The Daily Ardmoreite Ardmore, Oklahoma Sunday, July 18, 1982
Suspect Held In Kidnapping
By Steve Beeler
A 32-year-old man was arrested Saturday night near Hickory House restaurant on U.S. Highway 77 in south Ardmore as a suspect in an earlier alleged kidnapping and rape of a young Marietta girl.
According to law enforcement authorities, the man was carrying identification in the name of Chester Lee Vaughn, 32.
The man is suspected of kidnapping and raping or attempting to rape a 10 year old Marietta girl earlier Saturday afternoon.
A spokesman for the Carter County sheriff’s department said Saturday night the suspect was spotted near the restaurant by reserve deputy Butch Bridges. An Ardmore police unit and an Oklahoma Highway Patrol unit responded at the scene of the arrest at approximately 7:45 p.m. Saturday.
His arrest followed an intensive search and lookout for a dark green, old Ford automobile with damage to the right fender, a vehicle witnesses said the alleged kidnapper was driving.
Authorities were alerted by radio broadcasts Saturday to be on watch for the vehicle and driver, described as having a slim build with a beard or mustache and a dirty appearance.
At the time of his arrest the suspect was driving a green Ford Galaxie with an Iowa license plate.
Although Marietta and Love County officials late Saturday night wouldn’t release any information on the alleged kidnapping and rape, apparently the 10 year old was abducted near her Marietta residence.
A Marietta physician, however, did confirm Saturday night that he treated and released the 10 year old girl at the Love County Health Center.
Dr. Bert Beiler said that after examining and interviewing the girl, he believed that an attempted rape did occur.
The doctor said the girl was picked up by a passing motorist approximately two miles north of Marietta along U.S. 77.
(Related photo is on page 4A with the suspect in handcuffs standing behind the old Ford Galaxie car he was driving.)
Copyright The Daily Ardmoreite Ardmore, Oklahoma Tuesday, September 14, 1982
Jury Convicts Defendant in Child Kidnapping-Rape Trial
By Jeanne Grimes
MARIETTA – An eight-woman, four-man jury deliberated only about an hour Tuesday afternoon before convicting Chester Lee Vaughn of kidnapping, first degree rape, and sodomy in the July 17 abduction and sexual assault on a 10 year old Marietta girl.
Testimony and arguments in the trial in Love County District Court ended at noon.
Jurors later today were to hear additional testimony in the punishment phase of the trial and evidence about Vaughn’s prior criminal record will be introduced.
The victim and her mother were among an estimated 50 courtroom observers who listened to District Judge H. Leo Austin’s instructions to the jury and to summations from both sides in the case.
In his closing argument, Assistant District Attorney Bob Highsmith urged the jurors to “put yourselves in the place of that little girl.” He asked the jurors to consider the trauma a grown woman would suffer if she had to recount in open court the details of rape and sodomy “and then magnify that for a child her age.”
“He (Vaughn) made her take him into her mouth,” Highsmith said.
“Consider each count separately,” the prosecutor added. “Count one – kidnapping. Did he do it or not? Count 2 – rape. Did he do it or not? Count 3 – sodomy. Did he do it or not?”
Stan McKay, Vaughn’s court-appointed defense attorney, urged the jury to not try the case on gossip or on facts not in evidence.
I’d say there are enough contradictions in the state’s case to constitute a reasonable doubt,” McKay said, pointing out minor differences in the testimony of several prosecution witnesses.
McKay called the victim “a very cute young girl,” but one who “had to be helped to testify, prodded all the way through.”
He said the defense’s contention is that the victim, whose hymen was torn and bleeding when she was examined later by a doctor, sustained the injury when she fell from her bicycle and that Vaughn had stopped to help her “when this woman comes running and screaming down the street and he gets frightened and drives off for a short distance and then lets her out.”
That scenario was shattered by Highsmith’s final statements to the jury. Photographs of the abandoned farmsite where the attack occurred “show the absolute desolation of a 10 year old child,” the prosecution said.
“That little broken hymen,” he continued, “and the blood between those legs. That awful word she learned and the terrible way she learned it. Is the defense actually suggesting (the witnesses) are lying and this was nothing but a ride in the country?”
“I agree this is the stuff nightmares are made of. This is the worst kind of fear a parent can have.”
Observers and jurors Monday afternoon heard the blue-eyed, blonde 10 year old describe matter of factly how she was kidnapped and sexually assaulted the evening of July 17.
The fourth grader pointed to Vaughn as the man who pulled her into his car, threatened her with a pair of pliers, and then drove her to an abandoned farmsite northwest of here where she was raped and forced to commit sodomy.
Vaughn, driving a beat-up older model car filled with clothing in the back seat, first offered her a dollar if she would show him where 7th Street was, the girl told the court.
But once she gave him directions, he drove away, the girl testified. Then when she came to 7th Street, the man was waiting, she said.
“He told me to come up by the other side of the car and he’d give me a dollar,” she said. Instead, she testified, he grabbed her and forced her, screaming, to the floorboard.
She testified that when they reached the farmsite, Vaughn told her to pull off her panties and he pulled off his britches and raised up her dress.
Dr. Bert Beiler, the physician who examined the girl at the Love County Health Center emergency room later that evening, told the court her hymen was torn and bleeding, “indicating some type of penetration.” However, the doctor added, there were no traces of semen or sperm found in the girl’s vagina.
Two sisters who witnessed that abduction also testified.
Barbara Harrison, Marietta, said she first noticed Vaughn in a car following the girl who was riding a bicycle.
Then the car, which was about two blocks from Mrs. Harrison and her sister, Kathy Simpler, pulled alongside the child and Vaughn opened the door.
“I said to Kathy, “He’s kidnapping that little girl,” Mrs. Harrison testified. “He grabbed her and she started to fall. Then he grabbed her again and threw her in the driver’s door head first.”
As the car drove towards the two women Mrs. Harrison said she stepped out to block it and ask the child, “Is he your father?”
“She was screaming “Oh, my God, help me,” Mrs. Harrison testified, “and he took his hand and pushed her down to the floorboard.”
Mrs. Simpler attempted to follow in her car while Mrs. Harrison called the police, the testimony revealed. Both women ended up driving to the police department where they gave an account of the kidnapping and a description of Vaughn and the car to Officer Dan Childers, who broadcast the information over the mutual aid frequency.
That broadcast was heard by Carter County reserve deputy Butch Bridges, who headed south on U.S. 77. He testified he encountered the vehicle approximately three or four miles south of Ardmore and, calling for a backup, turned around to stop the car.
03/05/25 Chester Lee Vaughn is still in the custody of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections
