Slain Girl's Mom Fights Tears On Witness Stand

CINCINNATI -- The mother of a slain 13-year-old girl fought back tears and had to stop briefly to regain her composure Monday as she testified against the man on trial in her daughter's killing.

Lisa Kenney frequently held a hand to her forehead or chest and clutched at a necklace, weeping quietly when she identified her daughter's watch and iPod. Authorities say they found the items in the possession Anthony Kirkland, 41, who is charged with aggravated murder and other counts in the slayings of Kenney's daughter, Esme, and 14-year-old Casonya Crawford.

Kirkland was to have been tried in the slayings of both teens and two women, but he pleaded guilty before the trial started last week to murdering the women - Mary Jo Newton and Kimya Rolison.

Lisa Kenney, with a strained face, recounted the last time she saw her daughter and her frantic search when the teen didn't return from jogging the afternoon of March 7, 2009. Esme had asked if her mother wanted to go. But Lisa Kenney said she was cleaning and thought it would be OK to let her go alone since the area by the nearby reservoir was "kind of like our own backyard."

"If anything, I felt like I was too protective," she said.

About 30 minutes later, Kenney said she was down on her knees scrubbing when an overwhelming feeling came over her that "something is wrong."

Running out of the house barefoot, Kenney said she went to the reservoir area, where she spotted a pair of men's jeans with a mini-blind cord in one of the pockets and became more alarmed. She searched the nearby woods, crawling at times through thick underbrush.

She later found she had only been a few yards from her daughter's body.

After running home to call her husband and police, she returned to the reservoir and nearby woods to continue her panicked search.

When she saw her husband and police had arrived, she returned home and began calling everyone she knew, trying to help the search. Later that night, she and her husband were asked to identify the watch and iPod that police said they found on a "person of interest."

After identifying the items again Monday, she put her head down in her hands and began to cry on the witness stand.

The family didn't know more until a relative called early on the morning of March 8, saying that the media was reporting their daughter had been found, she said. Kenney said she didn't give up hope until police showed up at their door with a chaplain a couple of hours later.

When asked to identify her daughter's photo Monday, Kenney said with a breaking voice: "It's my baby - Esme Louise Kenney."

Kirkland showed no emotion throughout Kenney's testimony or as she was helped from the stand and then escorted outside by some of the more than 30 family supporters who packed the courtroom.

Several police officers testified about finding Kirkland sitting against a tree near the reservoir with some knives sticking out of his pocket. They said they discovered the watch and the iPod bearing the teen's name. Kirkland said he had found the items.

They told of eventually finding the teen's body in a wooded area not far from where they found Kirkland. She had been strangled and her body burned.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in each of the teen's deaths. The bodies of Crawford, Rolison and Newton also were found in secluded areas and burned.

Crawford and the two women were killed in 2006, authorities have said. Prosecutors say Newton and Crawford were strangled and Rolison was stabbed in the neck.

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