By Ryan Calvert
First Assistant Criminal District Attorney, &
Liz Buice
Assistant Criminal District Attorney, both in McLennan County
On March 18, 2024, Mary Doe[1] walked into the Waco Police Department (WPD) to report a crime that she never expected would be prosecuted. Mary told Detective Bradley Delange that she wanted to report a sexual assault that had occurred more than 10 years earlier, and she knew that the matter was beyond the statute of limitations.[2] But Mary felt she needed to make a report for her own healing and to help any other victims who might be out there.
That conversation launched a two-year nationwide sexual assault investigation into a man named Anthony Odiong, a serial rapist whose weapon was neither force nor fear, but faith. Odiong, a Catholic priest, sexually abused multiple women over 15 years by exploiting their devout Catholic faith and his own position.
We ultimately indicted him for sexually assaulting three of those women, Mary Doe, Abbie Williams, and Jane Doe, between the years of 2008 and 2011 in McLennan County. While those crimes occurred beyond sexual assault’s normal 10-year statute of limitations, the crime has no time limit for prosecution if probable cause exists to believe that the defendant has committed the same or a similar sex offense against five or more victims.[3]
On June 2, 2026, the case culminated with convictions on three counts of sexual assault, and prison sentences of life, 20 years, and 20 years, as well as fines totaling $30,000.
Anthony Odiong’s case offers lessons on relentless police work, creativity in charging decisions, the importance of mastering procedure and evidence rules, and courtroom advocacy. We write this article with the hope that the case’s lessons might help police and prosecutors secure justice for victims and accountability for offenders who might otherwise be overlooked.
Mary’s story
Mary initially sought spiritual counseling from Odiong to help navigate trauma from her recent divorce from an abusive husband and the stress of being a newly single mother to several children. Odiong gradually introduced physical contact into their counseling sessions, which escalated until the two eventually had a full sexual relationship that lasted for years.
Detective Delange focused his investigation on proving sexual assault under §22.011(b)(10) of the Texas Penal Code, which states that sex is legally without consent if the defendant “is a clergyman who causes the other person to submit or participate by exploiting the other person’s emotional dependency on the clergyman in the clergyman’s professional character as a spiritual adviser.”
Mary and Odiong’s sexual relationship ended in 2011 when three of Mary’s children walked in on them having sex. Mary told Delange that her son, Peter,[4] then 14 years old, ran to a neighbor’s home and reported what he had just seen. That neighbor happened to be Dr. Todd Still, Dean of Baylor University’s Truett Seminary. Thus, faculty and administrators at Baylor, where Mary worked, quickly became aware of the incident.
In 2012, Odiong was reassigned to Rome, Italy, and then in 2015, he received a new assignment at a parish in Luling, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans.
Mary spent years believing that she was the only woman with whom Odiong had ever had sex. Then, in February 2024, she saw two news articles in The Guardian newspaper describing sexual misconduct allegations by at least two women against Father Odiong and a lawsuit filed by one of those women against the Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans.[5] Mary read the articles and, to her horror, initially thought that she was reading about herself. At that point, she decided to make a police report.
Relentless police work
What Detective Delange knew (that Mary did not) was that sexual assault has no time limit on prosecution if probable cause exists to believe that Odiong committed similar acts against five or more victims. In addition to Mary Doe, Delange knew from The Guardian articles that there were at least two other women. He contacted the attorney in the articles who filed the lawsuit against the New Orleans Archdiocese and asked her to forward his contact information to the women the articles described. That’s how he met Hadassah Doe, who lived in Ohio, and Jane Doe, a Waco-area resident who called the attorney after seeing The Guardian articles.
In Hadassah’s case, Odiong instructed her to perform sex acts on him in exchange for receiving absolution for her sins. In Jane’s case, she sought counseling from Odiong on how to save her failing marriage. Odiong told Jane he could repair her marriage while simultaneously escalating his physical contact with her. She confided in Odiong that she and her husband had a long-running argument over his desire to have anal sex and her persistent refusal. Odiong instructed Jane that her duty was to submit to anal sex with her husband and that afterwards, she needed to report the details of the experience back to him.
Mary, Hadassah, and Jane gave us probable cause for three victims, but we could not prosecute without discovering at least two more.
These three women all reported that Odiong had frequently communicated with them through text, email, and Facebook, so Detective Delange secured search warrants for the priest’s Apple iCloud, email, and social media accounts. Delange and fellow detective Zach Koenig then began the tedious process of sorting through literally hundreds of thousands of Odiong’s communications over more than a decade.
Their enormous effort paid off. In Odiong’s emails, Delange discovered sexually explicit messages between the priest and a fourth woman, Waco-area resident Abbie Williams. The emails occurred prior to Odiong’s 2012 departure from McLennan County to Rome and made clear that Odiong and Williams shared a lengthy sexual relationship that was also very spiritual in nature.
To Abbie’s stunned surprise, Detective Delange contacted her in the spring of 2024 and asked to interview her about Odiong. Like the other women, Abbie was a devout Catholic who sought spiritual guidance from the priest to help process abuse she suffered in childhood. As she shared her difficulties with him, he continually told her how beautiful and insightful she was, gave her extended hugs and kisses, and eventually progressed to engaging in sex with her.
In Odiong’s iCloud account, Delange also found two images among the more than 20,000 photographs that stood out to him. One was a close-up photograph of a pre-pubescent child’s vagina. The other was of what appeared to be a female child’s breast. No other pornography existed in Odiong’s account and Delange had no information about how or why Odiong came to possess those images. However, the detective knew that Odiong still regularly visited Waco, including long after those images were saved from his phone. Delange felt that those two images at least amounted to probable cause to arrest the priest for possessing child pornography in McLennan County. Delange hoped that arresting him on that charge may advance the larger sexual assault investigation.
Following the articles in The Guardian, Odiong had been relieved of duty by the New Orleans Archdiocese and he moved to Florida. On July 16, 2024, Delange and a team of United States Marshals travelled to Florida and arrested Odiong at his home. Delange also secured a warrant to search his cell phone.
Detectives Delange and Koenig continued their painstaking search for evidence by reading tens of thousands of text messages and emails in the phone. That exhaustive process led to the discovery of the all-important fifth victim, Presley Jones. Presley was one of Odiong’s parishioners in Luling, Louisiana. Odiong’s texts with her made clear that 1) Presley was a devout Catholic, 2) Odiong was her spiritual director, and 3) the two were engaged in a secret sexual relationship. Shockingly, the texts also revealed that Presley had a young daughter, born in 2023, and that Odiong was the child’s father.
So Delange, Koenig, and WPD Victim Assistance Coordinator Melissa Beseda travelled to New Orleans to meet Presley Jones. She was terrified to speak with them about Odiong and was distraught throughout the interview. Presley described how Odiong first kissed her as she gave him her confession at church. Things progressed to a sexual relationship and Presley became pregnant, giving birth to their daughter in 2023. After meeting Presley, Delange and Koenig realized that Odiong’s phone contained photographs of Odiong, wearing his priestly vestments, performing the baptism of his own daughter in church with Presley and other members of her family looking on.
Delange and Koenig took DNA samples from Presley, her daughter, and Odiong himself. Laboratory DNA testing later confirmed that Odiong was indeed the father of Presley’s child.
Delange also found text messages between Odiong and another New Orleans congregant, Lisa Smith, that suggested a relationship beyond priest and parishioner. In late 2024, Delange and ADA Liz Buice (one of the co-authors of this article) travelled to New Orleans to interview Lisa, who confirmed that Odiong kissed and sexually touched her, but she denied ever having sex with him.
With statements from Mary Doe, Hadassah Doe, Jane Doe, Abbie Williams, and Presley Jones, we now had probable cause that Odiong had sexually exploited five parishioners.
Delange executed a search warrant for records from the Catholic Diocese of Austin, which Waco is within, and obtained similar records from the New Orleans Archdiocese. The diocesan records showed that while Odiong was the priest at Saint Peter’s Catholic Student Center in Waco, three female Baylor University students complained to church officials about him inappropriately touching and flirting with them. Delange tracked down those three women, Margaret Doe, Judith Doe, and Miriam Doe. Despite the passing of 15 years, all three remembered well their interactions with Odiong.
Church records also showed that the Austin Diocese was made aware of the 2011 incident when Mary Doe’s children caught their mother and Odiong having sex. Mary’s son Peter recanted his statement about what he had seen when interviewed by church officials. Thus, no formal church action was taken against the priest in 2011.
Detective Delange also interviewed Dr. Todd Still, who had lived down the street from Mary Doe back in 2011. Dr. Still confirmed that his 14-year-old neighbor Peter banged on his door one evening exclaiming, “I just caught the priest f—ing my Mom!” Dr. Still immediately reported the incident to Baylor University’s Chaplain, Dr. Burt Burleson.
Delange and First Assistant DA Ryan Calvert (the other co-author of this article) then interviewed Dr. Burleson, who explained that shortly after hearing from Todd Still, he confronted Odiong and told the priest that he knew about the sexual relationship with Mary Doe. Dr. Burleson also told Odiong that he was going to report the matter to the Austin Diocese. In response, Odiong smiled and said, “We are but men.”
Creativity in charging decisions
We indicted Anthony Odiong in 2024 for sexually assaulting Mary Doe, Jane Doe, and Abbie Williams in McLennan County. (The remaining two victims, Hadassah Doe and Presley Jones, had been assaulted in other jurisdictions.) All the charged crimes occurred prior to 2012, which is when Odiong left Waco for Rome. Thus, each indictment contained the following language alleging a statute of limitations exception:
And it is further presented that probable cause exists to believe that the Defendant has committed the same or a similar sex offense against five or more victims, resulting in the above-described offense(s) having no statute of limitations.
Mary Doe’s indictment alleged two counts: Count One charged Odiong with penetrating Mary’s vagina with Odiong’s sexual organ without her consent. Count Two alleged penetration of Mary’s mouth with Odiong’s sexual organ without her consent.
Abbie Williams’s indictment alleged that Odiong penetrated Abbie’s vagina with his sexual organ without her consent.
Odiong never had sexual intercourse with Jane Doe. Instead, Jane’s charge stemmed from Odiong using his position to cause Jane to submit to anal penetration by her husband, despite her repeated expressions that she did not want to. Under Texas law, Odiong is criminally responsible for the penetration of Jane’s anus if it would not have occurred “but for” Odiong’s conduct.[6] Jane made very clear that she would never have consented to anal sex with anyone but for Odiong’s spiritual instructions to do so. Thus, Jane’s indictment alleged that Odiong caused the penetration of Jane’s anus by another person without her consent.
We felt that Odiong deserved more than the 20-year maximum penalty normally carried by adult sexual assault charges. Unfortunately, when Odiong committed his crimes in 2008 to 2012, Texas law did not allow stacking of sentences for multiple adult sexual assault charges.[7] Fortunately, though, the law provided another solution.
The second-degree felony charge of sexual assault becomes a first-degree felony if the victim is someone whom the defendant was legally prohibited from marrying or purporting to marry by §25.01 of the Texas Penal Code (the bigamy statute).[8] Abbie Williams and Jane Doe were both married to their husbands when Odiong sexually assaulted them and thus could not have legally married Odiong. Consequently, Abbie’s and Jane’s indictments contained language that they were people whom Odiong was legally prohibited from marrying or purporting to marry, which enhanced those cases to first-degree felonies, punishable by five to 99 years or life in prison.
Procedure and evidence rules
While the case was pending, Presley Jones (whose daughter Odiong fathered) became uncooperative and would not respond to emails or calls. We secured out-of-state subpoenas for both Presley Jones and Lisa Smith, the other woman in New Orleans whom Odiong had kissed. When we went to New Orleans, we tried to locate and serve Presley, including by staking out her home day and night. We also spoke to her neighbors, visited (and were asked to leave) her mother’s workplace at a very famous restaurant in the French Quarter, and contacted her sister. Finally, we enlisted the help of some great prosecutors and investigators in the DA’s Office in Jefferson Parish. Unfortunately, Presley eluded all our efforts to locate her.
We could not secure her testimony at trial but found a different way to get her story in front of the jury. While in New Orleans, we met again with Lisa Smith. Lisa knew Presley Jones and could identify her as a member of Odiong’s congregation. That testimony, coupled with DNA results proving Odiong’s paternity of Presley’s daughter, was sufficient to prove probable cause for statute of limitations purposes. It also made great evidence under Texas Rule of Evidence 404(b) and at punishment.
In addition, Mary Doe’s son, Peter, had never spoken to law enforcement about what he witnessed that day when he was 14. Detective Delange learned that Peter, now an adult, lived in Portland, Oregon. In February 2025, he and Ryan Calvert travelled there to find and interview Peter.
Because we wanted a genuine reaction from him about Anthony Odiong, we deliberately did not warn him that we were coming. Peter worked at a business near downtown, and we walked into that business with two uniformed Portland police officers and asked to speak with Peter, who was standing behind the counter. Peter was clearly stunned to see us and had no idea who we were or why we were there. We asked Peter to step outside.
As we stood on the street, Delange explained to Peter that we were from Waco and wanted to talk to him about Anthony Odiong.
Peter immediately began to cry.
Delange asked, “Who is Anthony Odiong to you?”
Through tears, Peter said, “He’s the priest I caught f—ing my mom!”
We knew then that Peter would be powerful witness.
One concern we had during preparation was that a largely Baptist jury pool may not grasp how a Catholic person’s relationship with a priest is different from what typically exists between a Protestant minister and congregant. Within the Catholic faith, the priest administers sacraments that convey God’s grace to the parishioner. For example, priests are vested with the power to absolve the parishioner’s sins through the sacrament of reconciliation, also commonly known as confession. We worried that, without a clear understanding of that relationship’s power imbalance, jurors might see Odiong’s behavior as merely sex between consenting adults.
To address those concerns, we wanted to call a Catholic priest as an expert to explain a priest’s role, spiritual power, and authority over Catholic faithful, and to show jurors that Odiong’s behavior is neither consistent with nor condoned by church doctrine. We found out that a friend in law enforcement had a good relationship with a high-ranking priest in another Texas city. Through channels, we reached out to that priest and explained what we needed. Within a few days, a response came with a list of four names of priests we should contact. All were high-ranking, very experienced, and highly respected. Ultimately, we chose Monsignor John Paul Kimes as our expert priest for trial. When we explained our need to educate McLennan County jurors on how a Catholic priest differs from a Protestant minister, Msgr. Kimes immediately responded, “I grew up in Alabama. I speak Baptist!”
We also feared that jurors would be judgmental of Mary Doe and Abbie Williams for willingly having sex with Odiong for years. We wanted to help jurors understand how a clergyman could manipulate intelligent, educated women into behavior that they knew was inappropriate. A local professor at Baylor University referred us to another researcher with whom he has worked, Dr. Hermina Nedelescu of the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego. Dr. Nedelescu is a neuroscientist and trained theologian. She studies maladaptive behaviors and how clergy abuse causes victims to experience severe trauma-induced dysregulation, keeping them in an abusive cycle.
When we spoke with Dr. Nedelescu, she knew about Odiong’s case from news coverage. As we described the case’s particular facts to her, she became excited and spoke about how our victims’ behaviors are very consistent with the research on how clergy abuse effects adults. Dr. Nedelescu explained how the same negative reinforcement patterns that trap people in drug addiction also apply to clergy sexual abuse victims. The brain seeks relief from negative experiences such as pain, depression, or fear. The drug (or in this case, positive, faith-affirming, or hope-giving moments with a priest) provide temporary relief from those negative states. The brain rewires to keep going back to that source of comfort because of the extreme discomfort the body is in.
Finally, we were blessed in this case with expert witnesses who were also fact witnesses. Dr. Todd Still, to whom Mary Doe’s son initially reported Odiong’s behavior, has been a minister for decades and is the longtime Dean of Baylor University’s Truett Seminary. As a professional minister, Dr. Still was horrified by Odiong’s behavior and distraught about the damage such conduct inflicts upon ministry as a whole.
Similarly, Dr. Burt Burleson, who confronted Odiong after learning of the Mary Doe incident, was Baylor’s Chaplain, Dean of Spiritual Life, and a pastor for more than 30 years. He had written his doctoral thesis on maintaining appropriate boundaries as a pastor in a counseling environment. Burleson gave us a copy of that thesis, written in 1994, in which he literally wrote that when a pastor engages in inappropriate behavior with a congregant, he cannot excuse it by simply saying, “We are but men”—the very words Odiong spoke to Burleson when confronted about Mary Doe.[9]
Courtroom advocacy
We were more concerned about voir dire than any other phase of trial. Odiong’s case presented several issues that we felt would likely result in numerous jurors being struck for cause. For example, in Mary Doe’s and Abbie Williams’s cases, we were prosecuting Odiong for physically consensual sex between two adults. We knew that some jurors would not convict of sexual assault under those circumstances, regardless of the law’s clergy provision.
We noticed that the sexual assault statute’s provisions governing clergy and mental health service providers are right next to each other, have identical structures, and are the only two provisions in that law written in such a way. So, to help jurors understand and accept the clergy law’s principle in voir dire, we sought to bootstrap it to the mental health services provider law.[10] Early in voir dire, Ryan asked the panel whether anyone could think of a profession in which clients commonly develop emotional dependencies on the professional.
“Therapists,” a juror immediately said.
He asked the juror to explain, and she responded that counseling patients share their innermost vulnerabilities with a therapist. That puts the therapist in a position of power and trust, and patients can develop strong dependencies on therapists.
He asked the panel if they agreed with the juror’s assessment. Everyone did. I then asked if any other professions created a similar dynamic.
“Clergy,” another juror immediately responded.
Ryan asked the panel whether they agreed. The vast majority did, but some did not. Those jurors who disagreed were struck.
After that discussion, he told the jurors about the clergy provision in the sexual assault statute. Discussing the principle before the law gave us a more accurate read on how particular jurors felt about the issue.
After explaining the law, he sought to challenge for cause any jurors who would not convict a clergyman of sexual assault if the sex was physically consensual, even if the evidence proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the clergyman exploited the victim’s emotional dependency. A significant number of jurors were struck for cause on that issue.
Additionally, in Jane Doe’s case, Odiong was charged with sexual penetration physically performed by Jane’s husband, rather than by Odiong. We knew jurors might struggle to convict a defendant for sexual assault when he was not even present when the sexual penetration occurred. Ryan put photographs of Elon Musk, Coach Bill Belichik, President Abraham Lincoln, Osama Bin Laden, and General George Patton on the screen and asked jurors what those men had in common.
“They’re leaders,” a juror replied.
He asked whether those men “caused” real events to occur. Everyone agreed they had. He next asked whether those men physically did those events themselves. For example, was Bill Belichick throwing or catching passes for the New England Patriots? Was Abraham Lincoln firing a musket in the Civil War? Was Elon Musk personally piloting rockets into space? All jurors agreed that even though these men did not physically perform those acts, they caused the events to occur by giving orders and direction.
Once the panel was comfortable with that concept, Ryan discussed “but-for causation” under Texas law.[11] That discussion led to several other challenges for cause on jurors who would not convict a defendant of sexual assault unless he physically performed the sexual penetration, even if the evidence proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant’s conduct caused that sexual penetration without the victim’s consent.
Third, because Odiong was not a convicted felon, he was probation-eligible on his sexual assault charges. Probation for sex crimes is a concept that jurors often struggle with, so Ryan gave the jury panel some hypothetical scenarios illustrating the infinite range of facts that satisfy sexual assault’s legal definition but are far less “scary” than typical sexual assault scenarios.
We also anticipated that the defense would try to challenge jurors for not considering probation when a defendant faced multiple sexual assault charges. So, before voir dire began, we seized the opportunity to provide the court and the defense with the coolest-named piece of caselaw in history, Shot With Two Arrows v. State, which holds that a juror’s inability to consider probation for multiple charges “is inconsequential because the juror must only be able to consider the minimum sentence in an appropriate case, not … multiple convictions for separate offenses.”[12] Preemptively giving that caselaw to the court neutralized the multiple-charge issue before it happened.
In the end, 56 out of 100 prospective jurors were struck for cause, and we felt good that the seated jurors were committed to following the law.
At trial, we wanted to seize upon the “primacy effect,” which is a well-researched psychological phenomenon wherein people better retain the first information they receive, begin making up their minds about issues almost immediately, and tend to stick to an opinion once it is formed.[13] We decided to lead off with two of Mary Doe’s children, including her son, Peter. Both children described the period from 2008 to 2011 as a turbulent time for their family because Mary had recently divorced their abusive father. The kids also testified that their mother leaned heavily on her devout Catholic faith to navigate those troubles and that Mary sought counseling from their family’s priest, Father Odiong.
Then both children emotionally described walking into Mary’s bedroom and finding Odiong having sex with their mother. Peter admitted that in his statement to church officials in 2011, he falsely recanted his report of catching Odiong with Mary because he feared his mother might lose her job at Baylor.
Then Msgr. John Paul Kimes, while wearing the collar of a Catholic priest, beautifully explained to jurors how a priest is literally a conduit of grace between God and a Catholic parishioner, how priests are granted power to absolve sins, and how priests are never, ever “off duty.”
Thus, very quickly and without subjecting Mary Doe to cross-examination, jurors learned that:
• Mary was a deeply faithful Catholic in a traumatic situation;
• she sought help from Odiong as her priest;
• priests can wield enormous influence over their parishioners;
• two witnesses saw Odiong having sex with Mary; and
• Odiong essentially confessed to having sex with her.
Because Msgr. Kimes was so effective in describing the powerful role priests can play in Catholics’ lives, we called Jane Doe immediately after him. Jane’s testimony was heart-wrenching. She described her desperation to save her failing marriage and how she sought spiritual counseling from Odiong specifically for that purpose. Jane confided in him about how she and her husband fought for years over his desire to have anal sex and her steadfast refusal to do it.
Jane, who had children, testified that Odiong asked her whether it sometimes hurt when her babies breastfed.
“Yes,” Jane replied.
Odiong then asked whether Jane would ever have denied her children nourishment just because it hurt, or would she have called police on her children for causing her pain?
“Of course not,” Jane replied.
Odiong then told Jane that it was the same with her husband. He instructed Jane that she and her husband were one flesh and that she must submit to anal sex with her husband and then report back to him what the experience was like.
Jurors openly wept as Jane described her pain from being anally penetrated and how she endured the experience by repeatedly telling herself, “I wouldn’t call the police on my babies.”
Jane testified that she returned to Odiong a few days later, still bleeding from her anus, and told him how awful the experience was. Odiong responded by laughing and telling her that it was “good for her humility.”
Statute of limitations
Prosecutors are not required to address the statute of limitations unless the defense raises the issue.[14] If the defense does raise it, then prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the case is not time-barred.[15]
Odiong raised the limitations issue in a pretrial motion to dismiss. Significantly, the limitations exception in Odiong’s case is that “probable cause exists” that he committed similar acts against five or more victims.[16] For decades, courts have held that prosecutors can establish probable cause through hearsay.[17] Courts have also consistently held that hearsay evidence is admissible to a jury if the defense makes probable cause an issue at trial.[18]
At a pretrial hearing, Odiong’s defense team refused to waive the statute of limitations claim and stated their intention to raise the matter in front of the jury. We responded that the defense had now made the existence of probable cause of five or more victims an issue before the jury, so hearsay evidence was admissible to prove probable cause, with appropriate limiting instructions. The trial court agreed.
To show probable cause of sexual exploitation beyond Mary Doe’s and Jane Doe’s testimonies, we also called Lisa Smith. Lisa identified Presley Jones from the photograph of Presley, her daughter, and Odiong at the baby’s baptism. Then we called Melissa Beseda, the Victim Assistance Coordinator with WPD who helped interview Presley. Melissa explained that she met Presley and her baby in New Orleans. Because hearsay was admissible, Melissa told jurors how Presley re- ported that Odiong kissed her during confession, and he eventually progressed to having sex with her, resulting in a pregnancy and the birth of her daughter. We further presented DNA confirmation that Odiong fathered Presley’s child.
We also called Detective Koenig to prove probable cause. He testified that he travelled to Ohio and interviewed Hadassah Doe. Koenig relayed Hadassah’s report that Odiong was her priest and that he required her to perform sex acts in exchange for absolution of her sins.
When it came to Abbie Williams, she was by far the most fragile of Odiong’s victims. In each meeting with her, Abbie never wavered in how Odiong had taken sexual advantage of her, but she was truly terrified of testifying in a public courtroom. Abbie was also married and, even right up until trial, her husband remained unaware that she had been sexually involved with their family’s priest for several years, despite our repeated offers to help her talk with him.
Because of Abbie’s anxiety, we subpoenaed her to arrive at the courthouse prior to voir dire so she could be sworn in and ordered by the judge to return for her testimony. She arrived as scheduled, entered the courtroom, and was sworn. She then left the courtroom and nearly collapsed with a panic attack in the hallway.
The following day, Abbie did not return to court and even disappeared from home without her cell phone. We initially planned to issue a writ of attachment to have police find her and bring her to court. However, due to her tenuous emotional state, her status as a sexual assault victim, and two other charges to proceed on, we decided not to issue what amounted to an arrest warrant for her.
Therefore, our only option was to dismiss Abbie’s case. Ryan worried that dismissing one case mid-trial might damage jurors’ views of the other two cases, but Liz immediately knew how to handle it. She called DA Investigator David Parkinson to testify and had him explain that Abbie was under subpoena, that she had appeared in court and was sworn in, and that she had gone on the run without her phone. In front of the jury, Liz presented our dismissal to the judge and explained that we were not willing to arrest Abbie and force her to testify due to her fragile emotional state.
Then, with the case dismissed, Liz established probable cause that Abbie was another victim by having Investigator Parkinson give hearsay testimony about Abbie’s statements that Odiong was her priest and took sexual advantage of her for years. Liz and David completely neutralized what could have been a disaster.
Following closing arguments and two hours of deliberations, the jury convicted Odiong on all remaining counts. In a special issue, jurors also found that Jane Doe was a person whom Odiong was prohibited from marrying under the bigamy statute, thus enhancing that charge to a first-degree felony.
Punishment
In the punishment phase, we called two of the three Baylor students who had complained about Odiong in 2010 and 2011. The women, now in their late 30s, recalled their shock and discomfort at their priest telling them how “hot” they were, touching their buttocks, kissing them on their face, and once nibbling on one woman’s ear.
We also felt that Odiong’s secret 3-year-old daughter was a reason his punishment should be severe. Even though Presley Jones did not testify, evidence showed that she was raising Odiong’s daughter as a single mother, and both Presley and the child were living without the support a father would normally provide. Melissa Beseda, the Waco PD Victim Assistance Coordinator, testified that when she and the detectives were in New Orleans, they noticed that Presley did not have a proper car seat for her daughter. Melissa and the detectives went to the store and bought one for her with their own money.
To further highlight Odiong’s failure to support his child, we called the McLennan County Jail’s commissary administrator, who testified that Odiong spent more than $20,000 on phone calls from the jail since his arrest in July 2024.
For Odiong’s part in punishment, the defense called a psychologist who testified that he assessed Odiong and found him to be at low risk to reoffend. However, on cross-examination, that psychologist agreed that Odiong showed narcissistic traits, conceded that the priest had lied to him during their assessment by denying having any children, and acknowledged as a mental health services provider that having sex with those you counsel is “highly illegal.”
The defense also called a few character witnesses who testified about what Odiong has meant to them as a priest. On cross-examination, we asked whether they had been giving Odiong money since his arrest. They had. We then asked whether Odiong had ever asked them to send money for the support of his daughter. He had not, and they, of course, had no idea he had a daughter.
In closing arguments, we asked jurors to send a message that would echo all the way to Rome that Anthony Odiong must never again have the chance to manipulate or exploit women. “Someday he will answer to God,” Liz Buice said, “but today, he answers to the 12 of you.”
In less than two hours, jurors assessed the maximum possible punishments on all charges.
Immediately following the trial, we received phone calls from Abbie Williams and Presley Jones. Both women apologized for lacking the strength to testify, and both emotionally thanked us for holding Odiong accountable. We heard obvious relief in the voices of both women when we spoke to them after the trial. Abbie in particular sounded lighter and more at peace than we had ever heard her.
Conclusion
This case illustrates the age-old expression that “where there is a will, there is a way.” Mary Doe had no idea when she walked into the Waco Police Department that she was kicking off a chain of events that would, without question, spare more women from becoming sexual assault victims. Because Detective Delange was on duty that day, Mary’s courageous act grew into justice for other women across our country.
Our great hope is that the example of Odiong’s case helps police and prosecutors deliver justice to often-overlooked adult victims of clergy sexual abuse, and to bring accountability to the perpetrators. Vulnerable people simply must be able to safely trust pastors with their fears and struggles. Odiong’s case, we pray, reminds ministers that violating the trust of those whom they serve carries real and potentially severe consequences in Texas.
[1] All victims will be referred to by the pseudonyms used in the case.
[2] Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art. 12.01(2)(E) states that sexual assault of an adult typically has a 10-year limitations period.
[3] Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art. 12.01(1)(C)(ii).
[4] A pseudonym.
[5] www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/22/ catholic-priest-texas-anthony-odiong-new-orleans and www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/07/new-orleans-archdiocese-anthony-odiong-gregory-aymond.
[6] Tex. Pen. Code §6.04.
[7] Note that, as of September 1, 2025, adult sexual assault sentences can be stacked. Tex. Pen. Code §3.03(a)(2-a).
[8] Tex. Pen. Code §22.011(f).
[9] “We are but men” is a biblical reference to Acts 14:15.
[10] Indeed, clergy members are included in the statute’s definition of “mental health services provider.” Tex. Pen. Code §22.011(c)(4)(E).
[11] Tex. Pen. Code §6.04.
[12] 64 S.W.3d 606, 607 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2001, no pet.).
[13] Susan Belmore & Michael Hubbard, “The Role of Advanced Expectancies in Person Memory,” Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 53, 61–70 (1987).
[14] Proctor v. State, 967 S.W.2d 840, 844 (Tex. Crim. App. 1998).
[15] Id.
[16] Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art. 12.01(1)(C)(ii). This change to the statute of limitations was passed as an amendment to another sex crime bill (HB 189 in 2015), and it was written by Rob Kepple, then-Executive Director of TDCAA. It was known as the “Bill Cosby rule” after his scandal broke.
[17] Mohr v. State, 488 S.W.2d 81, 82 (Tex. Crim. App. 1972).
[18] Livingston v. State, 739 S.W.2d 311 (Tex. Crim. App. 1987); Murphy v. State, 640 S.W.2d 297, 299 (Tex. Crim. App. 1982); Lillard v. State, 994 S.W.2d 747, 752 (Tex. App.—Eastland, 1999, no pet.); Cacy v. State, 901 S.W.2d 691, 701 (Tex. App.—El Paso, 1995, pet. ref’d).