Webb trial starts in Webster County | News, Sports, Jobs

A Webster County jury heard the opening arguments from the attorneys and testimony from the state’s first witnesses in the trial of a Fort Dodge man accused of sexual abuse on Wednesday afternoon.

Jordan Deeandrew Webb, 30, was arrested in April 2022 and charged with second-degree sexual abuse with persons under the age of 12, a Class B felony; incest, a class D felony; and child endangerment, an aggravated misdemeanor.

The charges came following an investigation by the Webster County Sheriff’s Office and Webster County Attorney’s Office that was prompted by “some health concerns involving a juvenile,” the WCSO reported at the time.

During the investigation, a search warrant was executed at 1940 225th St. in Webster County, which is owned by Harvest Baptist Church and is used for its Harvest Baptist Bible College. Harvest Baptist told The Messenger that Webb was neither a student or an employee of the college or church.

Webb was initially held on a $500,000 cash-only bond, but successfully argued that amount was “punitive” and the bond amount was reduced to $75,000.

The case finally went to trial on Tuesday with the start of jury selection. It took the parties until Wednesday afternoon to sit a jury of 14 — five men and nine women. The attorneys then had their opportunity to give the jury their opening statements.

“This is a unique case,” Assistant Webster County Attorney Bailey Taylor said in her opening. “What you’re going to quickly see is that we can’t judge people on what is portrayed to us in the outside world always.”

The defendant, she said, “seemed like a perfectly normal guy” until a “gruesome discovery” was found last spring.

Webb’s alleged victim, who will be known as Jane Doe, was diagnosed with gonorrhea. The Messenger does not identify victims of sexual assault.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gonorrhea is a “very common” sexually transmitted disease that infects the mucous membranes of the reproductive tract, mouth, throat, eyes and rectum.

Just days before Jane Doe was diagnosed, Webb was also diagnosed with gonorrhea, Taylor said. The state alleges that Webb committed a sex act on the victim, infecting her with the STD.

Taylor said that during the trial, the jury will hear from Dr. Regina Torson, an expert in child abuse pediatrics with UnityPoint Health – St. Luke’s Child Protection Center in Hiawatha.

“Non-sexual transfer [of gonorrhea] is rare,” Taylor said. “[Torson] has seen thousands of children … and she’s encountered it a total of six times — out of thousands.”

In the defense’s opening statements, attorney Dean Stowers told the jury that there’s “not one single study that’s ever been done” about the prevalence of non-sexual transmission of gonorrhea.

“Mr. Webb is absolutely, 100% not guilty,” Stowers told the jury. “There will not be one witness that shows up to say Mr. Webb ever committed a sex act with [the victim]” or that he ever acted “inappropriately” toward Jane Doe.

Stowers said that when the alleged victim was examined by medical professionals, there were “no indications of any trauma.” He noted that during the investigation, Webb cooperated fully and answered all questions from law enforcement, including “embarrassing questions about prior relationships with people outside his marriage.”

“At the end of this case, the evidence is going to show that there is no knowledge of when, there is no knowledge of where, there is no knowledge of how [the victim] contracted the infection,” Stowers said.

The jury also heard from Shannon Fecher, an advanced registered nurse practitioner with UnityPoint Health — Fort Dodge, who had done the initial examination, testing and diagnosis for Jane Doe; and Webster County Attorney’s Office Investigator Larry Hedlund, who interviewed the defendant prior to his arrest in April 2022.

Testimony from the state’s remaining witnesses will begin this morning before the defense is given its opportunity to call its witnesses before the jury.

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