Friday, Feb. 14, 2003 | 11:32 a.m.
A 15-year-old girl wept Thursday as she testified that Timmy Weber raped her on the day her mother and brother were brutally killed last year, and she said it was not the first time she had been sexually assaulted by Weber.
The teen said Weber had been molesting her since she was 9. The first incident occurred in a trailer in the Shady Acres Mobile Home Park in Las Vegas, where Kim Gautier lived with her three children, the girl said.
"I remember my dog, Layla, kept trying to get in the room because I was screaming," the girl testified, weeping. "(Weber) said it was our little secret and not to tell anyone."
Weber, 28, who was the maintenance man at the trailer park, began dating Kim Gautier and moved in with the family. In the five years that followed, the girl testified, Weber forced her to have sex almost every other day.
"I did it because he told me to," she said. "I always did what he told me. Because that's all I ever knew, really."
The teen's testimony came on the fourth day of Weber's trial before District Judge Joseph Bonaventure. Weber faces murder, sexual assault and kidnapping charges in the April 4, 2002, slayings of Kim Gautier, 38, and her 15-year-old son, Anthony.
If convicted, Weber could face the death penalty.
This morning a teacher who took care of the girl and her brother, Chris Gautier, after the slayings described an encounter with Weber on April 14, the morning a memorial services was to be held for Kim and Anthony.
An FBI agent also described how authorities traced Weber through ATM and telephone records as he traveled April 4-12 through California, Oregon, Washington and Utah.
On Thursday, during the testimony of Gautier's daughter, Bonaventure ordered the courtroom cleared of all spectators except three news reporters and the teen's guardian.
The girl sat with her back facing Weber and defense attorneys, avoiding eye contact with Weber. Weber maintained a blank look on his face while she testified.
She said that pornographic photos of her with Weber that jurors viewed were taken in Weber's car years before the killings.
She said she smiled in some of the photos because Weber told her to.
"He told me I'd better smile," the girl said. "I was scared and I didn't know what to do."
Under cross-examination by Deputy Public Defender Joseph Abood, the teen admitted she lied to Metro Homicide Detective Sheila Huggins when she told her Weber had never sexually assaulted her before April 4, 2002.
"I was scared," she said. "He had just killed my mother and my brother and he was on the loose."
She told jurors she wasn't afraid of Weber during his relationship with her mother and often went places with him in hopes that he would buy her things, "like any kid would."
According to the teen, the April 4, 2002, attack was sparked by an argument she had with Weber the night before, when a black friend called her on the phone.
"(Weber) started cursing at him," she said. "He said I don't need to be talking to no (expletive) and that I'm a (whore) and that I probably had sex with the boy."
When she told her mother about the argument she'd had with Weber, Kim Gautier was upset, the girl said.
"She yelled at (Weber) and they had a big argument about it," the girl said. "My mother had a talk with me and said no one has the right to call you a whore."
Later that night Weber tried several times to apologize for what had happened earlier, the girl testified.
"He kept asking me if I accepted his apology," she said. "But I didn't want to accept it so I said no. He told me to give him a hug and I told him no because I didn't want to."
The following morning the teen and Weber were home alone, she testified. Kim Gautier had gone to run errands and Anthony Gautier had gone skateboarding, she said.
She was watching television in the living room when Weber asked her where she was going that day, the girl said. When she told him she was going to visit her boyfriend, Weber walked through the living room and closed the front door, the girl testified.
"He stood in front of me and he told me that I was going to hook him up," she told jurors. "Then he grabbed me and pinned me on the couch."
Weber led the girl to Anthony Gautier's room near the back of the house and used duct tape to "hog tie" her legs and feet to her hands, she said. He had wrapped the tape around her entire head to prevent her from screaming, she said.
"I was screaming because I was scared," she said. "He told me to shut the hell up. I thought that if I screamed he would kill me."
Weber left the girl alone for about 45 minutes, she said.
When he returned, he led her to her own bedroom, cut the duct tape off with a Swiss army knife and raped her on her bed, she said.
After allowing her to shower, he duct-taped each arm and leg to the bed, placing socks over her hands and toilet paper underneath the tape, she said.
"I pleaded with him not to tie me up again because it hurt really bad," she said. "He said he'd do it the friendliest way he can."
Weber left her alone a second time with the volume on the television up loud, she said. Chris Gautier, who had spent the night at a friend's house, rescued her with another friend about three hours later, she said.
It wasn't until she and Chris Gautier fled the home and returned with police that she discovered her mother and brother had been killed.
"One detective came out with the deadest face I've ever seen," she said. "He asked me what color hair my mom had. I told him it was red. And that's when me and my brother found out that my mom and brother were dead."
Several times during her testimony, whenever she talked about her brother, Anthony, or was shown a photograph of him, she began crying.
The pathologist who conducted the autopsy on the 15-year-old boy testified that the teen had half a T-shirt stuffed in his mouth and had suffered slow asphyxiation after his mouth had been tightly duct-taped shut and a plastic bag had been taped around his head.
Authorities traced Weber from that day through use of his automated teller machine and phone records, FBI Agent Scott Bakken of the Fugitive Task Force said. His car was found in a downtown parking garage, and an ATM blocks away was used on April 4, he said, though he didn't know whether it was before or after the time of the slayings.
Agents traced him traveling April 5 through California by Greyhound bus. They found evidence that he went through Portland, Ore., Seattle, and Salt Lake City before he returned to Las Vegas on April 12.
On April 14, William Froman, a teacher at J.D. Smith who was given temporary guardianship of Chris Gautier and his sister after the slayings, saw Weber again.
He and Gautier had gone back to the house the family shared on First Street to get some personal items for a memorial service planned for later in the day, Froman testified. They drove in Froman's truck, a Dodge Ram.
They found the gate locked, as the family was being evicted, he said. They tried to pry the lock open with a crowbar, which made a lot of noise. Then the two went into the house carrying police-style nightsticks.
"The door swings open, I walk in a few steps, I turn back to tell Chris to hurry up, and then I'm hit in the head," Froman said.
Whoever had hit him had come from behind the door.
"It knocked me pretty good. It was a solid, hard object," he said. "I fell into the TV, then went forward into the cabinet. As I turned around, T.J. had moved in front of the door, and that's how I knew who it was."
Weber was holding black aluminum baseball bat in his hand, Froman said. The two began fighting, and Froman asked "Why are you doing this?"' he said. "He said, 'I'm going to kill you."'
Froman yelled at Gautier, who still had a nightstick, to hit Weber. Gautier hit Weber three or four times, then "Weber hit Chris with a baseball bat and knocked him off his feet," Froman said.
Froman went to get the crowbar from the truck and challenged Weber.
"I said 'Come get me' to keep him away from Chris," Froman said.
Froman couldn't find the crowbar when he got to the truck, but he did see in his rearview mirror Weber and Gautier coming out of the house.
Weber told him "Give me the truck, or I'm going to go in the house and kill Chris too," Froman said.
At that point, Froman drove into the driveway through the gate and "spun the truck around" chasing Weber, he said. Weber ran back into the house toward Chris, and Froman said he followed and ran into the house.
"At this point I start honking the horn and yelling to call 911," trying to get the attention of residents in the house next door, Froman said.
Froman said he then heard Gautier holler, and found him on the side of the house. He drove to the side of the house, picked Gautier up. They drove around looking for Weber, without success, he said.
Froman was asked how Gautier looked.
"He had blood in both of his eyes and blood coming out of his head in a couple of spots," he said.
"I was scared for Chris. I was starting to feel weak and woozy. I was afraid to drive."
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