SAN ANTONIO (Texas News Radio) — One of the two girls abducted from a Round Rock home in December 2017 testified against the man who took them, saying he killed their mother.
The man, 45-year-old Terry Miles, is on trial for abducting the two girls, but investigators have long suspected that he murdered their mother.
The Austin American-Statesman reported that the girl said her mother, Tonya Bates, had returned home from her nursing job on December 29, 2017, and started arguing with Miles.
Miles was living with them in the Round Rock house.
The girl testified that Miles told Bates the girl wanted to marry him, though the girl did not want that.
After pushing a glass shelf onto Miles, Bates and the man went into the kitchen where the girl said she saw Miles punch her mother.
The girl ended up going to her room. She testified that Miles went to her door to tell her something went very wrong.
The girl then testified she saw her mother’s body on the ground and her skull was caved in.
She stated in court Wednesday Miles told her not to call 911, saying the same thing would happen to her and her sister if they did.
The defense attorney then grilled the girl, who mostly responded to his questions with an “I don’t remember” on topics varying from whether her mother told them all to leave the house or telling a counselor that she did not feel endangered with Miles.
The defense argues Bates asked Miles to take the girls out of the house so she could go on a date.
The prosecutor says Miles was hired to be a nanny for the girls, got into an argument with Bates, killed her and then took the girls to Colorado.
The question about how Miles is exactly connected to Bates and the daughters became a bit clearer during testimony Wednesday.
The girl testified she met Miles that previous summer while she was at her father’s house in Louisiana. She said he sexually assaulted her the first day they met.
She was not of a legal age to consent to sex.
The girl said Miles sexually assaulted her once a day for roughly a month.
She then stated she asked her mother to start communicating with Miles on Facebook.
The girl continued communicating with Miles after she returned to her mother’s in Round Rock by text and through phone calls. She testified that she and Bates both wanted Miles in Round Rock because of an ongoing fight between Bates and her husband, the girl’s stepfather.
The girl did not mention in court whether she told her mother that Miles was sexually assaulting her.
Miles was indicted on two counts of kidnapping, one count of transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and one count of travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct. He has not been charged in the death of Bates.
He could face decades to life in prison if convicted on those charges.