photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Mark Gridley appears with his attorney, Vanessa Riebli, at his preliminary hearing Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

A judge on Thursday watched several hours of video of four girls telling how they were bound and blindfolded by a speech pathologist who made them kneel and take something variously described as “squishy” and “long” into their mouths as part of a “test.”

The four separate videos, recorded in February at the Children’s Advocacy Center by a forensic interviewer, were offered by the state on the first day of the preliminary hearing of Mark Gridley, a speech pathologist who worked at the girls’ school, Prairie Park Elementary. Three similar videos are scheduled to be offered Friday, bringing to seven the number of girls whom the state says Gridley orally molested over the course of two days in February.

Gridley, 61, has been charged with 14 felonies in the case, including seven counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child and seven counts of kidnapping. Judge Amy Hanley, at the end of what is expected to be a three-day hearing, will decide if there’s sufficient evidence — or probable cause — to order Gridley to stand trial.

Before the videos were played by the prosecutors — Douglas County District Attorney Dakota Loomis and Senior Assistant DA Todd Hiatt — Detective Meghan Bardwell testified for several hours about how the alleged sex crimes were investigated after the parents of a 10-year-old girl reported on Feb. 8 that their child had been victimized at school the day prior.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Lawrence Police Detective Meghan Bardwell testifies at Mark Gridley’s preliminary hearing on Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

Bardwell watched an interview of the girl at the Child Advocacy Center and determined that a search of the school was necessary, including Gridley’s office, where police found — and photographed — duct tape, large bandages, hand sanitizer and other items that the girl had described Gridley using in the course of the “test,” during which she said he taped her hands behind her back and put bandages and tape over her eyes so that she wouldn’t be “blinded” by a bright light he said would be used in the test.

When she was on her knees he put something in her mouth that she described as long and rubbery tasting and that made her gag. Before she had been blindfolded, she said, he inserted something wooden with plastic and tape on it, and he claimed that the second thing he had inserted later, when she couldn’t see, was that same object.

The girl also indicated that the “test” had been recorded because she had seen a camera in the office and heard its lens moving as if it was being turned on and off.

In the trash receptacle at the school, Bardwell testified that police found a bag of wadded up tape, paper towels, a three-pack box of condoms that was empty and papers with Gridley’s name on them, among other items.

Bardwell also testified about what police saw on a school video camera that showed the exterior of Gridley’s office: a parade of girls, ranging from second to fifth grade, coming into Gridley’s office (accompanied by him), one at a time, staying for 10 to 20 minutes, then leaving, some with stickers or little toys in their hands.

The girls said in their interviews that they had been given stickers or plush toys after their “tests” as a reward. The girls indicated that they had never experienced this sort of test before — ostensibly to examine “tongue strength” —  and some said it was “weird” or “suspicious” because they were no longer in speech therapy but had been called into Gridley’s office anyway.

Some of the girls did not know Gridley well enough to know his name, with one of them simply identifying him as “old” with “gray hair” and another calling him “a boy I used to go with (in earlier grades) for doing speech.”

One girl said he had come to her class to get another girl, but “she wasn’t there, so he took me.”

Bardwell testified that tests performed at the Kansas Bureau of Investigation showed DNA matches between four of the girls and DNA on the bandages. And DNA consistent with Gridley’s was found on tape the police had recovered, she said. A latent palm print of Gridley was also found on bandage wrappers and a latent fingerprint of his was found on bandages, she said.

Bardwell also testified that a search of Gridley’s home turned up three cameras, one of them a silver Samsung that the first reported victim had described.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Defense attorney Vanessa Riebli and Douglas County District Attorney Dakota Loomis are pictured at the preliminary hearing of Mark Gridley on Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

On cross-examination, Vanessa Riebli, Gridley’s attorney, questioned Bardwell about a number of student visits to Gridley’s office in the two-day period that did not result in a criminal charge, presumably an attempt to cast doubt on the notion that Gridley was bringing in students to molest.

Riebli also raised the concern that students had been talking on the playground and via text messages about the Gridley situation, possibly giving one another ideas about what had happened, and she quizzed Bardwell about a zipper that the first girl said she had heard in Gridley’s office while blindfolded. Riebli suggested the zipping sound could have come from a canvas bag that she said was in the office rather than from a pair of pants.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Mark Gridley is pictured with attorney Vanessa Riebli at his preliminary hearing Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

Riebli also suggested that Bardwell had put the idea of multiple girls being assaulted into the head of the Prairie Park principal, Jason Townsend, a “key witness” in the case, as Riebli described him.

Additionally, Riebli criticized Bardwell for not seizing and searching the phones of the girls who had been talking on the playground. Bardwell explained that she had looked at one girl’s phone, did not find anything of evidentiary value and found no reason to think other kids would have relevant texts.

When asked about the search of Gridley’s home, Bardwell indicated that in addition to cameras, numerous electronic devices were found, including a laptop and external hard drives. She testified that no child abuse material had thus far been found on the devices but that it was an ongoing investigation. Bardwell also noted that Gridley had “26 hours’ notice” before the search warrant of his home was executed.

Riebli also asked whether seminal fluid had been found on items tested by the KBI, and Bardwell said no. Nor had any condom lubricant been detected, she said, though Loomis pointed out that the water-soluble lubricant could be possibly undetectable after a certain number of hours.

Gridley’s preliminary hearing is set to continue at 9 a.m. Friday.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Mark Gridley stands during a break in his preliminary hearing Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.