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A group of strangers have seen the most intimate, embarrassing and private details of a woman they may never meet.
They sit in judgment over Arlan and Linda Kaufman. The jurors have watched the woman on videotape naked: showering, crawling around barking like a dog, and working on a farm. She's a central figure in the accusations of sexual abuse that have continued through the third week of the Kaufmans' trial at the federal courthouse in Wichita.
But because of the woman's mental illness, U.S. District Judge Monti Belot must decide if she will testify. He could rule as early as today. Belot denied efforts to prevent the testimony of another man in a similar situation.
The defense is trying to call the witnesses. The Kaufmans' lawyers have argued that the mentally ill residents at the Newton home voluntarily acted out bizarre sexual behavior as a result of their disorders -- not on orders from the Kaufmans.
But on Thursday, a social worker now caring for the 49-year-old woman said testifying could push her into hurting herself or others.
Angela Lee said that, when the woman received a subpoena in September, she reverted to behavior rarely seen since leaving the Kaufman House. The woman, who had been improving for nearly four years since leaving Newton, exhibited signs of increased depression and delusions.
"She began barking like a dog," Lee said of the patient, who is not identified under an Eagle policy of not naming potential victims of sexual abuse.
Lee testified by telephone after Belot dismissed the jury for the day.
The woman's father moved her to an Indiana facility after 15 years at the Kaufman House.
Lee said the woman suffers from schizophrenia, anorexia and borderline personality disorder. Schizophrenia causes chronic confused and disordered thinking, making it hard to distinguish what's real from what's imaginary. Anorexic patients have such an intense fear of gaining weight that it can cause malnutrition. Borderline personality disorder produces emotional instability and unpredictable outbursts.
When the woman moved from the Kaufman House, she wouldn't eat for the first week.
"She talked about seeing demons on the wall," Lee said. "She was extremely emaciated.... She burned herself with cigarettes."
Lee said that, over the next three years, the woman's anorexia entered remission. She started winning the right to take trips outside the treatment center. She seemed to be moving toward life in her own apartment.
Lee said the woman again began talking of demons on the wall. She began burning herself.
"She lit matches at a gas station," Lee said. "She threatened to burn the building down."
Lee said she doesn't think the woman can understand or follow the witnesses' oath to tell the truth.
"She sometimes thinks she is God," Lee said. "She thinks she is Satan. She doesn't believe the laws apply to her."
Lee told Tom Haney, Arlan Kaufman's lawyer, that the woman can adequately recall her life at the Kaufman House. Lee said the woman might suffer less trauma if lawyers questioned her in a private deposition that could be recited or replayed in court.
Thursday, Belot ruled that another former Kaufman House resident may testify under similar circumstances. The man may have his therapist and a lawyer present. Belot put time limits on the lawyers' questioning and said the Kaufmans could not attend.
Arlan Kaufman, who holds a doctorate in social work, has claimed nudity allowed residents to come to terms with poor body image and sexual dysfunction.
Experts in mental health have testified there's no accepted basis for those claims, and that Kaufman's tactics were potentially harmful to vulnerable people in fragile mental states.
T. Walton, detective with the Newton police, told the jury about going to the Kaufman House to forcibly take another woman in the spring of 2004.
When Walton told the woman she was leaving: "She actually did a little dance on the front porch."
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