8-year-old testifies in sexual abuse case
Barely able to see over the witness stand, an 8-year-old boy testified Wednesday in Fayette County Court that April Baxley Humbert and James Humbert sexually abused him. The youngster, who swiveled in the witness chair as he answered questions, was testifying against the Humberts for the second time. The couple’s first trial ended in a mistrial after a juror heard a radio account of the case that he felt would taint his deliberations.
Under questioning from child abuse prosecutor Jack R. Heneks Jr., the boy testified that April Humbert had sex with him while James Humbert participated peripherally.
April Humbert, represented by attorney Jeffrey Proden, is charged with indecent assault and corruption of minors, her husband, represented by attorney Dianne Zerega, faces only the latter charge.
The alleged victim testified he drew a picture of himself and April Humbert for state police criminal investigator Jeffrey Ramsey. The picture showed Humbert smiling, “because she was happy she had sex with me,” testified the boy.
He drew himself with an “O” for a mouth because he was scared, he testified.
During much of the testimony from Ramsey, James Humbert intermittently smiled at the jury and his wife.
The alleged abuse occurred at the Humberts’ former South Union Township home in Bierer Wood Acres between May and November 2000. The youngster reported the abuse last April to his foster mother.
The Humberts were charged shortly after the abuse was reported and have been in prison since, first serving time on an unrelated physical assault to April Humbert’s daughter, then on criminal contempt for fleeing before their sentencing in that case.
It was information about the physical abuse conviction that made a juror during the first sex abuse trial decide he could not fairly deliberate. The man heard an account of the Humberts’ earlier conviction on the radio during a court break before deliberations began.
Several months later, the Humberts were again scheduled for trial, but that trial did not go before a jury when one of the pool of jurors picked to hear the case told the judge that he sat as a juror in the physical abuse case.
Their trial is expected to continue this morning with defense testimony before Judge John F. Wagner Jr.