Jury delivers verdicts in Brittany Rouleau's sexual assault trial
Editor’s note: This news story contains information about child sexual abuse. If you know or suspect that anyone under 18 is being sexually or physically abused, call the Texas child abuse hotline at 1-800-252-5400. To learn more about how to identify signs of child abuse or neglect, click here.
A Wichita County jury on Friday convicted Brittany Ann Rouleau of aggravated sexual assault of a child and sentenced her to 60 years in prison.
Rouleau, 38, was being held Friday evening in Wichita County Jail, according to online jail records.
She was charged in October 2020 with sexually assaulting a male relative in 2018 when the boy was about 12 years old.
In closing statements in 89th District Court, Assistant District Attorney Brooke Grona-Robb said the victim was manipulated and groomed by Rouleau to engage in sex with her.
“The child, when he was 11 or 12, was victimized by this woman. ‘C’mon, let’s do it,' she said,” Grona-Robb told jurors.
Assistant DA Chelsea Carlton said the boy “lost his childhood by hands that were supposed to protect him.”
She said the boy “went through a horrific event.”
“This is not a tough decision,” she told the panel.
But defense attorney Lee Ann Marsh said the case came down to, “He said, she said.”
“If there was any evidence, you would have it,” she said. “You have no evidence of any kind.”
Marsh said the prosecution did not call any Child Protective Services investigators to the stand to bolster their case, and she ticked off inconsistencies between the boy’s statements to a Patsy’s House Children's Advocacy Center interviewer and his testimony on the stand.
“Nothing lines up in this case,” she said.
The jury had the option of acquitting Rouleau or convicting her on a lesser charge of indecency with a child. Once they convicted her on the sexual assault charge, they could have sentenced her to up to life in prison. She could become eligible for parole in 30 years.
During the punishment phase, prosecutors called a former Clay County deputy and an EMT to the stand to talk about a March 24, 2023, incident. Kenneth Dewayne Douglas, 57, was stabbed to death at a house in Petrolia.
Both men testified they found Rouleau, who was out of Wichita County Jail on bail at the time, covered in blood at the house.
The EMT told the jury that Rouleau rode in his ambulance and said, “I’m scared. This isn’t good.”
Rouleau was charged with Douglas’ murder and awaits trial on that charge in Clay County. Her bail for the unrelated murder charge is $600,000.
The week-long Wichita County trial was marked by many objections by attorneys and visits to the judge’s bench. That brought an admonition from 89th District Judge Charles Barnard for the lawyers to work things out and keep the trial moving.
After the jury was dismissed, Carlton read a statement from the victim to Rouleau: “I ask you why you did what you did. . . . I hope you do your time and think of what you did to me.”
After the verdict, the DA's Office issued a press release that said, "Today, prosecutors with the District Attorney’s Office stood before a Wichita County jury and forcefully requested that jury send a clear message that children in our county are not to be abused. They were successful."
More on the trial: Defense lawyer: Rouleau was the victim, not perpetrator in sex assault
More on Rouleau's trial: Judge: 'Work things out.' Prosecution, defense joust in woman's child sex assault trial
This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: Jury delivers verdicts in Brittany Rouleau's sexual assault trial
