Michael Leon Hines was charged with two counts of child molestation and one count of enticing a child for indecent purposes for an incident involving his stepdaughter. Following a jury trial, Hines was convicted on one count of molestation. He contends the evidence was insufficient to support the verdict, that his trial counsel was ineffective, and that the trial court erred with regard to the chain of custody of certain evidence. We affirm. Construed in favor of the verdict, the evidence shows the victim, B. B., was 12 years old at the time of the incident, and Hines, her stepfather, was 33. On December 20, 2004, while her mother was at work, B. B. and her younger stepbrother were playing and wrestling in their parents’ room. When her brother left the room, Hines asked B. B. to give him a back massage, which she had done before. B. B. massaged Hines’s back, legs, and feet. At one point B. B.’s brother returned and helped with the massage, but Hines eventually told the young boy to leave. B. B. then went into a light sleep on the bed. In a statement that she made on the day of the incident, B. B. stated, “I was in a light sleep but I heard him and like five minutes later I felt his penis in my rear end and he woke me up and I was pretending to be asleep because I was scared.” She told a police officer that she soon felt a liquid on her buttocks and that Hines got a washcloth and attempted to clean her up. At trial, when asked about the details of the incident, she claimed not to recall, and she testified, “I don’t remember honestly, I’ve tried to put this situation behind me.” But she admitted she signed a statement at the time and that the statement was hers. She also made a statement that Hines pulled down her pants and underwear before the incident. She remembered having to pull her pants up. Afterward, she called and left a message for her mother, then called a friend, and went to her friend’s home taking her stepbrother along.
When B. B.’s mother returned the call, either B. B. or her friend said that there was an emergency and that she had to come home because Hines had touched B. B. B. B.’s friend testified that B. B. told her at the time that Hines “was having sex with her from behind and she said she woke up but she just pretended like she was asleep because he owned weapons.” Later, B. B. told her mother that Hines had raped her. B. B.’s mother took her to the hospital for an examination.
