DA says young victim looked upon Duffer as father figure

He was supposed to be the father figure that an 11-year-old boy, new to Tennessee, never had. Instead, he became an apparent child rapist who carried on a secret and manipulative sexual affair with a boy 20 years his junior until, after two years, the boy finally confessed all to his mother and authorities.

That is the story prosecution attorneys and witnesses presented on the opening day of the trial of Jeremy Duffer, 36, who has been charged with seven counts of child rape and a host of other sex crimes all stemming from his alleged relationship with an unidentified boy.

Life was not easy in 2001 when a recently divorced working mother, along with that boy, moved to Hermitage.

If raising a child single-handedly was not difficult enough, the mother’s job also kept her on the road. When she was home, a lack of a washer or dryer in her modest home forced her to take the family laundry to a local Laundromat.

It was there, according to her, that she and her son — then 10, now 16 — first met Duffer, who worked at a close-by gaming store called The Game Keep.

At first, the boy’s mother was happy that her son had found an enclave.

“We were new... And he made a little circle of friends,” she told a jury Monday.

An important figure

At the center of that circle was Duffer, who, at first seemed like exactly what a boy who had been abandoned by his father, and whose mother was struggling to keep the family afloat, needed.

“He took [my son] under his wing,” she said. “And [my son] absolutely adored Jeremy. He looked at Jeremy like the father figure he didn’t have in his life.”

Through sobs, the boy’s mother told the jury just how important such a figure was to her son.

“He looked to him as someone he could talk about boy things with,” she said. “Someone he could trust.”

But the mother, the state’s attorney and the boy himself all told the jury on Monday that that trust was shattered when Duffer solicited a sexual relationship with the boy. It was a relationship, they said, that the boy initially rejected and on numerous occasions sought to end, but one that Duffer continued through pressure and by providing the boy with elaborate gaming gifts that were used as bribes and rewards for both silence and continued sexual contact.

As she cried, the mother’s remorse was readily visible on her face.

“There were times when I thought he was a really good father figure,” she said of Duffer, especially after her son had a “particularly horrific” interaction with his birth father just prior to his 13th birthday.

Mother’s fears realized

But the more she was able to observe her son and his new best friend, the more she began to worry that Duffer’s intentions were worthy of suspicion, especially when he became insistent on spending time with her son, she said.

Her fears were realized and more, she said, when after returning from a summer with his father, the boy told his mother that he had been having an ongoing sexual relationship with Duffer.

For the first time, the exact nature of that illicit relationship between Duffer and the boy came out in detail on Monday.

According to Assistant District Attorney Brian Holmgren, “they did everything.”

The tall and lanky teenager’s voice shuttered on more than a few occasions as he explained to the jury how, for over a period of two years and during the frequent weekend sleepovers he had at Duffer’s house, he and Duffer repeatedly engaged in sexual contact and watched pornographic movies in Duffer’s bed.

At the same time, the teenager appeared almost stoic, never crying and, on one occasion, showing no visible emotion when asked to look through a series of nude pictures of himself that Duffer allegedly took with a Polaroid camera.

The boy never said exactly why he and Duffer engaged in sexual activity, but he made it clear that the contact began at Duffer’s request — and insistence — even after he refused Duffer’s initial attempts.

“He asked me. And I told him no. He kept asking me… if he could touch me,” the victim recounted. “He just told me it would be OK and I finally said OK I guess.”

He explained why that even when he wanted the relationship to end he declined to speak up.

“I was scared that [my mother] would look at me differently, and that it would get out to my friends and all my friends would hate me,” he said.

Eventually, though, a girlfriend with whom he confided convinced him to come forward with his story.

Shortly after the victim was interviewed by David Zoccola, Metro Police sex crimes detective, Duffer was arrested — an event that precipitated Duffer’s removal of his electronic monitor, his flight and his eventual capture in East Tennessee where he was found working for a traveling carnival.

‘Going to crucify me’

When authorities brought him back to Nashville, Duffer said that he fled “Because they’re going to crucify me and act like I’m a horrible, evil, nasty person and basically my lawyer told me I didn’t have a chance in hell,” according to media reports.

On Monday, sitting next to his new lawyer, Matthew Mayo, Duffer at various times during the victim’s testimony appeared amused, bewildered, confused and disgusted. He repeatedly shook his head and whispered into Mayo’s ear.

But Duffer sat still, holding his folded hands over his mouth and looking nervous during the testimony of the victim’s mother.

Mayo, though, said Duffer was in good spirits and “excited about finally getting in here today and finally getting to… tell his version of events.”

And Mayo said that after the state concludes its case tomorrow, Duffer might testify in his own defense.

“I’m hopeful that tomorrow he can get on the stand and straighten some things out,” Mayo said. “And maybe the public will start to see him in a different light.”