Man, 44, on trial for sex with 15-year-old

PALMER — Stanley James Edenfield was a family friend, the teenage girl testified at his trial Wednesday.

She said she saw him a lot when he came over to visit and drink with her parents. He picked her up from school when she stayed late, she said. That was last year when she was 15. She’s 16 now. Edenfield is 44.

Later, she testified, after their relationship had turned sexual and it started to feel like they were dating, she said she had to tell someone. She told her best friend.

“We were just talking about boys and it was just bugging me and I needed to tell someone,” the girl, who will not be named due to both a court order and the Frontiersman’s policy against naming rape victims, said from the witness stand at Edenfield’s sexual abuse of a minor trial. “I knew it was wrong.”

Later, her parents caught on, she said. Her father asked her about it. She denied it, but later broke down and told her mother. She said she was reluctant to tell anyone.

“I felt like it was my fault and I didn’t want people to know,” she said.

Edenfield also told her not to tell anyone. He had his own house and three kids.

“He said not to tell anybody because he could lose his kids and all I’m going to do is hurt people,” she testified. “He wouldn’t be allowed to come around anymore and he would lose everything.”

Edenfield was arrested in February and is charged with 12 counts of sexual abuse of a minor in the second degree.

The charge is a class B felony, meaning each count carries a potential penalty of 10 years in prison.

Edenfield’s trial ran Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and is due to resume on Nov. 13. Superior Judge Kari Kristiansen has time on her calendar set aside for it on Nov. 14 and Nov. 15 as well.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270

or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.