CASPER — The adopted daughter of a local foster dad charged with multiple sex crimes against children gave emotional and graphic testimony Friday about how he allegedly molested her for years, including a rape that made her cry out in pain.
It was the third day of testimony in the trial of Steven Randall Marler, 50, who’s facing 26 charges that involve sexual abuse of minors, battery and child endangerment.
Much of Friday’s testimony in Judge Kerri Johnson’s courtroom at the Natrona County Courthouse came from the daughter. She is Marler’s oldest adopted daughter, now 21.
The woman, who Cowboy State Daily isn’t identifying, told the jury that the sexual encounters with Marler started when she was 9 or 10 years old.
One involved an alleged rape where she cried out in pain.
Nine of the 20 sexual abuse minor charges against Marler stem from alleged incidents with her that stretch from Nov. 15, 2012, through Nov. 15, 2018.
In total, Marler is being tried on two counts of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor, seven counts of second-degree sexual abuse of a minor and 11 counts of third-degree sexual abuse of a minor.
The sexual abuse of a minor charges stem from allegations by four adopted daughters.
He also is charged with five counts of battery and one count of child endangerment. The time frame for the allegations spans a decade, from November 2012 to June 2022.
‘Give Him A Massage’
While on the stand Friday, the 21-year-old described sexual encounters that began when she was young, in 2012 or 2013.
She also told how she ended up at the Wyoming Cowboy Challenge youth boot camp with injured feet and underweight, and that the other girls there were shocked when she described her relationship with her dad.
Under questioning by Natrona County Assistant District Attorney Brandon Rosty, she described an incident in the Marler’s Casper Mountain home in the “treehouse bedroom” with other girls in their beds.
She said she did not know if the other girls were asleep or not and that sometimes they kept their heads under their blankets.
While in a bottom bunk bed, she described Marler coming in wearing just his underwear and wanting the girl “to give him a massage.”
The incident led to both being unclothed and Marler performing a sex act on her that hurt.
“I obviously flinched and made a pain sound,” she said. “He immediately stopped and apologized and left.”
Incidents
The woman also told jurors about another incident that involved laying unclothed in bed with Marler in the master bedroom where he took her hand and put it on his sexual organ and had her massage it.
The 21-year-old testified that most of the sexual encounters began with massages.
She told the court about a time when Marler was on top of her while she was naked, and he had his underwear on and made grinding movements that hurt her.
In addition to testimony about the sexual encounters, the daughter testified that she ended up at the Wyoming Cowboy Challenge because she confronted both Marler and his wife Kristen about the physical abuse going on.
She said injuries to her feet were caused by standing so much as discipline, as well as “beatings.”
She also referred to the limited food she got from her adoptive parentsand “being so hungry.”
“Steven no longer had interest in me, and he was moving on to the younger girls,” she said.
The young woman testified she confronted both of her adopted parents about the abuse and threatened to call the police.
After that conversation, she said she was informed by Kristen Marler that she was being sent to the Wyoming Cowboy Challenge in Guernsey.
Camp Life
She said at the camp she found conditions similar to the Marlers where there was a lot of discipline, physical exercise and school, but also positivity. She also saw physicians and therapists for her feet.
“I won an award for gaining weight and for my feet healing,” she said.
While at Cowboy Challenge, she said she was raking leaves with other female students when they all started talking about the relationships with their dads. She said she then spoke about her relationship with hers.
“Some of them started crying and looked horrified, and I didn’t know why that was,” she testified.
The 21-year-old said some of the girls told her to report it to authorities. She didn’t do that immediately because she was afraid that if it got back to Steven and Kristen Marler, they would pull her out of the boot camp.
When she did report it later to authorities at the camp, she said that, “I felt like I couldn’t put it off anymore. I just needed to do it.”
‘They Didn’t Want Me Back’
Defense attorney Devon Petersen during cross examination challenged the young woman’s testimony about disclosing the alleged abuse to girls when talking about their fathers.
He brought up a transcript from an interview with a sheriff’s investigator where the girl stated she revealed it when the girls were talking about “STDs, condoms and human anatomy.”
The adopted daughter also had testified during questioning several times about not knowing the time, because they didn’t have clocks. But Petersen introduced three photos showing the girl wearing a watch.
At the end of the boot camp, under questioning from Rosty, she testified that she called the Marlers and “they didn’t want me back.”
She stayed with Marler’s mother for a time before eventually ending up with her biological mother in Colorado.
An Encounter
The woman also testified that she only saw Marler a couple of times after the boot camp.
On one occasion during a visit to Casper in late May and early June 2022, she described an adopted sister calling her and asking to be picked up at school and that she had not been picked up by the Marlers.
The woman said she picked up the sister, but had nowhere to take her, so she took her to Marler’s business and dropped her off and confronted Marler about needing to take care of the sister.
She said Marler immediately became angry and “started screaming at me.”
Under cross examination, Petersen asked why, when she also had a scheduled interview with a sheriff’s investigator the next day and believed the sister she picked up was also being sexually abused, she just didn’t “go to the cops” instead of take the girl back to Marler.
He also brought out how during the interview with the sheriff’s investigator, the sister and other Marler adopted children were calling the girl.
Under cross examination by Petersen on particulars about past statements, she responded to many questions with, “I don’t remember.”
During his opening statement Wednesday, Petersen said the defense would show that it was the discipline and other issues inside the Marler home that led the adopted children to try and leave by making allegations of sexual abuse.
The trial is scheduled for three weeks with about 60 potential witnesses listed.
In 2013, Marler and his wife were recognized by the federal Administration for Children and Families with an Adoption Excellence Award, one of only three families across the nation to get the award that year.
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
