Valley man jailed for sex with 15-year-old girl

WASILLA — A 44-year-old man is facing felony charges after Alaska State Troopers allege he had sex multiple times with a 15-year-old girl.

Stanley James Edenfield was a friend of the girl’s family. He would often stay over at her house or pick her up from school, troopers report. The girl told troopers the sex began just before Thanksgiving when she was watching a movie on a couch as her mother slept nearby.

She said Edenfield started touching her, then they had sex.

“Jimmy was calm about it, like it was fine,” she told investigators.

After Thanksgiving, the sex continued, according to an affidavit investigator Sherry Ferno filed in the case against Edenfield, both at her house and at Edenfield’s. At one point he positioned the girl in such a way upstairs in his house that he could also keep and eye on his children through the window.

On Jan. 3, troopers got a warrant to tape a conversation between the girl and Edenfield and read text messages between them. During the conversation, Edenfield assured the girl he’d had a vasectomy and discussed details of the sex they’d had.

In a later conversation the next day, he worried about how he would go to jail for a long time if anyone found out and told the girl he was scared and that he would wait three years for her so they could date when she is an adult.

“Jimmy said a couple of times he tried to say no, that it was not right, but you said you wanted it as bad as I did,” Ferno wrote.

On Jan. 25, according to notes from the proceeding, Edenfield’s sister, Deborah Jordan, appeared in court seeking to be appointed his third-party custodian. She said her brother had brought her up from Georgia where she is a farmer.

“He will return home when he’s exonerated,” she told the court, according to the log notes.

She also seemed to be saying she didn’t believe that Edenfield did what he is accused of doing. She said he’s a good man and his reputation is being ruined.

Superior Court Judge Kari Kristiansen approved Jordan as a third party custodian. According to jail records, Edenfield has posted bail and been released pending trial, which is scheduled for March 26.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.