Photo: Deborah Pfeiffer

Ronald Teneycke arrives at Penticton Court House

Warning graphic testimony.

Ronald Teneycke testified on the witness stand Tuesday that not long after he picked up a woman hitchhiker on Highway 97 in Penticton on the night of July 31, 2011, she told him she was a horny girl and started coming on to him.

Teneycke, a convicted sex offender,  is accused of sexually assaulting and unlawfully confining the woman at an old pump house near Okanagan Falls on that July night.

His testimony was given as his Penticton trial, which started last week, nears conclusion.

Teneycke  a 50-year-old father, who grew up in the South Okanagan, said he was living on social assistance at his mother's home in Okanagan Falls in the summer of 2011.

For the most part he spent his time caring for his mother, who only has one lung along with other ailments, and doing odd jobs like cutting firewood, fishing for salmon and doing yard work to make ends meet.

After making his mom lunch that day, his son sent a message that he was back from Alberta and had no place to live, so he planned to go to Penticton to find him and do a little swimming.

He drove up, but couldn't find his son. As he started driving back to Okanagan Falls on Highway 97, he was just past the airport when he noticed a middle aged woman hitchhiking. She appeared to be staggering and was putting her hands up in prayer as well as sticking her thumb out, he said.

When she said she needed to get to Keremeos, he said he could drop her at the junction at Kaleden.

She asked him his name and if he wanted to take a pill that she said calms her down because she is such a horny girl.  She then told him he was hot and handsome and asked if he had a girlfriend and if he wanted oral sex, he testified.

After that she told him she wanted to get to Keremeos, because her friend was waiting there with cocaine in exchange for jewelry.

At the junction, he agreed to drive her to Olalla. At this point she put her feet up on the dashboard, danced them around and said I hope you don't mind my panties, he said.

They drove on to Keremeos when her friend couldn't meet her in Olalla and she went into a bar.

When she was kicked out of the bar, Teneycke testified he  told her to figure out what she wanted to do.

An arrangement was made for her to meet the friend at a market in Cawston. She was worried the friend would not  take the jewelry in exchange for the cocaine and asked him if she got the drugs would he just take off.
He told her absolutely not.

The two then drove to a bank in Keremeos to meet with the friend and get the cocaine. While his passenger went into the bank, the friend's boyfriend talked to him through the sunroof, saying the woman tends to flip out when she is like this.

When the woman came out of the bank, she went to the friend's car and took a really hard fall, after she got out, ending up tangled in metal and under shopping carts.

They continued the search for cocaine for the woman, going to to the home of a trucker she knew in Cawston. At the time she warned him the trucker's wife thinks she is a crack head and alcoholic, Teneycke said..

His response was, "what kind of drama are you getting me into."

She borrowed $40 and got $40 more from another friend in Keremeos, enabling her to buy the cocaine from her friend, he said.

As soon as she had the white packet, she snorted up some pretty big lines and they continued on to Fairview Road, because she wanted to visit the place she first shared a kiss with a boyfriend who recently died.

At another stop to get beer from a friend, she took another fall, while doing a cancan dance with her skirt up, he said.

A third fall took place, he claimed, when they stopped at the spot where she had kissed the boyfriend and she rolled down into a little ditch.

As the drug-fueled journey continued, the two traveled to different swimming holes in the area, but could  not find a place to swim. They were also unsuccessful at finding more beer or cocaine at other stops made at his friends' homes in Oliver.

Still eager to find a swimming hole, they went up a forest service road where the Weyerhaeuser sawmill used to be and parked close to a cattle guard. She grabbed a blanket from the back seat and he grabbed beach towels. She also asked to borrow his windbreaker. As they climbed over a barbed wire fence, she poked herself in the leg, he claimed.

When they arrived at the shed, which he described as an old changing shed people used for going swimming, they sat down in front of it and began playing around, kissing and hugging. As the foreplay continued, he was unable to get an erection, and she asked if he wanted a blow job. He said no because he has an STD and felt it coming on.

As the sex continued and he could not get an erection, he told her he had sex toys in the car.

At this point, he explained to his defence lawyer Michael Welsh that the toys came to be in the car, after he broke up with a girlfriend and she left them behind. He then put the objects including a vibrator, material for  making a dildo and condoms in the trunk.

Upon his return from the car, the two made the dildo together putting a tensor bandage over towels and then slipping a black sock over it. At some point the object fell on the ground and was covered with burrs. They put condoms on it and applied saliva but it did not work.

Eventually, he said this is really awkward and lobbed it inside the shed, he testified.

After the sex act was finished, the woman asked if he would take her to Penticton, but they went to Okanagan Falls because it was past his curfew.

They talked briefly with his mother, then sat in the living room until she said she had to find beer and cocaine and left.

After borrowing sleeping pills from his mother, he went to bed and was awakened by a ruckus in the living room, he recalled. When he walked out, wearing a T-shirt, he saw a bunch of police officers pointing guns at him and yelling, with a dog barking. They ordered him to come downstairs with his hands in the air.

During cross examination, crown prosecutor John Swanson asked the accused why he had sex with the woman if he did not anticipate sexual satisfaction from it.

In response, the accused said he was more of a cuddling type person and that he enjoyed that more than actual intercourse.

Swanson also asked Teneycke to again go over an earlier police statement made on Aug. 1. After he did so, Swanson brought up several points on which the accused had lied including, who brought the dildo and tarp to the scene and about the sex act itself.

Teneycke responded saying he was embarrassed about being unable to get an erection and his STD.

Swanson further questioned why he would tell the officer, "I tried and tried and tried and just said I'm sorry I can't," if he was so embarrassed about erectile dysfunction.

In conclusion, Swanson said, the truth Mr. Teneycke is on the night of July 31, you tricked the woman to coming with you to the pump house where you grabbed her, put a knife to her throat, ripped off her panties and produced a dildo and sexually assaulted her.

She pleaded with you to let her go, Swanson said, but you kept her pinned down in the pump house.

Teneycke denied any of this was the case.

In other testimony Tuesday, Teneycke's mother Frances Casselman, said she was standing in the kitchen of her home that night, when her son came in with the woman and introduced her.

She went upstairs to bed and they stayed in the living room. They did not appear to be upset or angry, she said.

After her son knocked on her door and asked for two sleeping pills and if it was OK if the woman slept on the couch, she took two sleeping pills herself.

She was awakened by a noise in the living room, which she thought was coming from the TV. When she got up she saw police officers standing there with rifles pointed at her, asking her to put her hands above her head.

She came downstairs, and met with a female police officer who took her to a police car. It was there she was told there had been a rape, she said.

Neither witness showed much emotion during the long day of testimony. At times during his cross examination, Teneycke's face turned ashen and he wiped away sweat that was running down his face.

The defence has no further witnesses. The trial is expected to continue with closing arguments this afternoon (Wednesday Nov. 27).