A number of Arkansas City women testified Thursday they were stalked, frightened and even groped by Justin Thurber in the years leading up to Jodi Sanderholm’s death in January 2007. Thurber is accused of Sanderholm’s murder.
Cowley County Judge Jim Pringle spent much of the day listening to the women ? most of whom were petite and had brown hair ? share their accounts. Pringle will determine how much of their testimony – which mostly detail the defendant’s alleged prior bad acts – is admissible once Thurber’s trial starts this summer.
Those who testified during Thurber’s pretrial hearing met the defendant in a variety of ways. Some were ex-girlfriends, others knew him from high school or saw him at parties.
Nearly all of them said they eventually saw a side of Thurber that disturbed them.
Vic Braden, assistant Kansas attorney general, said the testimony should be allowed because it establishes a pattern of behavior by Thurber.
“He’s learned how to get these women,” Braden told the judge. “And have his way with them.”
Braden was able to get all of the testimony presented Wednesday which allowed the hearing to conclude after just one day. Judge Pringle said he would issue written rulings to the state and the defense in regard to motions filed by the state asking that the prior bad acts testimony be allowed.
Testimony presented covered a period beginning a decade before Sanderholm’s death and ending just days before her disappearance.
That included testimony from a childhood friend who said Thurber watched Sanderholm years before being charged with her kidnapping rape and murder.
Jason Swartzell, 25, testified that a then 13-year-old Thurber told Swartzell he watched Sanderholm and her sister swimming.
Through a window of the girls’ home he spied on the sisters as they undressed afterward, Swartzell said.
Tim Frieden, Thurber’s defense attorney, argued against allowing the testimony and said much of it violated strict guidelines on what is permissible.
Ten women testified Thursday, among them were:
Donell Parker ? Parker, 22, said she worked with Thurber in the summer and fall of 2001 at Kentucky Fried Chicken in Arkansas City.
Four times in the course of one month, Parker said Thurber lured her near his car in the KFC parking lot and pulled her inside through the window. He would kiss her on the lips and neck and hold her on his lap against her will inside the car for two or three hours. At one point he groped her breasts, Parker said.
He would not say anything to her during this time but just stare at her. Thurber would eventually let her go.
Under questioning by the defense, Parker acknowledged she had not told anyone, including her parents, of the incidents. She came forward only after she found out what had happened to Sanderholm.
Arcelea Vasquez ? Vasquez, now 24, told the court, through an interpreter, of an incident in 2006 when she was driven through the country against her will by Thurber.
A year earlier, she had dated Thurber but had not seen him for sometime. They met by chance at the Country Mart in Ark City and Thurber told Vasquez he might have a car she would be interested in buying. Vasquez had no car of her own.
Vasquez and an 11-year-old friend of hers met Thurber and got into his car. He told the pair he was driving them to see the car. The younger girl was to translate between for Vasquez.
Instead of going to the defendant’s home, they were driven out into an area of rural Ark City for no apparent reason. Thurber would not respond to their pleas to be taken back to town, Vasquez said. When Vasquez and the girl became frightened, Vasquez said Thurber became aroused and began “touching his penis.”
“I could see his bad intentions,” said Vasquez, who feared she and the girl might be raped.
Vasquez testified that she was in the backseat and leapt forward to the front seat where her young friend was sitting.
Vasquez opened the door and jumped out of the moving vehicle and tried to pull her friend with her. Thurber, she said, pulled on the girls other arm but the girl managed to pull free from him. Vasquez and her friend ran into a field and reached a farmhouse.
The residents of the home phoned police and the women were interviewed by the sheriff’s department. An officer attempted to speak with Thurber who said he had been advised not to talk with law enforcement about the incident. No charges were filed in the case.
Jamie Mueller ? Mueller, 20, told the court she knew Thurber because one of her friends had dated one of his friends.
In July 2004, Mueller ended up at the Cowley College Wellness Center at the same time as Thurber. One day she noticed his car following her and she checked the mail at her then-boyfriend’s house. The driver, who she said was Thurber, drove by and yelled something.
Mueller told that Thurber drove by again.
When Mueller got in her car, he followed her and she had to pull into an alley to hide from him.
Mueller was often at the Wellness Center because she was enrolled in a class that required she go there.
After the first incident with Thurber, she came out to her car another day ? a day in which she saw Thurber there ? and found a note that included sexual content. She did not see Thurber place the note but did give it to police.
