A Cleburne County man arrested in mid-2020 on charges involving sexual assault and child pornography went on trial Monday in federal court on an indictment handed up in December 2020 charging him with six counts of production of child pornography.
If found guilty, Norman Thurber, 59, of Heber Springs, could be sentenced to a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison on each count.
It took about 3½ hours to settle on the seven men, five women and one alternate juror from the pool of 42 prospective jurors.. Thurber is represented by Cara Boyd Connors and Tamera Deaver. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kristin Bryant and John Ray White are prosecuting the case, which is being heard before U.S. District Judge Brian Miller.
Bryant told jurors that within the evidence the government intended to present are six videos, narrated by Thurber, of him "vaginally and anally raping a 15-year-old girl."
She said that on June 25, 2020, Thurber left his home in Heber Springs and drove 11 hours to Corpus Christi, Texas, to pick up the girl -- identified as "A.H." -- and took her to a Corpus Christi hotel for the night, then drove 11 hours back to Heber Springs.
"Over the next 12 hours," Bryant said, "the defendant produced six videos, which you are going to see, made by the defendant depicting the sexual exploitation of A.H., that 15-year-old girl, from the dates June 26 to June 27 of 2020."
Among those six videos, Bryant said, are videos that depict Thurber abusing A.H. while making her wear a dog collar and leash, of him sodomizing A.H. with a screwdriver, and other sexually degrading activities.
At one point, Bryant assured the jury they would not be subjected to the videos in their entirety, but would be shown only clips of the abuse.
Deaver attempted to blunt some of Bryant's assertions of Thurber's guilt by reminding them that "he walked into court this morning an innocent man."
Deaver admitted that much of the evidence jurors would hear would consist of what she termed, "difficult topics," such as "sadomasochism, bondage, dominance and submission," asking that "any moral qualms or judgments you have about such topics, that you set them aside."
According to court records, Thurber came to the attention of law enforcement authorities in Heber Springs when a 15-year-old girl told police she had been brought to Arkansas from her home in Corpus Christi by a man named "Norman," whom she said she had met through an online dating app. Although first insisting to police she was 18 years old, the girl eventually admitted she was 15. She told police the man took her to a hotel in Texas, then to his home in Heber Springs, and that the two had sex a number of times.
A Heber Springs Police Department arrest affidavit said police traced the man's phone number provided by the girl back to Thurber. She described his tattoos to police and provided them with the layout of his home. She told police she met Thurber about a week before he drove to Texas to pick her up and at some point gave him her address in Corpus Christi.
On June 25, 2020, the affidavit said, Thurber drove to Texas to pick up the girl and took her to a Corpus Christi hotel, later identified as a Rodeway Inn, where she told police he kept "touching her and trying to do things to her." The affidavit said she first told Thurber she was 18 but later admitted her true age, to which she told police he told her "that was OK, but they would just have to tell everyone she was 18."
The following morning, the affidavit said, the girl told Thurber she wanted to go home but he threatened to hurt her or her family, brandished a pistol, and then drove her back to Heber Springs. The girl told police that over the course of two days Thurber abused her verbally and sexually, telling her that "no one cared about her and that no one would believe anything she said," according to the affidavit.
At one point, the girl told police, Thurber told her to leave if she wished, at which point she left the residence and went to the Heber Springs Police Department.
After interviewing the girl, the affidavit said, police obtained a search warrant and went to Thurber's home. According to the affidavit, Thurber asked police, "'This is about that stupid girl, isn't it?'"
Although Thurber denied having a firearm, the affidavit said police found a 9 mm semi-auto pistol like the one the girl described underneath a mattress in Thurber's bedroom where the girl had told police it was located.
Testimony in the trial proceeded slowly following openings by both sides due to a number of bench conferences called for by both sides, which Miller later explained to the jury was due to the extraordinarily sensitive nature of the case.
"What they're doing is they're asking, they're saying, 'Judge, before I get into something, I want to make sure I can,' " he said. "They don't want to run afoul of the rules of evidence, so just bear with us, okay?"
Connors chipped away at the testimony of Bryant's and White's first witness, Heber Springs police detective Daniel Malone, who gave details of the initial investigation and the search of Thurber's home.
Under intense cross-examination by Connors, Malone admitted he was told A.H. was 15 but had not actually seen any documentation proving her age until six days ago when her birth certificate was obtained by prosecutors.
"You saw that document for the first time this week?" she asked. "You had no proof of A.H.'s age until August 2, is that correct?"
"We had proof," Malone said. "We just didn't have this."
The detective said investigators had spoken with A.H.'s mother and with Texas authorities who confirmed the girl's age.
"You didn't know what her age was other than what somebody told you, correct?" Connors asked.
"That's fair," Malone said.
Testimony begins this morning with Daniel Turner, an FBI agent who investigated the case. He will be the prosecution's final witness. The trial is expected to wrap up today.