A Parker County jury convicted a former Springtown resident for repeatedly molesting a girl when she was 8 to 9 years old and sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole in a recent trial in Weatherford.
Calvin Wilson Graves, 66, now of Plano, was charged with continuous sexual abuse of a young child in an offense that occurred in 2013-14. In 2019, the girl told her mother what had happened. The mother then reported the abuse to a Springtown Police Department officer who referred it to the Parker County Sheriff’s Office for investigation pursuant to an interagency agreement.
In her testimony at trial, the girl told jurors that Graves used his relationship with her family to gain access to sexually abuse her around 40 times. She told jurors about specific instances of abuse that she recalled, including taking her from her ninth birthday party over to his apartment under the guise of giving her a present. Instead, he molested her.
“This was an awful sexual abuse case that had a profound impact on a young girl,” Swain said. “Mr. Graves betrayed the trust that the victim’s family had in him in order to perpetrate his crime.”
Jurors deliberated for over two hours before finding Graves guilty, including spending time reviewing the statement that he gave to the investigator.
“In our closing argument, we pointed out some of the inappropriate things that Mr. Graves said,” said Assistant District Attorney Kathleen Catania, who tried the case for the prosecution with Assistant District Attorney Travis Warner. “He claimed that this 8 year old little girl was infatuated with him and came on to him sexually. He said he had to admonish her for touching his genitalia. He told the investigator that this third grader told him that, if they lived in another county, they could be together. His statements were just absurd and, we thought, showed his guilty conscience.”
Warner said the girl was brave to come forward.
“I’m sure that the jury saw and heard the same things during the trial that we did, which was that, once she disclosed what Mr. Graves did to her, she was detailed, credible, and consistent in her descriptions,” he said.
During the trial, testimony elicited by prosecutors showed that the victim had to be hospitalized after she attempted suicide in the wake of the abuse. She has since received medication and been through extensive counseling through the Children’s Advocacy Center of Parker County.
“It is important that people know that the delayed disclosure in this case is actually the norm rather than the exception,” Swain said. “Most child sexual abuse cases nationwide come about because of an outcry that does not occur contemporaneously with the abuse.
“Our trial team did an excellent job on this case. I also want to thank the jury, investigators with the PCSO, counselors at the CACPC for their work with our victim, and the victim and her family for bearing with us during the delays we had during the COVID pandemic.”
There is no parole for defendants convicted of continuous sexual abuse of a young child, so Graves will have to serve the remainder of his life in prison, Catania said.
The case was tried in the 415th District Court, Judge Graham Quisenberry presiding.
