1. Three seniors in high school, hellbent on losing their virginity, embark on an odyssey to score alcohol for a hot girl’s party. Police chases, male bonding and summer love ensue.
2. A cute teenage runaway seeks asylum from authorities at an apartment that three older guys share. Four days of Rob Zombie movies, booze, joints and sex ensue. The girl falls for one of the older boys and, after a petty-crime spree and a drive to Arizona, he meets her family and is subsequently punched in the nose. The lovers part.
Until three years later, when they find themselves across from each other in a courtroom.
The first plot is that of Superbad.
Plot No. 2 is Edwin Hall’s life.
Yesterday in Johnson County Court, 26-year-old Hall faced a now-17-year-old girl who alleges that she and Hall had sex three times in the summer of 2004. Hall has already pleaded not guilty to charges of capital murder, kidnapping, rape and aggravated sodomy in a separate case, the death of 18-year-old Kelsey Smith.
Charges -- two counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child -- were filed on behalf of the 17-year-old, who was brought back to Kansas to testify from the Arizona detention center where she resides; she will be released in December.
Half a dozen reporters sat in the gallery, as did Hall’s wife, Aletha. Also present was Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline, to watch his most high-profile prisoner face his accuser – and to hear not-very-juicy details of underage sex.
“Jack was hitting on me some more or whatever,” the girl responded when Chris McMullin, the attorney for the state, asked her what happened. “He pinched my butt, and he kept saying he wanted to know me better, and we started making out.”
Hall then told his roommates to leave the room, the girl said.
“What happened next?”
“Um. We had sex.”
“So, intercourse?” McMullin asked.
“Yes.”
“Is that something you wanted to do at the time?”
“Yes.”
“Did you spend the night with him?”
“Yes.”
“Did you use protection? If I say ‘protection,’ do you know what I’m referring to?”
“A condom? No.”
McMullin led the girl through the rest of her story: how she and Hall were busted stealing from unlocked cars but managed to meet up again in Lawrence. From there, he drove her to her biological mother’s house in Arizona. At some point along the way, Hall spoke to the girl’s family on the phone and later told the girl about the conversation.
Someone from the girl’s family told Hall to “keep his pecker in his pants, and he said that it was too late for that,” the girl explained.
When she arrived at her house, the girl was told by her family to take a walk with her sister. “When we got back [Hall] had a rag on his face and his nose was all bloody and his face was all bloody.”
When given his chance to cross-examine the girl, Hall’s attorney, Paul Cramm, attempted to set up an alternate scenario: that Ray, the first roommate in the house that the girl met, had hit on her, which she didn’t appreciate, so she asked Hall to act like her boyfriend.
“What did you think of Ray?” Cramm asked.
“He was a nice person.”
Cramm asked her if Ray had told her that he could stop a wristwatch with his mind. She said he had.
“So maybe everything’s not all right with him,” Cramm said. “Do you remember telling [Hall] that Ray made you nervous?”
“Yes.”
“And you said, ‘Can we act like an item so Ray will leave me alone?’”
“No.”
Cramm’s next line of questioning aimed at weakening the girl’s credibility and drew more details out of her: how she escaped from juvenile detention centers regularly, had given the police false names when arrested, was on Zoloft, suffered from depression and had seen a counselor ever since the death of her adopted mother on April 20, 2002.
Neither attorney had further questions. This being a preliminary hearing, the judge ruled only that there was sufficient evidence for a real trial.
Hall’s next court date is October 19. He has entered a not guilty plea.
Maybe Hall can sell a screenplay about his Arizona romance. -- Nadia Pflaum
Um, he was 23 at the time. He wasn't "one of the older boys."
Posted at: September 6, 2007 2:02 PM