CASPER — Whether Steven Marler, a former award-winning foster father, abused multiple children either sexually or physically is in the hands of a jury, which began deliberations Tuesday after nearly two weeks of sometimes graphic and emotional testimony.
Natrona County District Court Judge Kerri Johnson took 45 minutes to instruct the jury in the morning on the now 17 charges Marler faces — 11 involving varying degrees of sexual abuse of a minor, five of battery and one of child endangerment. The incidents behind the charges are alleged to have taken place between Nov. 15, 2012, and May 25, 2022.
Natrona County Assistant District Attorney Brandon Rosty and defense attorney Devon Petersen spent about 90 minutes each Tuesday summing up their cases for jurors.
Jurors also again heard an audio clip from Marler taken in an interview where an investigator asked if he ever touched his foster or adopted daughters sexually.
“I guarantee I did not touch those girls. I did not molest those girls,” he said.
In the clip, Marler also says prayed for a foster daughter who had lost her father to suicide.
“I was either on the side of the bed or I may have laid down beside her,” he said.
Rosty emphasized that the prosecution’s evidence showed jurors that Marler tried to groom his adopted daughters by doing “daddy” massages with them and then moved on to committing acts of sexual abuse with some of them when his wife was not in the home.
Evidence Review
Rosty talked about video evidence taken from cameras initially placed in the Marler home after an investigation in 2016 into the alleged sexual assault on a foster daughter between May 31, 2013, and April 17, 2014. He reminded the jury that the DVR was erased and that it was only extracted in January 2025,but corroborated testimony of the Marlers’ adopted children about the culture of the home.
He also said an expert witness had talked about how sexual assault victims delay their disclosure of abuse by an average of 2 1/2 years.
Testimony showed the oldest adopted daughter did not disclose her sexual encounters with Marler until she was at the Wyoming Cowboy Challenge homeduring a conversation with girls about their relationships with the boys, Rosty said.
The defense argued that the disclosure came because the girl did not want to return to the Marler residence.
Rosty said it happened through a conversation, and the reaction of the girls to it was unexpected.
“This is a natural disclosure she wouldn’t know what would happen,” Rosty said.
Rosty also went over the other charges that involve battery and children endangerment, recounting the testimony of a daughter who said she was punched in the face and two adopted sons who corroborated the account. He also reminded jurors of the testimony of the three sons — one who told about being kicked off a roof while shoveling snow.
Petersen countered that the prosecution had not proven its case and talked about specific allegations of sexual assault in bedrooms with other girls present and questioned whether his client would have done that knowing the other girls could wake up.
He told jurors an allegation involving one of Marler’s adopted daughters who said that Marler assaulted her on a couch while one of Marler’s biological daughters slept on it as well should also be questioned.
“Would that make any sense?” he asked.
Defense Argument
Petersen argued that all of the sexual charges come from a desire of the adopted children to leave the home. He said when the oldest adopted daughter made the allegation at the Wyoming Cowboy Challenge home, it provided a strategy for the other adopted children as well.
Sexual abuse allegations of the foster daughters which are alleged to have occurred between 2013 and 2014 were initially investigated in 2016 by the Natrona County Sheriff’s Office and the Marlers were cleared, Petersen said.
Petersen also charged that the NCSO investigator in the case acted more as an advocate, and that she told one of the daughters that “your case would be much stronger if we had other cases to send up.”
Petersen pointed out that during an initial interview, one of the foster daughters told an investigator in the 2013-2014 incident with her in which Marler allegedly took her into his bedroom and removed her pants and assaulted her that Marler’s wife was in the room.
“She changed her testimony at trial,” Petersen said. “All the state has is these stories.”
Petersen reminded the jury that they need to ask the question: “Can I say beyond a reasonable doubt that it happened?”
Petersen also pointed back to the testimony of a Denver counselor who has worked extensively with foster children and testified that children taken from a home manipulate things because they have lost control of their lives.
He said the Marler children, the girls and the boys, wanted out of the home and the accusations represent “revenge.”
“It’s reason for them to make things up,” he said.
Petersen conceded the video showed the culture of the home during COVID, and that the adopted children were teens and that the Marlers were struggling.
“They have a desperate need to control the situation,” he said. “But he is not charged with that.”
He said the children after the allegations and after being pulled from the Marler home had group counseling and communicated on social media and had ample time to develop their stories.
“There is no proof any of this, because it did not happen,” Petersen said.
‘Brazen’ Defendant
In rebuttal, Rosty turned again to the video evidence and characterized Marler as “brazen” in walking out to a mattress, sitting on a daughter’s face and then getting a massage.
“He was counting on (the fact) his daughters would never come forward and tell what happened,” he said.
Rosty said told jurors some of the testimony by the various children on the home and events was not all the same because memory is “messy” and “truth is messy” and based on the experience and perspective of the individual.
Rosty reminded the jury a couple of times about the testimony of one of the adopted daughters who recounted Marler’s words as he allegedly assaulted her.
“I know I shouldn’t love you like this, but I do,” Rosty quoted the girl’s testimony.
Meanwhile, one member of the 16-member jury panel reported sick on Tuesday and Johnson dismissed three others — two women and man — prior to deliberations. The resulting 12-member panel considering the case includes seven men and five women.
In 2013, Marler and his wife, Kristen, 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.
The couple adopted eight children under their care, four boys and four girls, after entering the role of foster parents in 2008.
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
