Wife, ex-wife take stand

Calm, collected and cheerful, Nicole Guill spent almost six hours on the witness stand Monday, testifying on behalf of her husband in the case where he is charged with felony counts of sexual assault, sexual assault without consent and incest.

The Heron resident showed no emotion as he watched as his wife Nicole testified for most of the day. She confirmed that she spent more than 10 years living with the Guill family has Douglas Guill's live-in girlfriend while he continued to be lawfully married to another woman - the mother of the alleged victim, Candace Guill. Nicole Guill testified to many aspects of her life in Heron, including her relationships with different members of the Guill family, her spiritual beliefs and to any alleged sexual acts.

Douglas Guill's daughter has accused him of sexually assaulting her when she was between the ages of 6 and 22. The alleged victim's name was being withheld. The trial began last Monday with a day-long process of jury selection at the Sanders County Courthouse in Thompson Falls. Opening statements by the prosecution and the defense came the following day.

Nicole Guill has also been charged with felony and misdemeanor counts of sexual assault in her alleged participation in sexual acts with Douglas Guill's daughter. She will be tried at a later date. On Monday, she served as a chief witnesses for the defense, testifying that she spent nearly every waking moment with her husband, which sometimes included using the bathroom together.

Going through some of the specific details, defense attorney Michael Sherwood asked Guill if she ever saw, heard or participated in any of the acts the alleged victim described during her testimony earlier in the trial; Nicole denied all the accusations.

During opening statements, Sherwood explained to the jurors that the case before them was not a matter of “whodunit,” but a matter of whether or not “it happened.”

Candace Guill testified last Tuesday as the prosecution's first witness, breaking into sobbing while describing the room she stayed in and explaining how she was told to hide whenever people came to the house. She said Douglas wanted people to assume that Nicole was his wife.

The alleged victim took the stand Wednesday where she described, in some detail, the alleged sexual acts as they progressed and changed throughout her upbringing. In emotional testimony, she said that her father initially touched her in her private areas when she was 6 and that eventually grew into forced sexual intercourse when she was 8 years old. The alleged victim is 23 now and said she remained quiet during the years of sexual assault because her father had a mental control over her.

“I promised him I'd never tell,” she said. “In some ways I'm glad I did tell, but in some ways I hate it, too.”

The alleged victim said her father told her he would decide who would go to heaven and who would go to hell. She said part of her still felt like he possessed that power, even as she sat in the courtroom Wednesday.

Sherwood's tactic during cross-examination of the alleged victim and her mother were to question them at length about various different aspects of their testimony and highlight whenever there was a perceived inconsistency. The alleged victim has been interviewed many times by many different people, including Sherwood, who illustrated some discrepancies in different statements she has made.

On Thursday, the prosecution called the Sandpoint, Idaho, couple, Terry and Teresa Williams, who took in the alleged victim when she first left her father's home in Heron. The Williams' took the stand to testify on the girl's demeanor and how she acted when she came to live with them. Teresa Williams said the alleged victim was constantly following her around. She described her as nervous, scared and without social skills.

“She didn't know how to act. She didn't know what to do,” Williams said. “I knew she needed help.”

Sherwood called Alisha Black, as a witness Friday. Black described herself as the alleged victim's best friend. She also lived with the girl and said the two had a very close relationship and shared personal secrets. Black said there was a time when the two women disclosed to each other their first sexual experiences. Black said Guill's daughter told her that the first time she'd had sex was with her father and that it happened after she'd had her period. Black's testimony contradicted Wednesday's testimony from the alleged victim's statement, who denied having any such conversation. That conversation would also conflict with the opinion of medical professionals at First STEP Resource Center in Missoula over when injuries to the alleged victim's genitalia most likely occurred.

Mary Pat Hansen, a certified pediatric nurse practitioner, and Dr. Karen Mielke, the medical director at First STEP, both testified that the injury was consistent with pre-pubescent sexual intercourse. The two women could not date the injury other than being certain it was more than three weeks old and they could not be certain that pre-pubescent sexual intercourse was the cause of the injury. They did say, however, that an injury of that kind is commonly found in women who have given birth or in women who have been raped.

Sherwood asked Nicole Guill Monday about allegations that her husband mentally controlled people by telling them he had God-like powers. She said he never spoke of being God or pretended to have Godly powers, but she did say she finds guidance from God in her life. Guill said she considers herself a “born-again Christian,” which she said means that she tries to live her daily life how she thinks Christ would want her to. She said she tries to follow a basic understanding of the Ten Commandments.

During cross-examination, special prosecutor Daniel Guzynski asked her if she knew that committing adultery went against one of the Ten Commandments. Guzynski noted that Guill lived with her now husband for years while he was still married to another woman. He spent several minutes questioning her on why Douglas Guill didn't just file for a divorce so he could marry Nicole since the two were living as a husband and wife.

Nicole Guill said the reason Douglas never sought a divorce was because he'd given his word to Candace that he would remain married so their children could grow up with both parents at the house. But Guzynski wasn't satisfied with the answer and he implied that perhaps the reason was so that Candace would not be awarded half the Guill estate.

Guzynski used the opportunity to attempt to discredit the idea that the alleged victim and her mother had money as a motive for sending Douglas Guill to prison. Candace Guill is currently seeking half the marital estate in a divorce suit, but the decision to award her the money is being appealed. Guzynski asked Nicole Guill why Candace would resort to such an “elaborate plot” to gain her husband's money when she could simply file for divorce. Nicole Guill stuck to her earlier statement that the Guill's had decided to remain married for the kids.

The trial has drawn out for over one week and Judge Deborah Kim Christopher informed jurors that the defense still had a number of witnesses who are scheduled to testify. Sherwood indicated in his opening statements that Douglas Guill would also take the stand to defend himself and deny the allegations he faces.

The defense plans to bring in as a witness the former boyfriend of the alleged victim. However, the man was being detained by law enforcement in Colorado and the defense is still attempting to iron out the details of his transport to Sanders County. The trial will resume at 9 a.m. Tuesday in Thompson Falls.