Protesters' photos may be clue in rape case
By Shane Graber
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Friday,
Nov. 17 2006
GRANITE CITY — The Arkansas cop admits he was
just taking a chance when he
called the couple that protests at the
abortion clinic here.
Turns out, it might have paid
off
Detective Jimmy Long, an investigator in Bryant, Ark., was
building a case on a
man suspected of sexually abusing a 15-year-old
girl. Long had a tip that the
man got her pregnant and brought her to
the Hope Clinic for Women here for an
abortion.
That happens
to be where Daniel and Angela Michael have camped out for years
photographing just about every car that comes in the parking lot. As
founders
of Small Victories Ministries, they oppose
abortion.
This week, Long stumbled across the couple while doing an
Internet search on
the clinic.
"When I called them, I thought
my chances were slim to none," Long said in a
telephone interview.
"But I called anyway. And it turns out they had them."
What the
couple had, police and Daniel Michael said, were three pictures that
could prove to be critical.
Last month, Bryant police
responded to a disturbance at the home of Jeffery
Cheshier, according
to an arrest warrant affidavit. A girl told police that
Cheshier, 41,
had sexually abused her for a year.
The teen told police he got her
pregnant and took her to a St. Louis-area
abortion clinic in March,
the affidavit said. At Long's request, the Michaels
searched thousands
of photographs to see if they had a picture of the vehicle
the
detective was looking for.
"Every day they're open, we're there,"
Daniel Michael, 48, said. "We try to
talk the girls out of
abortion."
They didn't talk to the man police were looking for,
Michael said.
"Not everybody wants to talk," he
said.
Michael said he and his wife photograph the vehicles in case
anything illegal
happens at the clinic. They keep every picture. As it
turned out, they had
three pictures of what Long said is Cheshier's
car.
Hope Clinic Executive Director Sally Burgess could not comment
on the rape
allegations because of patient confidentiality laws. But
the clinic has
safeguards to protect teenagers, she said.
"If a
teenager lets on to us that something of this nature is occurring, we're
absolutely going to notify the authorities," she said.
The
clinic asks a patient three times if the pregnancy is the result of rape.
If it is, clinic officials respond, Burgess said.
Cheshier is
now in Arkansas' Saline County Jail in lieu of $75,000 bail. A
neighboring county has $50,000 bail on him.
Police from the
two counties are filing rape cases to the prosecuting
attorney's
office. Long expects the photographs will play a big part.
"I feel
good about it," he said.
sgraber@post-dispatch.com |
618-659-3639
|