Testimony begins in trial of accused Tahoe child killer

Sandra Chereb

Saturday, Jan. 27, 2001 | 9:52 a.m.

MINDEN, Nev. - Prosecutors on Friday described accused child killer Thomas Soria Sr. as a man obsessed with sex who sought revenge against women and girls through rape and murder.

"This case is going to deal a lot with what was in the defendant's mind," Deputy District Attorney Kris Brown told jurors in her opening statement.

A graphic computer file, she said, will show Soria's state of mind leading up to the abduction, sexual assault and killing of 9-year-old Krystal Steadman.

"All that time he had thoughts of rape, thoughts of murder, thoughts of hurting children," Brown said.

"He was obsessed with sex," she said. "It was this obsession that gave birth to a deadly rage."

Brown said Soria kept a lurid computer file, in which he wrote of brutalizing young blond women because that was the "only way a woman like that would have sex with me."

Defense lawyers counter that Soria's son, Thomas Soria Jr., also known as T.J., was responsible for killing the South Lake Tahoe fourth-grader who disappeared from a Stateline apartment complex March 19.

"Ugly thoughts, repugnant thoughts, have never killed anybody," defense lawyer Michael Roeser told jurors.

"If your son's a monster, do you always have to be responsible for everything he does?" Roeser asked.

The little girl's body was found down an embankment along U.S. 50 the day after she disappeared. She had been bound and gagged with duct tape, raped and sodomized. Her throat was slashed in numerous places with a serrated knife and autopsy results indicate she tried to fight off her attacker, Brown said.

Krystal's mother Elizabeth Steadman cried openly as she identified the black pants and Tweety Bird T-shirt her daughter was wearing when she was last seen alive.

The mother said they were visiting her boyfriend, who was moving out of the complex, and Krystal asked to play outside with other children.

The pair went looking for Krystal when she failed to check in, as she had earlier.

Steadman said they went to a nearby store, where someone told them they'd seen T.J. chasing two girls with his truck.

When they went to his apartment, Steadman said T.J. let them in and offered to put on his shoes and help look for Krystal.

"Everything seemed to be quiet and calm," she said.

But Soria Jr. wouldn't let them look in a closed, back bedroom, then told them he had seen Krystal playing at a nearby trailer park.

Still, she said she sensed something was wrong.

The younger Soria, who worked at a youth club at the complex, later admitted to luring the little girl to the Soria apartment, saying he did so at his father's request.

Now 20, he pleaded guilty to his role in the killing and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

He will be a key witness against his father, who faces a possible death sentence if convicted.

Brown said Soria Jr. shares responsibility in Krystal's death but suggested he was manipulated to do his father's bidding by years of sexual abuse.

In a hearing Thursday without jurors present, the younger Soria said he was sexually abused by his father from as early as he can remember. He said he loved his father and never told anyone because he believed his father's warning that the family would be broken apart if he did.

The younger Soria was questioned the day Krystal disappeared when officers found what appeared to be blood on his Chevy Blazer. He was arrested the next day when the girl's body was found and after investigators identified the stains on his vehicle as blood. It later turned out to be Krystal's.

Soria Sr. 39, wasn't charged until days later and after he was arrested in another alleged sexual assault of a teen-age girl.

Brown said DNA evidence shows semen found on Krystal's body matched Soria Sr.

But Roeser said semen from Soria Jr. also was found on the girl's underwear.

Roeser characterized Soria Jr. as a liar who told investigators what they wanted to hear to avoid a death sentence.

He said no blood was found in the Soria apartment and questioned how the killing could have been committed there.

"How did she have debris and dirt and vegetable matter inside her body if she was killed in that apartment?" he asked.

The real culprit, Roeser said, will "be the state's witness, the one they bargained for his testimony, Soria Jr."