Kirk Dale Lonas is escorted from court. Lonas is facing 4 charges in all, including two Level 1 felony child molest charges. The trial is expected to wrap later this week.
HANCOCK COUNTY — Hancock County chief deputy prosecutor Aimee Herring stood in front of the jury in Hancock County Circuit Court and told the jurors defendant Kirk Dale Lonas committed horrendous crimes against two children.
Herring made the comments during her opening statement Wednesday morning in the Level-1 felony molest trial against Lonas.
While Herring noted the state would present evidence and allow the jury to hear from the victims about how Lonas had violated the two females who were 12 years old at the time of the incident, public defender Myron Rahn told the jury his client was innocent when he presented his opening statement.
Lonas, 59, 1000 block of King Maple Drive, has been charged with two separate Level 1 felony counts of child molesting and two separate Level 4 felony counts of molesting. Lonas has been accused of molesting two children in Greenfield on multiple occasions at two Greenfield residences from July 2019 through August 2020.
During opening statements Lonas sat at the defense table with his head down as he listened to details of the alleged crimes.
Herring told the jury the mother of the victims allowed Lonas to take on a father figure role with her children, even letting two of her four kids live with Lonas in Greenfield at the Washington Village Apartments while she lived in another state.
That’s the time the abuse of one of the girls started, Herring said.
“It became somewhat a routine — it happened every day, every week,” Herring said of the abuse. “It started when she was 12 years old and her mother was four and half hours away.”
Herring went onto say when the mother and her other two other children eventually moved back to Indiana and moved in with Lonas and the two other children, he began abusing one of the other girls who was also 12 years old at the time.
“Again, the defendant told the girl not to say anything about what he was doing,” Herring said. “Neither child knew what was happening to the other.”
Herring noted officials found out about the abuse when the two girls were taken to the doctors in September 2020.
Rahn on the other hand told the jury his client did indeed take on a father figure role, but was innocent of the crimes he’s been accused of.
Rahn noted claims of child molest only surfaced when the relationship between the victim’s mother and Lonas came to an end after he had seen her hitting her children and threatened to report her to child services.
“You are going to hear some stories and you’re going to hear multiple versions of stories,” Rahn told the jury. “He is an innocent man.”
The morning court session continued with the state calling their first witness, a medical expert who spoke on how officials recognize child abuse and how it’s best for children who have been abused to share that kind of information.
“Victims hold that type of information close to the vest,” the registered nurse said. “What they are struggling to tell us carries enormous power.”
The trial is expected to last throughout the rest of the week.
