photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Mateo Wills appears in Douglas County District Court on Nov. 19, 2024. Wills is accused of inappropriately touching two young girls at a Lawrence private school.

“I don’t like it when Mateo touches my bottom at naptime.”

Those words, a Lawrence mother testified Tuesday in Douglas County District Court, were from her 3-year-old daughter when she was putting her to bed one night in July of 2022. And they were a first sign for her that something was wrong at her child’s preschool, Raintree Montessori School — because she knew her daughter used that word, “bottom,” to refer not to her buttocks, but to her genitals.

When the mother went to the police, what followed was a flurry of police interviews of her daughter, other kids in the class, and a suspect — 22-year-old Mateo Clavel Wills, who was a part-time child care worker at the school, and who told police in his own interview that he “touched where I shouldn’t have” because he was “curious.”

Tuesday was the first day of a preliminary hearing, at which Judge Sally Pokorny will eventually decide whether there is enough evidence to order Wills to stand trial. He is charged in Douglas County District Court with four counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child under the age of 14 — two involving the 3-year-old and two more involving a 4-year-old, according to charging documents.

The incidents are alleged to have occurred between November 2021 and July 2022, and the charges are off-grid felonies and could result in a life sentence if Wills were convicted.

What the 3-year-old girl said led the investigators to interview Wills, said Megan Rubio, a civilian investigator working in tandem with Lawrence police. Rubio testified that they wanted to hear Wills out in case there was another explanation for what the girl had alleged.

The video of Wills’ interview was played in court on Tuesday. It took place on July 6, 2022, in the office of Heather Eichhorn, co-head of Raintree Montessori School; Detective Evan Curtis and Rubio conducted it.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Lawrence Police Detective Evan Curtis testifies on Nov. 19, 2024, in Douglas County District Court.

In the video, Wills told the investigators that he was a teacher’s assistant who usually watched over the children during naptime. He said that the 3-year-old and another girl who was 4 years old were often talkative during naptime, and he had watched another teacher soothe the 4-year-old before by rubbing the girl’s back.

Wills said he tried doing the same thing as the other teacher to calm the 4-year-old girl down, and he later tried rubbing the 3-year-old’s back too. But over a few weeks, Wills said, he began to touch the girls on other parts of their bodies, and eventually touched both of them under their underwear.

“The touching at naptime went too far,” Wills tells the investigators in the video, breathing heavily. “I touched where I shouldn’t have.”

Curtis asked Wills why he would do that. He asked Wills whether he was sexually attracted to children, which Wills denied. Rather, Wills said he was “curious” about the girls’ genitals, because he had never touched a female in that way before.

At the time Wills talked to the investigators, he was not under arrest or detained. His attorney, Hatem Chahine, said on Tuesday that he wanted Wills’ statement suppressed because Curtis had not read Wills his Miranda rights before questioning him. Chahine said that Curtis knew Wills was accused of a serious crime, and he accused Curtis of not being honest with Wills ahead of the interview.

The special prosecutor in the case, Joshua Ney, said that in the video, Curtis specifically told Wills that he was being investigated, and that Wills was free to leave or to stop the interview at any time he wished. Ney also noted that Wills was not taken into custody immediately after the interview. Rather, he was allowed to leave. Rubio said an arrest wasn’t made until later that night, after it was discovered that Wills had a younger sister living at home with him.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Special Prosecutor Joshua Ney on Nov. 19, 2024, in Douglas County District Court.

Rubio and Curtis testified that what Wills said during the interview alerted them to the possibility that there may have been more than one child involved.

Before the mother of the 4-year-old alleged victim got a call from the police, she testified on Tuesday, she had no idea that anything might be going on. She said that when police first called her and told her that everyone in the class would need to be interviewed, she and her family were on vacation, and she planned to handle it when she got back.

But then she saw multiple news reports about the incident, and she began to think it was worse than she had originally imagined. She called police to schedule the interview sooner, and the police told her then that her daughter may have been a victim.

“They told us what Mateo said (in his interview),” the 4-year-old’s mother testified. “So, I was processing that my daughter had been abused.”

The 4-year-old was interviewed by the police, and her mother said that after the interview, she asked the girl what the police had asked her about. What the girl said, she testified, caught her off guard: the girl said she was asked about “tickles” inside of her “butt” and her genitals.

After hearing this, the woman testified, she asked the police to interview the girl a second time, and they did.

Tuesday’s hearing ran past 5:30 p.m., and the parties realized they would not get through all of their evidence in one day. The remaining evidence is expected to come from multiple expert witnesses, including a psychologist. The parties will reconvene on Dec. 4 to schedule the second part of the hearing.

Wills’ case has seen multiple delays in the past two years, mostly on account of attorneys on both sides withdrawing. First, the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office declared that it had a conflict of interest and needed a special prosecutor to be assigned. That prosecutor, Jeannette Wolpink, later withdrew from the case after taking a new job. She was replaced with Wyandotte County Assistant District Attorney Claire Kebodeaux, and then Kebodeaux also withdrew from the case; Ney took over from her in April. Shortly after Ney was assigned, Wills’ former attorney, Angela Keck, withdrew after two years on the case, citing a conflict of interest.

Wills is currently free on a $100,000 own-recognizance bond.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Mateo Wills, left, takes notes while his attorney, Hatem Chahine, right, questions a witness on Nov. 19, 2024.