Devlin convicted of kidnapping Whitefish teen

He was either being a good Samaritan or he was restraining an 18-year-old woman against her will.

That is what a four-man, eight-woman jury had to decide last week in the case of Charles Devlin, the 57-year-old who faced charges of kidnapping a Whitefish woman in May of 2006.

In the end, after deliberating about seven hours, the jury concluded that Devlin was guilty.

Evidence was presented late Tuesday afternoon last week, after attorneys on both sides spent nearly two days selecting jurors who felt they could remain unbiased, despite media coverage surrounding the kidnapping case.

Jurors heard about events that led up to Devlin’s arrest which was made early in the morning May 27, 2006. That was the day Lake County Sheriff’s Deputy Glenn Miller responded to a call made by Rhonda Banik who reported screams coming from a vehicle parked near her vacation home in Woods Bay.

“I heard the most blood curdling cry for help,” Banik told the jury last week, visibly shaken at the recollection. “It was nothing you’d ever forget.”

“Something awful was happening to this person and needed help,” she added.

She immediately dialed 911. The screaming continued as Banik reported to the dispatcher. When she switched on her lights, the screaming stopped.

Miller responded to the call and headed north on Highway 35. Upon approaching the vehicle, the driver stepped out of the van. Miller notified him to remain seated. He noted that the driver smelled of alcohol, his speech was slurred and his zipper of his pants was down. He also had several scratches on him. Asked if he had been drinking, the driver said he had a glass of wine but that the smell was coming from his wife who was passed out in the back.

Miller observed a pile of clothes in the cargo area of the van where the seats were removed. He didn’t see anyone unconscious, though there was a lump under the pile. Suddenly a frantic, screaming, naked woman jumped out from under the heap of clothes. She pleaded with Miller not to leave her and stated that she didn’t know who the driver was.

The woman, identified as 18-year-old Carman Barnet, exited the van and ran off into a wooded area wearing only a bra.

The driver was identified as Devlin who, according to Miller, appeared to be intoxicated. When asked to perform a series of field sobriety tests, he began displaying symptoms of a heart attack. An ambulance took him to St. Joseph Medical Center in Polson where a doctor could not identify any heart ailments. That same day, after Devlin was placed in the Lake County Detention Center, he expressed more chest pains and was Lifeflighted to St. Patrick’s in Missoula. No heart problems where found there either.

Last Wednesday, April 11, in emotional testimony, Barnet erupted in tears when defense attorney Ben Anciaux questioned her recollection of events.

As Barnet recalls, she and a friend went to Bigfork to attend the Whitewater Festival on May 26, 2006, a yearly event that brings kayakers to the Swan River to race the “wild mile” at the height of spring runoff. There, Barnet and friend Shana Funk met with some friends, set up camp for the night and indulged in a bottle of rum before hitting the bars downtown.

Barnet admits to being heavily intoxicated that night and passing out between 9 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. The next thing she remembers is waking up nearly naked in a strange man’s van heading down the highway.

“I remember waking up and specifically wanting out of the van,” she said. “I tried everything I could do to get away from him” — including scratching him across the face.

Anciaux asked if it was possible that her friends removed her clothes and placed her in the back of Devlin’s van after she passed out.

“It’s possible,” she replied “but that’d be ridicules.”

Devlin’s defense was that the girl drank herself into unconsciousness, collapsed in a patch of grass and got soaked in the rain. Her friends then — according to Devlin’s story — found shelter for her in his van, took off her wet clothes and put a blanket over her.

Anciaux further questioned her recollection of events, prompting a heated back-and-forth between the two. At one point she lashed out at the defense attorney after he scrutinized her story for details. She broke down sobbing.

In an outburst of anger, Barnet berated the defendant saying that, even if her friends did place her in the van, he should have notified authorities that there was unconscious 18 year old in his vehicle.

“You call 911!” she shouted and pointed at Devlin sitting at the defense table. “You don’t take someone’s clothes off and drive down the road drunk!”

Devlin’s defense was that Barnet instructed him to take her to Yellow Bay State Park that night after a day of fishing at his secret spot in the Swan. He went to the Garden Bar, a popular downtown hangout which was full of activity that night, due to the festival. There he ordered some food and began talking with some twentysomethings outside under the roof of the bar’s outdoor section. He noticed a girl lying face down the grass somewhere around the vicinity of the bar. He inquired as to who the girl was, and the twentysomethings said it was their friend who had too much to drink. Devlin then offered them several dollars to get the girl’s clothes dry at a Laundromat. In the meantime, he said they could put her in the back of his van.

Later that night, Devlin found the girl “curled up like a little puppy dog” in his Ford Windstar, he said in an interview with Lake County Detective Dan Yonkin that took place seven days after his arrest. The interview was recorded and played before the jury. In that interview, he states that he shook her awake and asked where he should take her. Yellow Bay State Park is where her friends where camping, she told him, shortly before passing out again.

During the ride to her supposed campsite, she woke up, screamed and scratched Devlin across the face. Sometime along the way, he pulled over, presumably around Banik’s Woods Bay home. This was around 3 a.m., around the time Banik reported the screams.

Devlin claims that the girl was frantic, but got her to calm down when he told her where he was taking her.

Barnet’s story is radically different.

“I remember him yelling ‘Shut up bitch. Sit back and shut up,’” she said during her testimony.

Anciaux speculates that Devlin’s verbal lashing was a result of the scratch.

“You were trying to hurt him, correct?”

“Yes,” she replied.

Barnet also remembers Devlin preventing her from jumping out of the van. Anciaux asked if the Ford Windstar was in motion at the time, and if it was possible he was trying to protect from leaping out of a moving vehicle.

She couldn’t recall.

Barnet maintained all along that she never told him to take her to Yellow Bay. She said that she didn’t have friends camping there, let alone know where it was located. Her campsite was at a tent by the Swan River at the power plant park in Big Fork.

Shana Funk recalls running into the defendant at the Garden Bar with her drunk friend in tow. In her testimony, she remembered Devlin, clad in a tie die T-shirt and khaki, shorts approaching the two women and delivering a peculiar line.

“I remember him saying ‘You girls look like alpha females,” she said.

She didn’t know what it meant, but she took it as a pick-up line. The next time she saw her friend was about 5 a.m. after Flathead County authorities picked her up at her tent and took her to Kalispell to the Sheriff’s office to file a report with Barnet.

Shortly thereafter, Barnet and Funk went back to Bigfork and partied through the weekend.

“You go back to the campsite after this horrific thing happens to you?” said Anciaux during closing arguments. “The victim herself is not so affected by this that she cuts a party weekend short.”

A rape test administered by Flathead County authorities revealed that Barnet was not sexually assaulted. Anciaux stated that if his client had something malicious planned, he had plenty of time to do it.

Deputy county attorney Mark Russell argued that Devlin is not the good Samaritan he claims to be. In the recorded interview with Yonkin, Devlin seemed affable and talked at length about his favorite fishing hole. He depicted himself as a harmless old man and provided folksy, homespun musings.

“I have ‘John Wayne syndrome,’” he told Yonkin. “You never hurt a woman, kid or dog.”

He also claimed that his drinking days were over because he was allergic to alcohol, and his medical condition rendered him impotent.

“I have no use for sex,” he said. “I’ve got other stuff to do anyway.”

He laughed about the kidnapping charge and referred to the fact that his van doors were unlocked.

“Now what kind of self-respecting kidnapper would keep the doors unlocked?” he asked.

Devlin maintained that he was simply trying to reunite a young woman with her friends at her request. But Russell believed this to be a lie. He pointed out that Devlin waited seven days to give his side of the story — plenty of time to concoct an elaborate alibi.

“Charles Devlin is no hero,” he told the jury during closing arguments. “Sheriff’s Deputy Glenn Miller and Rhonda Banik are heroes.”

If Devlin was really trying to help Barnet, why didn’t he tell Miller about the unconscious girl in the back of his van?

“Instead, he calls her his ‘wife,’” said Russell. “What part of any of that shows a good Samaritan?”

Devlin faces two to 10 years on the charge of kidnapping and six months for obstructing a peace officer. He was acquitted of felony DUI and failure to provide proof of insurance. Sentencing is set for May 24.