The 13-year-old girl at the center of a rape case against a former Baltimore teacher took the stand Tuesday morning as the state looks to prove her claim that the 25-year-old defendant sexually assaulted her.

The accuser, who was reported missing for a week before authorities found her at the defendant’s Pikesville apartment, was the first witness to testify in Lewis Laury Jr.’s trial. In a gray sweater, she was slightly taller than the prosecutor’s shoulder and told the jury that she was there to “say my truth.”

Laury faces 18 charges, including nine counts of second-degree rape. Authorities say he had sex with the then-12-year-old, his neighbor, who said she’d run away from home because of her tense relationship with her mother.

Laury, then a history teacher at Megenthaler Vocational-Technical High School, told authorities when he was arrested that the girl had stayed with him. When he was asked whether they’d had sex, however, he said he couldn’t remember, according to a Baltimore County Police detective.

Defense attorney Jerome Bivens argued the sex never happened. He told the jury in his opening statements Monday that police had downplayed the situation to the girl during questioning and “led her down this path” where she changed her story.

When she took the stand, the girl testified that she had initially denied having sex with Laury, a Towson University graduate, after being found on June 27. She made the accusations the next day, explaining that she lied, “because I did not want my mom to find out.”

The case’s lead detective, as well as a forensic nurse at the hospital where the girl was taken, said children often wait to come forward about a sexual experience, sometimes out of shame or fear.

“It’s more common than not that kids take a while to talk,” said Baltimore County Police Det. Scott Kilpatrick, who specializes in child sex abuse cases.

The age of consent in Maryland is 16. The Baltimore Sun does not name accusers in sexual assault cases.

The accuser said she left home on June 20 because she and her mother were struggling to communicate. The girl said she was “defiant” and often left home, even when her phone had been taken away from her.

She said it was on one of those outings that she met Laury, who, when she walked by, asked her for her number. The girl told him she didn’t have her phone and offered to go over to his apartment instead, according to her testimony.

They started a sexual relationship in April 2024, the girl said, and would meet at his apartment “a lot.” She also told the jury that Laury thought she was 22, not 12. When he asked for her ID, she would stall.

“I knew that if he knew my real age, I would be declined,” she said.

The rape charges in Laury’s indictment are based only on the June days where he was in the apartment with the girl, mostly a weekend before he went to work in Frederick.

Kilpatrick testified that when he interviewed Laury after his arrest and told him the girl’s real age, the defendant said he was “cooked.”

Bivens questioned both the accuser and the detective about a piece of paper Laury had when he was taken into custody, a “questionnaire” that had been signed by the accuser.

On it, the girl had given a false birthday and there was an unchecked box labeled “ID.” According to testimony, above the box, Laury had asked the girl a range of questions, from her finger and shoe size, her willingness to live in a penthouse and share a bank account, as well as where she had gone to school.

The defense attorney also pointed to a line that read, “will wait for wedding,” and another that said “no sex” with an arrow pointed toward “July 4.” Neither the accuser nor the detective explained what they meant, though Kilpatrick strongly denied that it referred to abstinence.

“He absolutely never said ‘no sex,'” the detective testified.

Baltimore County Circuit Judge Colleen Cavanaugh said Laury’s trial is scheduled to end Wednesday.

Assistant State’s Attorney Stacy Amparo rested her case Tuesday afternoon, and the defense is expected to continue calling witnesses.

Have a news tip? Contact Luke Parker at lparker@baltsun.com, 410-725-6214, on X as @lparkernews, or on Signal as @parkerluke.34.