Jury Acquits Wills Point Man of Sexual Assault of a Child
John Houston McCloud, Jr. acquitted of sexual assault of a child.
LEGAL NEWS
On August 30, 2022, the Wills Point Police Department arrested John Houston McCloud for sexual assault of a child. After spending 2 days in jail, he was later released from the Van Zandt County jail on $100,000 bail.
According to criminal defense attorney, Mitch Adams (Tyler, Texas), McCloud was accused by his wife’s 14-year-old cousin of having sexually assaulted her. The 14-year-old had been living with her grandmother but was removed by Child Protective Services and then placed in the McCloud home after a month long stay in Terrell State Hospital for anxiety, depression, and attempted suicide. The allegations were made after she had been living with McCloud and his wife for several months.
Adams stated that McCloud was accused of sexually assaulting the young girl one day when McCloud's wife was not present in the home. The accusation was immediately reported to her grandmother, mother, and McCloud's wife that same day and she was taken directly to Hunt Regional Hospital in Quinlan for a sexual assault examination. Some tissues that allegedly contained McCloud's semen was also collected from McCloud's home by the girl's mother.
At the hospital, the girl was examined by a "SANE" nurse, a rape kit was prepared, and the girl's mother gave the tissues she had collected to the SANE nurse. The SANE nurse gave the rape kit and tissue to a Wills Point PD investigator. The investigator, interviewed the girl, the mother, and the grandmother the next day. The grandmother gave the investigator the pair of underwear that the girl wore to the hospital. Adams went on to say that McCloud voluntarily sat for an interview with the investigator and provided an oral swab a few days later for DNA testing. All of the interviews were recorded on the investigator’s body camera. The girl was interviewed at the Child Advocacy Center about a week later and a CPS investigation was conducted.
The DPS crime lab in Garland found no semen on the underwear. It found no male DNA on the girl’s oral swab. It did find male DNA on the girl’s vaginal swab. Using Y-STR DNA analysis, the lab determined that McCloud's DNA profile was the only one out of 16,388 people in its database that matched the male DNA found on the swab from the girl’s private area.
At trial, Adams stated that the girl (now 16) testified consistent with her statement given at the Child Advocacy Center and her mother testified consistent with her prior statements to the investigator. The Wills Point Police Investigator testified, and admitted on cross-examination that she told the CPS investigator that she “didn’t know who to believe.”
Two technicians from the DPS crime lab testified about the analysis done on the buccal (oral) swabs, and one of them confirmed that, despite the lab having possession of the tissues collected by the mother, they were never tested.
In Adam's closing argument to the jury, he emphasized how unlikely it was that McCloud could have done what was alleged, the lack of male DNA on the girl’s oral swab, the lack of semen on the underwear, and the limited number of people (16,388) in the database as compared to the number of people who live in Van Zandt County (about 63,000).
The jury deliberated for about seven hours last Thursday night in the 294th District Court before it found John Houston McCloud not guilty.
No comments were returned by the Van Zandt District Attorney's Office.