Witness in murder trial: Perez sexually abused her, younger sister

The older sister of a girl Daniel Perez slept with in a master bedroom of his North Oliver compound and allegedly sexually abused for years told jurors that she, too, had sex with the man she called Lou Castro “several hundred times” against her will.

Her younger sister would later call 911 on June 26, 2003, with a story of how 26-year-old Patricia Hughes had slipped and drowned in the property’s outdoor pool while trying to rescue her toddler.

Perez is being tried in Sedgwick County District Court on 37 counts, including the first-degree murder of Hughes, multiple child sex crimes and directing that false information be put on car loan and life insurance applications. Prosecutors say Perez manipulated members of his communal “family,” foretelling their deaths and convincing them they would return to Earth in an elaborate scheme to collect huge life insurance payouts without coming under scrutiny.

He also had a sexual appetite for young girls, numerous witnesses have testified.

Perez’s attorney has painted the 55-year-old as a welcoming man who was blamed for the falsified applications when law enforcement began investigating his household.

The trial continues Thursday at 9 a.m. in Judge Joseph Bribiesca’s courtroom. The state is expected to rest its case when court resumes. Defense attorney Alice Osburn then will present witnesses to the jury.

In testimony Wednesday, the older sister described the communal household where she, her younger sister, mother and other people lived as dominated by Perez, who was often angry and “always carried a gun.”

He would dictate who left the house and when and what they would do because, she said in testimony, “he was in charge.”

The woman, now 30, said she was 17 when her mother divorced her father and moved to a west Wichita townhome to be close to a man she knew as Lou Castro, an alias used by Perez. She said her mother described him as a “seer” – “like an angel” – and a protector “who would take care of us.”

Her younger sister was 10. Later, the family would move into houses on a 20-acre property north of Kechi with Perez and others in the entourage that followed him from state to state and lived off of life insurance proceeds from the deaths of others in the group.

Like her mother, people in the nearby community viewed him as kind, the woman testified. Kids and families – even police officers – were invited to and frequented the property, known as Angels Landing, according to testimony earlier in the trial.

But the woman testifying Wednesday and others who claim sexual abuse at Perez’s hand say his behavior was anything but angelic.

“His ability to take a life was different. He just really had that demeanor about him. He had that fear that he put into you,” the woman said.

“If you didn’t do what he said, there would be consequences.”

The Eagle is not naming the woman or her sister because they say they are sex assault victims.

‘Take me to purgatory’

In an effort to illustrate the severity of Perez’s anger and the extent of the alleged sex abuse, the woman told jurors of one night when Perez ordered her and her younger sister to undress and sit on bar stools in a building by the pool. He was upset over a spat between the sisters.

“He told me if I didn’t start acting right, he was going to take me to purgatory,” she said.

He was carrying a gun in a holster on his hip that night. He also was carrying “an M-16,” the woman testified.

“He shot it at my head. Twice,” she said, because she wouldn’t stop crying. The bullets lodged in a desk drawer.

After the shooting, Lou ordered her, her sister and another woman to walk nude to a nearby house where he sexually assaulted the young girls, according to the woman’s testimony.

She testified that she was afraid and didn’t want to have sex with Lou but that he forced her. If she didn’t comply, he would threaten to kill her father, she said.

The woman described her younger sister’s interactions with Lou as intimate – “like they were in a relationship” – but said she never questioned the sleeping arrangement or told her mother because with Lou, “you don’t ask questions.” Her sister, she said, was “his favorite.”

She also didn’t ask questions when Lou told her to film an 8-year-old girl changing into a bathing suit so he could see whether she carried a special birthmark that would indicate whether the girl’s family would be the next to join the communal household. Nor when Lou told her to destroy a computer hard drive and throw it into the compound’s lagoon.

The day Hughes died, she didn’t ask questions, either, she said. She merely complied when Lou told her to get into a vehicle and drive to a west Wichita car dealership. He met her there, only to receive a frantic phone call moments later, saying there had been an accident involving Hughes back at the house.

The woman got a call, too, she testified. Hers was from her younger sister, saying “Trish” was dead.

The sisters never discussed Hughes’ death after that. Eventually, she said, she went to law enforcement after Perez was jailed on federal charges and after her then-boyfriend sent an e-mail about Angels Landing to the FBI.

In other testimony, the woman said that she, like other members of Perez’s communal family, filled out applications for car loans that contained false income and employment information. His name was never on the documents, but he always decided what cars to buy, she said.

Asked by District Attorney Marc Bennett why she complied with Perez’s requests, the woman repeatedly said: “Because Lou told me to.”

“The amount of fear he held over me all those years was indescribable. He scared me to death. He took so much from me.”

In an attempt to discredit the woman’s testimony, Osburn pointed out inconsistencies between her statements Wednesday and the testimony she gave when a preliminary hearing was held for Perez in 2012.

The woman in 2012 said she was 18 or 19 during the shooting incident. Thursday she said she was actually 23 at that time. In 2012, she also testified that the bullets hit a wall rather than a desk drawer.

She explained the mistakes, saying she was not good at recalling dates. She also said that repeated rapes are “something you try to forget.”

This story was originally published February 11, 2015 at 1:33 PM with the headline "Witness in murder trial: Perez sexually abused her, younger sister."