Man charged with child molestation

More than four years after 6-year-old Melissa Larkin and her mother were stabbed to death in their Spokane apartment, the man she knew as “Papo” has been charged with molesting the girl.

Clifford James Grogan, 65, pleaded innocent Thursday in Pend Oreille County Superior Court to first-degree child molestation.

Grogan’s court-appointed attorney, Tim Trageser, said Grogan denies not only the alleged molestation but the double-homicide – in which police have long considered Grogan a suspect – and a number of other alleged, but uncharged, sex crimes.

Among the uncharged allegations listed in court documents, Grogan is accused of impregnating the 11-year-old daughter of a girlfriend and of repeatedly raping a female relative.

Spokane police said in a court document filed in 2003 that Grogan’s wife, Harriet Grogan, told detectives her husband left their home early on Nov. 24, 2001 – the day Samantha Bowyer and Melissa Larkin were murdered – and, when he returned, he said he had “done something awful,” something that would put him “away for life.”

Police also said two witnesses described seeing a pickup similar to Clifford Grogan’s in the alley behind Bowyer’s apartment on the night she and her daughter were killed. A search of Grogan’s truck was hampered because he struck a semitruck on Dec. 6, 2001, and bled profusely in his mangled vehicle.

Trageser arranged a hearing next Thursday to challenge the $500,000 bail that Superior Court Judge Al Nielson set, as well as the judge’s order preventing Clifford Grogan from having contact with his wife or from returning to their Colville-area home.

Charging documents list Harriet Grogan as a potential prosecution witness, but Trageser predicted she will testify in support of her husband.

The molestation with which Grogan was charged last Friday is alleged to have occurred between June 1 and Nov. 1, 2001.

“There is a serious lack of evidence that he was involved in either of these cases, the murders or the alleged child molestation,” Trageser said. “In fact, there is evidence to the contrary.”

Trageser declined to elaborate on the evidence he said would show Grogan didn’t molest Larkin or kill her or her mother, 25-year-old Samantha Bowyer.

Bowyer had been married to Grogan’s stepson, Ronald Bowyer – who was Melissa’s stepfather. Ronald Bowyer is Harriet Grogan’s son.

Bowyer will testify that Clifford Grogan admitted in March 2003 that he “molested” Melissa, according to court documents.

Spokane County Deputy Prosecutor Kelly Fitzgerald filed the molestation charge in Pend Oreille County because the Grogans were living in that county when the crime allegedly occurred at their home in Cusick. Fitzgerald is acting as a Pend Oreille County special deputy prosecutor.

Melissa Larkin had been staying in the Grogans’ home along with her stepfather’s sister, Sandra Holloway, who had temporary custody of the girl. Court documents say Melissa told Holloway that Clifford Grogan had been “touching my privates.”

State law might allow Holloway to present that hearsay testimony because the alleged victim can’t testify. But Trageser said he will oppose that as well as any testimony about uncharged allegations of sexual misconduct – which Fitzgerald might seek to present as evidence of a pattern of conduct.

According to the police affidavit Fitzgerald filed in Pend Oreille County, Grogan was sentenced to 18 years in prison when he was 30 – for molesting an 8-year-old female relative. He molested the victim again and had sex with her after his release, the affidavit states.

The document says Grogan’s felony convictions include: attempted second-degree rape, indecent liberties and attempting to elude police.

Potential witnesses listed in the document include a former girlfriend who police say will testify that her 11-year-old daughter had an abortion after Grogan got the girl pregnant in the 1970s. The alleged victim, now almost 40, also is listed as a witness.

Another potential witness is a female relative of Grogan’s, who reportedly would testify that Grogan raped her repeatedly when she was 3 to 13 years old.

Court documents say the woman, now in her 50s, also told police Grogan killed a kitten and a pet rabbit in front of her and told her she would die the same way if she told anyone what he had done.

Two other female relatives, also now adults, were raped or molested by Grogan, but they are too afraid of him to testify, according to police. One of them is the victim who Grogan was convicted of molesting.