The pony-tailed sixth-grader sobbed quietly and clutched a stuffed tiger as the two attorneys tried to gently ask her questions about what happened the night of August 8, the night she was raped repeatedly and almost killed. In a whisper that couldn't be heard beyond a few feet despite two microphones, she identified Jesse Arnold Jordan, 20, as her attacker.

Jordan entered the courtroom Tuesday afternoon in handcuffs and leg irons and escorted by Sheriff Leon Sneed and six deputies. The heavy guard was necessary because threats have been exchanged between the families of the victim and the defendant, both of which live in Graysville. The sheriff's department briefly considered placing Jordan in a bulletproof vest for the walk from the jail to the courthouse because of the threats but decided against it, according to one officer.

The Graysville man is being held at the Rhea County Jail pending payment of a $250,000 bond, charged with attempted murder and rape of a child.

About 5 feet, 6 inches tall and very slight, Jordan slumped into the chair next to his attorney, Harry Hays of Chattanooga, and didn't utter a word throughout the proceedings, which lasted about 30 minutes.

Jordan's family was already seated in the courtroom, when Assistant District Attorney Will Dunn led the 11-year-old victim into the room surrounded by her family members.

The thin little girl began crying almost as soon as she sat down in the witness chair but was able to tell General Sessions Court Judge Jimmy McKenzie that she knew the difference between the truth and a lie and answered him affirmatively when he placed her under oath.

When the court was unable to hear the girl's whispered responses to Dunn's questions, he moved microphones for recording and amplification to within a couple of inches of her mouth. When the girl continued to sob, unable to respond, the judge allowed the mother to sit next to her daughter throughout the questioning.

Dunn repeated the girl's answers for everyone to hear.

The girl said her family had moved to Graysville from Georgia in February. She said she had seen Jordan several times at the Graysville Elementary School playground and talked to him before. When asked if the man she knew as Jesse was in the courtroom, she nodded and pointed her finger in Jordan's direction, but did not lift her eyes to look at him.

Jordan left the playground that night with the girl. He was riding a red bicycle; hers was green. He told her he had left his skateboard in the woods behind the Graysville Seventh-day Adventist Church, and she agreed to help him find it, the girl testified.

Once in the woods, Jordan placed a string around her throat and choked her from behind.
"I felt like I was dying," she told the court, and she showed a thin white line still visible around her tanned neck from the string.

When she began crying again, Dunn, big red handkerchief in hand, said in a husky voice, "when you cry, I cry. And you don't want to see a grown man cry, especially me."

After regaining her composure, the girl said the man she knew as Jesse held her down, removed her clothes, stuffed a paper towel in her mouth and sexually assaulted her repeatedly.

Dunn asked her if she said anything to Jordan. "I told him I wanted to pray," she testified. The assault stopped after she prayed, she said.

She said Jordan then walked her back to the street. She then rode home and told her mother, who had already called the police when her daughter didn't return on time and it began to get dark.

Charles Byrd, chief deputy for the Rhea County Sheriff's Department, is responsible for investigating crimes against children for the county. He testified that the girl picked Jordan out of a photo lineup. Rhea Medical Center Emergency Department staff took samples from both the girl and Jordan which were forwarded to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation forensic lab in Nashville for analysis.

Byrd also said he took several statements from Jordan that night. In the first statement, Jordan said he was walking along Dayton Avenue with his wife and 4-year-old daughter when he saw the girl and a Hispanic man in the woods. When he went to investigate he found the man was raping the girl. He told Byrd he kicked the man off the girl and punched him, then the man ran off.

But when Jordan's wife wouldn't confirm his story, and Byrd told him so, Jordan then admitted to going into the woods with the girl. Byrd quoted Jordan as saying, "I didn't mean to hurt her. I just wanted to scare her a little."

Byrd testified that Jordan told him the stranglehold was a martial arts move to render someone unconscious in five seconds. He then admitted to punching the victim, knocking her down and sexually penetrating her. Jordan said they were "laughing and cutting up" as they walked to the street later, Byrd said.

McKenzie bound Jordan over to the October session of the Rhea County Grand Jury.

John Carpenter can be reached at jcarpenter@xtn.net.