By David Hedges, Publisher
Times Record-Roane County Reporter
A woman accusing her brother of rape 50 years ago said she did not want to come forward earlier because she feared no one would believe her.
Orville Trembly, 71, of Vienna, stands accused of two counts of rape for crimes committed in Roane County between 1953 and 1957, when his sister was a child.
Trembly has pled not guilty and filed a defamation suit against his sister for bringing the charges which he says are related to a dispute over their mother's property.
At a hearing in Roane Circuit Court last week Zelda Trembly Eagle tried to explain why she waited 50 years to come forward.
"At the time there were things happening to me I didn't know were wrong," Eagle said. "Sex was something we didn't discuss around the home. I was only five when it started and I didn't know what was going on."
Eagle said the sexual assaults occurred when her brother took her squirrel hunting.
She said she did not report the incidents sooner because she did not want to hurt her parents. Her father died more than 40 years ago and her 91-year-old mother lives in a Jackson County nursing home.
"I can't hurt my mother anymore," she said. "She has Alzheimer's."
Eagle also said she was reluctant to come forward because she was afraid of what her brother might do to her.
She said she decided to report the incidents after her sister told her in a telephone conversation in March 2004 that their brother Orville had raped her as well.
"If not for the call from my sister, I never would have come forward," Eagle said. "I thought I was the only one so I wasn't going to say anything.
"I felt ashamed. I felt dirty. I did not want to tell my husband because I was afraid he would not want me," she said under questioning from special prosecutor Matt Minney, who was appointed to the case after Roane prosecutor Mark Sergent asked to be excused.
Trembley's lawyer, George Cosenza of Parkersburg, asked Eagle to explain how she and her brother were related.
Eagle said Trembly was her half-brother, born to her mother out-of-wedlock before her father adopted him.
Cosenza produced a photo album with photos of Eagle and Trembly together at family gatherings, including one photo which he said showed Trembly giving Eagle away at her wedding, something he said she had earlier denied ever took place ...
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