One charge of sexual assault was dismissed late Wednesday against a Dolores man on trial in an incident involving two teenage girls.

Kevin Kartchner, 22, originally faced charges of first-degree sexual assault on a helpless victim and sexual assault on a child in district court. After the prosecution rested Wednesday, District Judge Sharon Hansen granted a defense motion to dismiss the first of the two charges because of a lack of evidence.

Kartchner left the courtroom smiling after the ruling.

Proceedings continue today with public defender Suzanne Carlson presenting the defense’s case on the remaining charge of sexual assault on a child. The trial began Monday.

Both alleged victims, one 13 and the other 16, were in town for spring break last March when they went to a party, became intoxicated and ended up at the defendant’s home, according to court reports.

The 13-year-old testified Tuesday that she and her cousin (the second victim) had been drinking at a party at the "power lines" near Totten Lake where they met Kartchner, then 21, for the first time. The 13-year-old said her cousin became extremely intoxicated and Kartchner offered to take them to his home to get some coffee.

It was at his home on County Road 27 where the youngest girl said Kartchner had sexual intercourse with first her, then her incapacitated cousin, in the same room, on the same bed.

"I told him it was wrong," the 13-year-old told the jury.

But after 3 1/2 hours on the stand, the 13-year-old was unable to say for sure that she had witnessed sexual contact between Kartchner and her cousin.

The 16-year-old was allegedly unconscious and did not remember anything about the night after she left the party until she woke up in the hospital, she testified Tuesday.

That uncertainty, along with a lack of physical evidence, apparently led to the dismissal.

Relatives of the girls had alerted police that the two had been out past their curfew, Montezuma County Sheriff’s Deputy Todd Krause testified Tuesday in court. A series of events led police and the family to Kartchner’s home, where the youngest came running from the home screaming and crying as the patrol vehicles pulled up to the house, Krause said.

"She was pretty hysterical," Krause told the jury.

Arriving moments before the deputies was the 16-year-old’s mother and two young men who entered the house and found the older girl crumpled on the floor covered in vomit, according to the mother. The mother and the two young men testified Wednesday that Kartchner was in the adjoining room wearing only boxer shorts.

"He was in his socks, boxer shorts, and he was trying to put his pants on," the mother told the jury.

The two girls were transported to Southwest Memorial Hospital, where they were treated, examined and interviewed.

The doctor on call in the emergency room, Gerald Mitchell, told the jury Wednesday that the 13-year-old was distraught and worried about her cousin. Mitchell said the younger girl was the only one who was able to tell the hospital staff and law officers what had happened, adding that her story seemed to change when she told it again.

"She said it was foggy, like a dream," Mitchell told the jury. "I placed a lot of it (inconsistencies) on the fact she was distraught."

Mitchell told the jury victims of trauma often behave in such a manner and that the 13-year-old had also consumed a level of alcohol that might affect her accuracy.

The older of the two girls was unable to communicate at the time because of her intoxicated state.

Registered nurse Ronda Conrad, who works at Southwest, said she performed sexual-assault tests on both of the victims and found no obvious evidence that suggested sexual assault of the younger girl, adding that sexual assaults can occur without leaving any trace of evidence.

However, Conrad testified she did find evidence consistent with sexual assault in the case of the 16-year-old. The nurse said the girl’s cervix was swollen and red.

But an Arizona pediatrician, Dr. Hannah Rishell, who had examined the girl a week later, testified she had an existing infection that could also have caused the same symptoms.

Tuesday, the jury heard testimony from an agent with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s Denver lab, Sheri Murphy, who said a pubic hair with characteristics consistent with the 13-year-old’s was found in Kartchner’s bed.

Murphy, called by Deputy District Attorney Katy Cabot, said hair analysis compares 25-30 characteristics that can suggest a match, adding that the analysis has been accepted in courtrooms across the country as forensic evidence. Murphy said the hair found on the bedding at the scene was compared to 20 "sample" hairs taken from the girl during a sexual-assault examination after the incident.

However, Conrad, with Southwest Memorial, told the jury that there the girl was pre-pubescent and did not have pubic hair. Conrad was called back less than three hours later to identify her own handwriting on the evidence envelope containing the sample hairs in question.

"I honestly at this point do not remember," Conrad said. "I honestly didn’t think she did (have pubic hair to collect from)."

Also on Wednesday, another CBI agent testified that he could not find DNA evidence to corroborate the 13-year-old’s story.

Ronald Arndt, a DNA analyst at the Denver lab, testified for the defense out of order because of his flight schedule.

Under questioning from Carlson, Arndt said that he had been sent several pieces of evidence to analyze in the case, including samples from Kartchner’s underwear and various sheets and pillowcases with blood stains on them.

Arndt testified that he analyzed semen from Kartchner’s underwear, looking specifically to see whether he could detect epithelial cells from the alleged victims. In a sexual assault, when there is penetration, cells from the victim are often transferred onto the man’s body and then to his undewear, Arndt said.

But the epithelial cells he found were consistent with Kartchner’s DNA, not the girls’, he said.

Blood stains on the sheets and pillowcase could not be matched to the girls, Arndt also testified. The only analyzable DNA in one sample was consistent with Kartchner’s, he said. Another sample showed a mixture of two sources, one of which matched Kartchner’s DNA and the other of which was not consistent with the girls’ DNA, he said.

Under cross-examination, Kartchner said that epithelial cells from the victim are not always transferred to the male’s body in sexual assaults.

If convicted by the jury of eight women and five men, Kartchner could face 2-16 years in prison and $500,000 in fines for sexual assault on a child, a Class 4 felony.

Cabot said, though, new laws have come into play and a conviction could actually lead to life in prison.

"It’s really up to the parole board," Cabot said.

Proceedings will likely continue into late Thursday and jury deliberation are expected to last into Friday Cabot said.