Stormer, White clash during questioning

By JENNIFER SICKING, Register Staff Writer

Thursday's testimony that included officers, investigators and Child Protective Services, also was marked by sparring between the district attorney and one of her previous opponents for the position.

Cindy Stormer, 235th District attorney, took the stand to testify as being the attorney ad litem for the children of Kim Stevens, who is on trial for allegedly beating and causing the death of a child, Jorden Saager, she was babysitting. Jorden, who had severe internal injuries such as intestines torn from her stomach and a four-inch fracture in her skull, died Jan. 4, 2000, at Gainesville Memorial Hospital.

Stormer was elected to her current position in 2004 and took office Jan. 1, 2005. Previously, she had her own practice in January 2000 and then 235th District Judge Jerry Woodlock appointed her as the attorney for the children. Woodlock, who retired from the district court bench at the beginning of this year, is the visiting judge hearing this case. Current 235th District Judge Janelle Haverkamp is barred from hearing cases that she handled as district attorney.

As the children's attorney, Stormer said she represented Stevens' children in terminating Stevens' parental rights after Jorden's death.

"Your involvement in that capacity is the reason you're sitting in that chair and I'm sitting in this chair," Lisa Tanner, an attorney with the state's Attorney General office and who is prosecuting the state's case against Stevens, asked Stormer, who replied in the affirmative.

Under cross-examination, Roger White, who is defending Stevens and lost the 2004 district attorney election to Stormer, questioned Stormer about removing herself from the case and a possible ruling by Woodlock.

However, Tanner objected to White's question and Woodlock sustained the objection.

According to paperwork filed in the case, Woodlock denied Stormer's motion to disqualify herself from trying the case.

White also made other digs toward Stormer during her testimony. Several times as Stormer began to speak, White objected because Tanner had not asked Stormer a question.

"This witness obviously doesn't know how it works in the courtroom," White said along with one objection.

Tanner then objected to White's statement. Woodlock sustained both objections.

Stormer testified about Stevens' children and about taking a deposition from Stevens in the custody case. She said she had interviewed many children and Stevens' were the most abnormally behaving children she has seen and described them as "robot-like."

"They repeated the same phrases over and over like they've been coached," she said.

She also testified about what Stevens said in her deposition, including dates of when she began babysitting for the Saagers. Stormer said Stevens told her that she began babysitting on Nov. 29, 1999. Other witnesses testified Stevens began babysitting on Nov. 16, 1999. Tanner also produced doctor's records which would substantiate the

Under cross-examination, White asked Stormer if her big point in testifying was about his client being mistaken on a date.

"She was inconsistent on many points," Stormer replied.

When Stormer attempted to reply further, White interrupted her.

"Let me ask the questions Mrs. Stormer," he said.

Stormer also stated during her testimony that Stevens said she left a note for Yolanda Saager, Jorden's mother, stating she had gone to the doctor's office. However, officers testified earlier saying they found a note taped to Stevens' back door stating they had gone to the park.

Saager testified Wednesday that on Jan. 3, 2000, the day before her daughter died, Stevens had taken the children to Leonard Park and Frank Buck Zoo.

Stormer also said Stevens told her Jorden had walked around at Burger King, a few hours before she died, and she had assisted the 2-year-old child with sliding down the slide.

During her deposition, Stevens also said she washed Jorden's clothes, upon which she said the child vomited, and turned them over to the police department, Stormer said. Previously, Saager testified Stevens gave her the clothes, which she kept until she turned them over to Tanner for the trial.

Stormer also testified she provided information to the Gainesville Police Department and other investigators.

Tanner asked Stormer if the relationship between CPS and the police department was strained during the investigation of the case. White objected to the question, asking how Stormer could have personal knowledge.

"I have personal knowledge," Stormer replied.

Woodlock then overruled White's objection.

Stormer said the relationship between the two was not good and did not do a good job of sharing information.

A former CPS investigator, Anthony Anderson, also testified to that point Thursday afternoon. He said he thought the police department and the Cooke County investigator were excluding information from him.

Anderson said he was called to check into the case after the previous investigator, Dana Huckabee, who also testified Thursday, was moved to the Denton office. Anderson said his job was to determine the safety or risk for the Saager and Stevens children, who were both removed from their homes at the time of Jorden's death.

He said upon his first telephone call to Stevens she told him several things he knew to be false. He said he decided when he interviewed her in the future to record her.

"I wanted no confusion in what had been said," he said Thursday.

However, when he met with her and White, White would not allow him to record their conversation.

"I tried to figure out a timeline of how the child behaved and what ultimately happened that day to determine when it (the abuse) happened," Anderson said about his interview with Stevens.

Anderson testified the amount of Jorden's play at Burger King the few hours before she died, seemed significant to him.

"We had learned with the amount of injury what kind of activity she would or would not be able to do," he said.

When he attempted to share what Stevens told him about Jorden playing at Burger King during a meeting with the medical examiner, Anderson said he was cut off from talking by another investigator who said that wasn't the information he had.

While Huckabee spoke Thursday about taking Stevens' children, Stevens appeared to be crying as she sat next to White and could be seen wiping her eyes and nose.

Huckabee said CPS made a decision to remove Stevens' children when they discovered she had not been truthful about her past. Huckabee said in interviews with Stevens' children she asked them about getting in trouble at home.

"They denied getting in trouble at home," she said. "They didn't want to talk about it."

White said perhaps they were good children who don't get into trouble.

"They all get in to trouble some time," Huckabee said.

Gainesville Police Investigator Ronnie Williams also testified about interviewing Stevens and the case's file going missing after the lead investigator, David Wiesan retired about a year after Jorden's death.

"Some of his files were moved out of his office and into a vacant office," Williams said. He also described a massive search effort involving officers receiving overtime and assistant from the district attorney's investigator and a Texas Ranger.

"It was just a general mess up somewhere down the line," he said.

Williams also testified Stevens told him the Saagers had been investigate by a child protective agency.

"Is that something pretty significant," Tanner asked, to which Williams replied yes. He also agreed such a statement would cause the investigators to closely examine the parents.

When they were at Burger King, Stevens said Jorden spent time rocking herself, Williams said.

Audie Hayes, an emergency room nurse at the former Gainesville Memorial Hospital and the current North Texas Medical Center, also testified to trying to revive Jorden

"There was bruising on her lower back, extremities and around her face," she said.

Hayes mapped out any bruises, cuts or other injuries to Jorden's body after her death.

Hayes also testified she questioned Stevens about what happened to Jorden to try to determine how to best help her. In the questioning, she said she asked if Jorden had fallen, to which Stevens replied no, Hayes said.

County Judge Bill Freeman, who formerly was the Precinct 1 justice of the peace, said he was called to the hospital after Jorden's death. He described a bruise on Jorden's back as an impression of a hand print.

He said Stevens told him Jorden had a blood disorder which caused her to bruise easily and that she had been taken to Cook Children's Hospital for testing. However, he said that didn't seem to be reasonable, "because of the bruises and the hand print."

While the story of her falling face forward might have explained some of the bruises, Freeman said it wouldn't explain them all.

Former Gainesville officer Alicia Bergeron testified to seeing a seemingly health Jorden the day before she died. Bergeron said she was looking for a lady's house when she stopped by Stevens and saw Jorden playing in the yard wearing nothing but a diaper and a fireman's helmet.

"I said, 'Come here. You don't want to be a firefighter. You want to be a police officer like me'," Bergeron said.

Jorden didn't say anything, but stopped from running around the yard for a minute.

Bergeron said she was surprised when she entered the hospital's emergency room and saw Stevens the next day. She said they spoke for a minute until Stevens told her she had brought a child into the hospital. Knowing that she had responded to a possible assault and dead child report at the hospital, Bergeron said she quickly realized Stevens had brought in the child.

"I thought she was just visiting until I connected in to the baby," she said. "She didn't seem like she had brought a child that was seriously hurt."