A 14-year-old girl walked into a Bartow courtroom on Thursday and passed by the man accused of the September 2021 murders of four of her family members at their North Lakeland home.
After taking the witness stand for a “child hearsay” hearing, she answered questions from the prosecution and the defense as the defendant, Bryan Riley, sat silently in handcuffs at the defense table.
He faces a possible death sentence if convicted of first-degree murder charges and various other crimes in connection with the homicides.
The defense wants the trial judge to throw out evidence in two interviews with the girl conducted by Polk County sheriff’s Detective Brittany Wright, arguing her mother coached her on what to say and she received gifts including an art set and an iPad from the Sheriff's Office for answering the detective’s questions.
No evidence for the claim that the mother coached the girl was presented in an earlier hearing on April 3, including the nature of the conversation and whether others heard the conversation, Circuit Judge J. Kevin Abdoney said in summarizing the earlier proceeding.
Therefore, the court in the 10th Judicial Circuit could not determine the reliability of the child’s hearsay statements without knowing more about the circumstances surrounding the interviews, he said in his recap.
Eventually, Abdoney will have to decide if the recordings can be played at trial. It was not clear Thursday when that decision would be made. He said after the lawyers presented their arguments in court that he was taking their positions under advisement and he would listen again to the interviews.
The girl was age 11 during the violent rampage. She had suffered multiple bullet wounds and was recovering days after the attack at Tampa General Hospital, where a detective visited her and conducted the interviews.
She is a key witness for the prosecution because she was in the home when shots were fired, killing four people and the family dog.
The dead are Justice Gleason, 40, his girlfriend Theresa Lanham, 33, the couple’s 3-month-old son, and Lanham’s mother, 62-year-old Cathy Delgado. Delgado was found in a small home behind the main house. Gleason and Lanham were found in the main house, with Lanham holding the baby.
'Nana, Mama told me to lie'
Pamela Freeman, the girl’s grandmother, lost her son, a 3-month-old grandson and daughter-in-law in the violent attack and was the first witness called at the hearing.
Freeman said she came forward with information to the prosecution that her granddaughter may have been coached by her mother on what to say on the witness stand.
The conversation in Freeman’s laundry room in April or May 2022 was months after her granddaughter completed physical therapy to regain her ability to walk.
“She said Nana, Mama told me to lie on the stand,” Freeman said, answering Assistant State Attorney Lauren Mikaela Perry.
“And I immediately said ... you can't do that. That's wrong.”
“And she said, I know Nana, that's why I'm telling you.”
That ended the conversation with the girl and the subject was never brought up again because she was OK with her granddaughter's response, Freeman said.
Under cross-examination, Assistant Public Defender Rachel Roebucka asked Freeman where the conversation happened and Freeman said again, it was in April or May 2022.
The testimony of the young survivor
After Freeman, the girl took the witness stand and Perry asked her whether she understood the difference between the truth and a lie.
“A truth is whenever you are being completely honest and a lie is when you are not being truthful at all,” the girl said. She also affirmed that saying something that is truthful is real versus not real.
What can happen if you tell a lie when you are under oath in a courtroom?” Perry asked.
“You can get in a lot of trouble,” the girl said.
Perry then asked her to describe the conversation with her mother.
“I think it was a couple months after I got out of the hospital," the girl said. "And, um, I cannot remember what we were doing and where we were at. I just remember she asked me joking, you know, if you lie he will get as much time as possible, and she just laughed it off. And it wasn’t like anything serious.
"So it was not anything that I actually took into my mind: 'Oh, I am going to do that.' You know what I mean. It was just a big joke.”
She also told the court the conversation occurred after leaving the hospital and her statements to the detective were about what she remembered and not what someone else told her to say.
At issue: the gifts to the child
The proceedings then shifted to gifts the Sheriff's Office gave the girl after each day of the two days she was interviewed from her hospital bed.
"I don't know what your honor makes of this, but in both of the statements the child was given gifts by the Sheriff's Office," Roebuck said. She added that the art set seems to be appropriate but there were additional gifts.
"She is given an iPad and AirPods, which I find kind of bizarre," Roebuck said. "I don't know if this is normal behavior by the Sheriff's Office, but frankly this irked me.
"I think it is definitely not best practice to give gifts to witnesses when you are trying your best to obtain neutral, objective factual information from them. And an 11-year-old girl is old enough to appreciate how expensive those gifts are and also more susceptible to being − maybe not on purpose − but manipulated by someone being nice to her than an adult might be."
Roebuck also argued that if the situation were reversed and the defense sent the girl gifts, that would be a big problem. She also noted there was at least one significant difference in the day-two statements that suggested during her alleged kidnapping that Riley had used her as a "shield."
The girl was recalled to the witness stand and could not recall the contents of an art set and did not remember if the Sheriff's Office helped her set up the iPad by creating an Apple ID for her. She did recall getting Christmas gifts also for about two years.
Discrepancies in testimony?
The other parts of the arguments were similar to those presented by both sides in April. Perry had asked Abdoney to accept the interviews as evidence because the girl was credible and truthful and the prosecution had called the detective to help corroborate the girl’s credibility.
But in April, Assistant Public Defender Julie A. McNeill countered, saying the girl was on pain medication during her recovery from gunshot wounds and her mother had encouraged her to ask for a second interview. McNeill also cited discrepancies in the girl’s statements to the detective.
She gave two versions of who was shot first in the house, McNeill said. And the girl had said that Riley had called a friend who came to the house during the standoff when no such friend was there.
Perry argued that the girl had heard deputies outside the home who had responded to the incident and, considering she had been shot multiple times, she might have believed sheriff’s deputies voices were from someone else.
The prosecutor also said the girl was consistent in saying who was shot regardless of the order they were killed and “did not intentionally lie.”
McNeill argued that, with the girl potentially being called as a state’s witness during the trial, precedent exists in case law that would not allow both her statements as a witness and the audio interview. Allowing both can add to the risk of confusing the jury and were “needlessly cumulative” and could lead to “improper bolstering.”
The indictment
A grand jury handed up a 22-count indictment on Sept. 21, 2021, containing four first-degree murder charges, attempted first-degree murder, kidnapping, aggravated child abuse, two charges of burglary, seven charges of attempted first-degree murder on a law enforcement officer, animal cruelty, arson and four charges of shooting within an occupied dwelling.
The defense filed its intent to pursue an insanity defense on April 8, 2022, claiming Riley might have known what he was doing but did not understand the consequences nor what he was doing was wrong at the time of the offenses, court records show.
If Riley is found not guilty by reason of insanity, the trial would end without a penalty phase. The State Attorney's Office is pursuing the death penalty against Riley.
Another status hearing has been set for Sept. 20 at 10 a.m. Jury selection for Riley, 35, of Brandon is scheduled to begin on May 19, and his trial is set to begin May 27. If found guilty, a penalty phase would start. The jury could then recommend a death sentence if eight of 12 jurors agree capital punishment in this case.
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