didn't want to have sex with him, but he forced himself on her, repeatedly. At one point, she asked him: "Why don't you just kill me?"

When he saw the minister and her family plead on TV for her safe return, he apologized to her and said, "I won't do this again." But he kept her about two more days before leaving her outside the minister's home in southeast Wichita. Bennett said an examination of Patterson showed some injury.

After releasing Patterson, Abner drove to Lawrence -- before being arrested in Oregon -- and told his relative that he did "something stupid" and admitted to robbing and kidnapping a store clerk, Bennett said.

"I've been thinking about doing this for a while," Abner told the relative, Bennett said.
When it was her turn to introduce the defense's position, Mitchell described Patterson's involvement in a very different way. "She put herself in the car," Mitchell said.

And according to Mitchell: Abner told Patterson "we're going to get you home." While at his home, he went out and got her food and asked what brand of cigarettes she smoked. He catered to her. "Most of the time, she is not bound," Mitchell told the jurors.

There was a window in Abner's bedroom and in an attached bathroom, "but she stays there," Mitchell said. "Not one time during these four days did she make any attempt to leave the house.... She never tried to scream." During the sex, Patterson was "not protesting, she is not resisting, she is not objecting," Mitchell said.

So there is no evidence of rapes, Mitchell said. Mitchell said Patterson's body showed only a "tiny" abrasion and some redness -- what can occur during regular intercourse. "She wasn't forced to stay there," Mitchell said.
"She is a participant."

Before Abner walked into the store, Patterson's life had been stressful because she had an unhappy marriage and was behind on bills, Mitchell said. As for Abner, Mitchell said, "This turned into something that he did not anticipate."

In testimony later Wednesday, Steve Sherbenou, the pastor, testified about finding Patterson at his door -- where Abner had left her. "She indicated she was happy to be away from him, and she wanted to go home to her husband, Larry, and her family," Sherbenou testified.

Patterson rebuts defense claims that she was willing participant

BY TIM POTTER
The Wichita Eagle
May 27, 2009

WICHITA - Joyce Patterson told a Sedgwick County jury this morning that she feared for her life during a four-day ordeal last June after she was abducted from the convenience store in Viola where she was working.

She testified against Robert Abner, 40, who is charged with robbing, kidnapping and sexually assaulting her. Her hour-long testimony rebutted statements by the defense that she was a willing participant in her abduction.

Patterson told the jury that she begged Abner not to have sex with her, but he did. After he took her to a rental house, he told her she could holler all she wanted, but nobody could hear her, she said.

Deputy District Attorney Marc Bennett asked Patterson why she didn't try to escape.
She replied: "'Cause I knew he still had the gun."