MCKENZIE - The infant whose parents are accused of raping her is doing "fine," her aunt said Monday.
"She's healthy," Donna Ward said of the child in a telephone interview on Monday. Ward said she is keeping the baby girl and her sister's 1-year-old daughter.
Police have charged Ward's sister, 18-year-old Kristina Louise Sawyer, and her boyfriend, Jonathan Wayne Goodrum, 19, with the March 24 rape of the child.
The couple was arrested in April, according to arrest warrants filed in Carroll County Circuit Court. The Carroll County Grand Jury indicted them May 1.
The court has set June 6 as the date to hear any motions in the case, a court clerk said.
An object inserted in the child's rear private area caused "minute tears" around that area with a larger tear extending to the front private area, arrest warrants said.
McKenzie Police Lt. Tim Nanney has said the incident happened before the child was taken home from McKenzie Regional Hospital.
Sawyer and Goodrum were still in jail Monday, according to the Carroll County Sheriff's Department.
Goodrum is being held on a $100,000 bond. Sawyer's bond was reduced to $5,000 following her arraignment because police are still looking into what role, if any, she had in the incident.
Huntingdon attorney Steve West was appointed to represent Sawyer. Goodrum is being represented by the 24th Judicial District's Public Defender's Office.
Neither West nor Public Defender Guy Wilkinson could be reached late Monday afternoon for comment.
Ward said she doesn't condone what happened and she doesn't believe her sister had any part in it.
"I raised her," Ward said of Sawyer. "I know she didn't do what they said she did."
Asked what Sawyer did for a living, Ward said she was a student in an adult education program.
Police have said Sawyer and Goodrum were living at the Value Inn Motel and were engaged to be married.
Ward was not certain why her sister was at the Value Inn Motel because all her belongings were still at their mother's McKenzie apartment, where Sawyer had been staying, she said. Ward said she doesn't believe Sawyer would have married Goodrum.
Their mother, Lorraine Brandl of McKenzie, said she was too hurt by the incident to comment Monday. A sign on her apartment door stated in part: "Do not disturb. My daughter is not a rapist."
Residents who have heard of the case find it disturbing.
"I can't even fathom where the idea would come from to do something like that," said Joe LaPorta, a former New York resident who is living in McKenzie and doing renovation work at the Value Inn Motel, located on Highland Drive in the town's business district.
Value Inn resident Larry Thomas had seen the couple around the facility when they lived there. He said there needs to be a tough penalty if the couple is guilty.
Nanney said Monday the case is very unusual.
"I've never had any case like this before," said Nanney, who has worked more than 16 years in law enforcement. "I've had child rape cases before, but nothing dealing with a child this young."
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), and since then I haven't had to deal with them at all. However, if I had to base my opinion solely on the level of care my brother received in a civilian hospital compared to the level of care he is receiving in a military hospital, I would say the military has it, hands down. After seeing what I've seen, I hope I never have to step foot in a civilian hospital.
