03x66 - Birthday Bash Turns Brutal

[bunniefuu]

Getting so loaded that there was a brawl.

They attacked me.
I was held down by the throat.

She was like a pit bull
when she was, like, coming at me

and I hit her.

I had been struck in the face
so many times I had fainted.

Who is that, is that your sister?

Yes, she is their witness.

Lovely.

[narrator] This is Judy Justice...

[theme music playing]

[narrator] Whitney McKibben
is suing her former friends,

Lily Sparkes and Allison Wilkinson
for damages from an as*ault.

[Kevin] Court come to order. All rise.

[Judge] Have a seat, please.

[Kevin] Hello, Judge.

Case number 3110,
McKibben, Sparkes v. Wilkinson.

-Thank you.
-You're welcome.

[Judge] Ms. McKibben, these two
young ladies were friends of yours?

Yes, they were.

One of you was celebrating a birthday.
Who was that?

Uh, that was Allison.

It was my birthday.

What birthday, Allison?

It was my 31st birthday.

And how long have you all been friends?

Lily and I have been friends
off and on since the second grade.

Allison and I have been friends
for almost a decade.

[Judge] Married, single?

I, um... I have a boyfriend, but yes.

-Married.
-Any kids? You're Lily?

Yeah, four children.

What kind of work do you do?

Um, I'm an area manager
at a delivery station in Oregon.

You must be busy.

Oh, yes. Yeah,
I manage around 100 to 120 people a day.

And what about you, Lily,
do you work outside the home?

Not currently, no.

-[Judge] Not with four kids.
-Right, yeah. I stay at home.

-They keep me busy. Mm-hm.
-[Judge] It keeps you busy.

Allison, what about you?

I work at an oral surgery office.
I'm an office manager.

Married, single?

Married, no children.

So you have three smart, employed women

celebrating a birthday,

who all had too much to drink.

Unfortunately.

But it resulted
in a very unpleasant weekend

where you allege that you were assaulted
by these two women,

which required substantial
medical treatment for you

involving one of your eyes.

-Yup.
-When was your birthday?

[Allison] April 24th.

But the night of the incident
was May 6th, 2023.

And you got an Airbnb?

Yes.

Where? Who arranged it?

Whitney did at Rockaway Beach.

How many women went, Whitney?

Uh, it was myself, the two on this side...

Or three on this side and then also
another woman named Grace.

She's not here today.

So I believe there was five in total.

And you got there on May 6th?

-[Whitney] May 5th we got there. Yes.
-[Judge] Fifth?

About what time?

Um, I had arrived to Tillamook
in around 12:30.

I sat on the beach by myself
and waited for the rest of the party.

-[Judge] In what state?
-Tillamook, Oregon.

When you went and sat on the beach alone
on the 5th, were you drinking?

-No.
-No.

What time did your friends arrive?

I believe around 3:00.

Uh, Allison and my sister
arrived together in the same vehicle.

Who is that, is that your sister?

Yes. She is their witness.

Lovely. [chuckles]

-What's your sister's name?
-Her name is Ashley.

Okay, so now tell me what happened.

The incident happened on the 5th?

Um, so it happened on the 5th,

-into the 6th. Correct.
-[Judge] Sixth.

Uh, so we had been drinking, um...

When did you start drinking?

I believe we started drinking
around 4 or 5.

Uh, we had a few on the beach

and then we went to the Airbnb,
which was, like, a block away.

We ended up drinking more
in the Airbnb, got...

What were you drinking?

Uh, tequila.

[chuckling] Yeah, exactly.

[Judge] And what about you?

I arrived late, around 7:30.

Um, at the time I had arrived,
the tequila bottle was already gone.

-And...
-So you didn't arrive until 7:30?

Correct.

By the time, 7:30 rolled around,
everybody was pretty smashed.

-[Lily] Oh, yeah.
-Okay. Go ahead.

So we had been sitting in the hot tub.
There was a hot tub there,

so we had all just been sitting,
talking, having fun.

While in the hot tub, there was
a discussion to go to a local bar

to have another shot of tequila.

I don't know why we needed that,
but we all agreed that we would do it.

Okay, so you decided to go to a local bar.
What time did you leave?

So I didn't actually end up
leaving with them.

Like I said, we were in the hot tub.
We all decided to go to the bar.

Um, they had gotten out of
the hot tub first

to go shower off
and get dressed and ready.

So I waited until they were
out of the shower.

I took a shower myself,
came out to the living room

where they all were standing,
Allison, Lily, my sister and Grace.

I had a towel around me,
still dripping wet,

just got out of the shower.

Um, they were all ready to go,
they were like, "Come on, let's leave."

I am dripping wet and naked,
like, give me a moment to get dressed.

I attempted to look through my bag
to get clothing out.

Wasn't really able to do that
since I was inebriated.

I had Grace help me get clothing out.

Um, she was actually holding
I don't remember whose underwear or pants

that she was holding for me,
but, like, you know, like a toddler,

like, "Here, get in."

Um, at that point, Allison and Lily
started berating me,

saying, "Oh, look how pathetic you are,
you can't even dress yourself.

You are a child." Things like that.

So to that point I got upset.

Um, I started yelling
hurtful things back at them.

Don't remember exactly what I said,

but I know that it was enough
to make them very upset with me.

Ended up getting in a fight.

They attacked me, I was held by the throat

and I believe hair was being pulled.

It got broken up. I gathered my things,
I went to the neighbor's house.

Allison, Lily, Grace and Ashley
all went to the local bar.

My plan was to sober up
at the neighbor's house

and leave for the night.

I did not want to be there any longer.
I did not feel safe.

How did you know the neighbor
if this was an Airbnb?

So this was just somebody
that was also there.

Uh, the next-door house
was an Airbnb as well

that was being rented out for the night
or the weekend.

Um, so the neighbors,
when we were in the hot tub,

they were outside of their house,
like, smoking a cigarette or something,

and we had an interaction
and we were hanging out with them.

So that's how I kind of knew them
and that they were there.

So I just went and knocked on the door
and said, "Hey, like, my friends and I

just got in a fight,
I don't feel safe over there.

Can I hang out with you guys
for a few hours

until I'm sober enough
to drive myself home?

To which they agreed
and we, you know, hung out.

About an hour into us hanging out,

we heard faint screaming
outside of the door,

which was Allison yelling,
"Whitney, I know you're in there,

you need to come out."

At first, I told the neighbors
because they asked me,

-do you want me to help you...
-[Judge] These neighbors, men or women?

There were... It could be two or three men
and one woman.

-But they...
-How old were the men?

[exhales] I would say probably
in their 30... Late 30s.

-You didn't know anything about them...
-Nope.

...before this weekend?

I did not. No.

And so you felt comfortable
going over drunk to strangers' house.

-Yes, I felt more comfortable...
-Okay.

-...to be...
-Than staying alone in your own Airbnb?

-Yes, because I felt...
-Okay. Go ahead.

...they were going to come back
and hurt me again,

so I wanted to remove myself completely
from the situation.

Okay, so you went and hung out
with these people for about an hour

-before Ashley came back.
-There wasn't...

-Correct.
-Go ahead.

She continued to scream and yell.

They finally opened the door,

to which she completely
changed her composure

and was, like, "Whitney, please come back,
you don't know these people."

I told her, "I don't want to come with you
because I don't feel safe."

And she said, "Well, you are intoxicated,
what if these people do something to you?"

And I said. "Yeah, you are right.
You're my friend, I'll come with you.

But I don't want anything else to happen.

Like, we've fought. It's over.
I want nothing else to do with it."

When you were at the neighbors' house,
did you have anything to drink?

I had water to drink.

Did they have anything to drink?

Um, I believe they were drinking,
like, seltzer water.

Were they smoking anything?

Uh, cigarettes, they had cigarettes.

You know how long they were there for?

-Like the weekend, or...
-[Judge] Yeah.

I believe they said
they were there just for two days.

So, I believe it was a Saturday
that they were there,

-so Saturday, Sunday.
-So there were two or three men

-and one woman.
-Correct.

Do you know anything about them?

I didn't really gather
any information about them,

which, yeah... Very... Very odd of me to do

but, um, you know, like I said,
I felt safer...

Whatever, I felt
you weren't feeling anything.

I was attacked, I was pulled down
to the floor by my hair,

and was held again by the neck,

and was repeatedly punched in the face,
and the head until I lost consciousness.

[narrator] Whitney McKibben
claims her former friends,

Lily Sparkes and Allison Wilkinson

assaulted her
causing permanent eye damage.

Lily and Allison say
Whitney was the one who started the fight.

Go ahead.

So I walked into the front door
with Allison.

I remember stating,
"I really don't want to be here,

I don't want to be here."

And then I was attacked again by Lily.

I was pulled down to the floor by my hair

and was held again by the neck,

and was repeatedly punched in the face,
and the head until I lost consciousness.

Um, when I came back into consciousness,

my sister had told me to run

because she had ripped them off of me.

I ran back to the neighbors' house.
I asked them to call the police.

The police came.
The police offered, um, to take me...

-The police came, you took an ambulance.
-Correct.

Okay, let's put a period there
for a minute.

Okay, Lily, it's 7:30. You arrive at 7:30.

They're already out of the hot tub?

Yeah, so when I arrived,
they were not in the hot tub.

-We all decided to go in it together.
-Okay.

Now, pick it up from there.

Okay, we went to the hot tub and spent
maybe an hour and a half in there.

And then we decided to go celebrate
Allison's birthday at a local bar.

We went inside.
We were getting ourselves ready

and she's correct,
as we were about to leave,

she's standing there naked,
there was no towel around her.

Um, and she's screaming
that she doesn't want to go,

she thinks we're all fake friends

and she wasn't very happy
with us at that point.

And so us three went into the car
to sit and wait

while Grace was trying to calm her down.

And then it was taking a while
and so I went back in to try and help,

and Whitney started really screaming at me
and calling us fake friends, bad moms.

And I looked at her and I said,
"I feel sorry for you, Whitney."

And that's when she got extremely
mad at me and she lunged at me,

and tried to fight me.

-It's like scuffling at that point.
-And Grace was in the middle of it.

Grace caught a fist, um, in her jaw

and then that's when, I think Allison
and maybe Ashley at that point,

they saw something in the window
and they came to help

and Whitney just wasn't stopping.

That's when her hair got pulled.
All of our hair was being pulled.

She was like a pit bull.

And finally, we got that
to kind of settle down and we left.

So we went to the bar at that point,

and then I can't tell you exactly
what time we returned,

I want to say it was before 10:00.
It wasn't very late.

Ashley looks up Whitney's location,

she sees that she's at a stranger's house
next door, and we're concerned and...

Okay, stop for a moment. Ashley...

Tell me what happened with your sister.

Let's start with this fight that happened

when you were all getting ready
to go to the bar

and your sister came out of the shower.

So she was, yeah, wet, no towel,

screaming about how she was naked
and didn't want to go.

She was also screaming at everybody else,

that they were fake friends
and bad moms and all these things.

I got sick of it because everybody
was yelling at everybody,

so I just left.

Now, then you went to the bar together
and then you came back.

You tell me. What happened
when you came back to the house?

When we came back to the house,
I was helping my friend Grace.

She was in the bathroom and sick.
And wasn't...

[Judge] Too much to drink?

Yeah, yep, definitely.

So I was helping her and then I heard
the second fight break out.

And so I went out there
and pulled everybody apart from each other

and told Whitney to go.

-Your sister was injured.
-I sent her out and away.

Sent her... Where did you send her?

She went to the neighbors.

[Judge] She went back to the neighbors.

[Ashley] She went back to the neighbors.

And you called the police
from the neighbors?

I believe my sister called the police

and the neighbors
called the police as well.

Tell me why you called the police.

Because I was tired of all of the fighting
and they were really hurting each other.

Who started the fight?

I can't tell you who started it
because I didn't see who started it.

So I don't know.

Aside from your sister,
initially, who became aggressive?

Well, I think Lily was angry
and Alli was angry.

Justifiably, I mean, I would be too.

Angry because I didn't want
to get more inebriated?

-Weird.
-[Judge] Okay.

I was perfectly happy to leave you.

You can sit down now for a second.

Okay, you want to tell me
your version of the events?

[Allison] Yeah, yes, Your Honor.

When you drink that much,
sometimes you kind of lose the ability

to make a good decision.

It just kind of escalated, I think,

and we were all pretty
emotionally charged at that point,

just from yelling and being so loud.

To be frank,
I don't think she really remembers.

I have some things that might
help you remember if you'd like.

-[Judge] Okay, let's go back.
-We have the police report, also the...

[Judge] I'd like to see the police report.

It's right here.

And here's also a Facebook post
that Allison made the night of

-while they were sitting at the bar.
-Sh. Just one second.

The police report said Lily stated
that Whitney kept trying to attack her

and pulling her hair.

You stated you punched her in the face.

-Right.
-You say prior to that,

there was hair pulling.
How was that precipitated?

At the time she got hit,
Allison and her were in the kitchen

and I was sitting on the couch,

and Whitney,
something happened in the conversation

where she directed her attention to me.
She started screaming at me

and started approaching me
really swiftly, screaming,

and I thought she was going to come...

What was she screaming?

I don't know exactly what,
she was trying to ask me a question,

or she was trying
to get my attention or something

and she came very quickly, and I told her
to get out of my face twice.

-That's not what you said.
-[Judge] Shh!

I said, get out of my face. Twice.

And on that second one

-she was coming at me, I hit her and I...
-Don't speak.

A lot of... It was a lot of contact.

There was no repeated punching.
It was I think one single punch.

Were you admitted to the hospital?

-[Whitney] I was, yes.
-I'd like to see the full hospital report.

-From the night of the incident?
-Oh, yes.

-Okay.
-Oh, yes. That's all I'm interested in.

Um, I also have an aftercare summary
from the Portland emergency room

-where I went the next day as well.
-I don't care about that.

You just want the Tillamook one? Okay.

I want that one.

Uh, I believe that's all of it.

I'm looking for the doctor's
write-up on you.

The one in Portland where I went...

Um, madam, I don't care what happened
the next day when you were sober.

I want to know
what the emergency room doctor,

how they describe your situation
when you arrive.

Were you sober? Were you drunk?
Were you coherent? Were you incoherent?

The next day doesn't help me.

When you have a fight, a physical fight,

somebody is going to always get
a little more hurt than somebody else.

-Does that make it right, though?
-That's what happened.

Does it make it right?
No, but it doesn't make it a lawsuit.

[narrator] Whitney McKibben is accusing
her former friends,

Lily Sparkes and Allison Wilkinson
of assaulting her during a party.

Lily and Allison claim
Whitney assaulted them first.

Okay, "Abrasion of multiple sites,
alcohol intoxication,"

and then you have
an "Orbital floor fracture"

-and "Ecchymosis of the left eye."
-Mm-hm.

Okay, getting back to the police report.

"Whitney stated
they came back from the bar

and were knocking on the door
of the neighbors' house

trying to get her
to come back to the house.

Whitney stated all she remembers
was them beating her up?

Whitney mentioned she felt like
she was ganged up on.

Whitney mentioned she doesn't know exactly
what happened, but they got into a fight.

I was able to take photographs
of the scratches on Whitney's neck,

arm and black eye.

Whitney mentioned that
she didn't want to press charges

because she didn't want
to ruin Lily's life.

You remember... [scoffs]

I can't even say, do you remember
saying that to the police?

Because you don't remember.

-I also...
-It says

-I don't remember five times.
-[Judge] Shh!

I had been struck in the face
so many times I had fainted, actually.

So I was checked at the emergency room.

I had a CT scan because they felt
I might have had a concussion,

-or a brain bleed.
-[Judge] Can I ask you a question?

-Yes.
-If you remember speaking to the police,

do you remember telling them that you
pulled somebody's hair out of their head?

I do. Yes.

Okay, and was that
before or after you got punched?

I believe that would have been during
trying to get them off of me.

No, no, no, no.

No, no, I'm saying
while she was punching me,

I believe I was pulling their hair
to defend myself.

Whose hair was pulled?

All of ours.

I have a photo of my hair was pulled.

She was pulling all of our hair,
and this is the amount of hair

that was swept off the floor.

Anybody want to tell me anything else?

I don't have to see
the rest of your medical records.

Would you like to see the photos
of my many scratches,

-marks, my eye? Okay.
-Sure. Sure, I'll take a look at them.

Thank you.

And if I could mention
she stated she punched me once.

That does not look like one punch
unless she's the Hulk.

Well, these aren't punches. These are
when you're rolling around the ground.

-I believe I was also kicked repeatedly.
-When you're fighting... Yeah.

Terrible. It's really hard for me
to wrap my head around

five young, productive,

clearly educated women getting so loaded

that there was a brawl.

But, Whitney, it's clear
that you were the most loaded of all.

I could have been.

I mean, you have a super-responsible job.

-Mm-hm.
-You flee a house drunk

and go to a stranger's house where
there are three men and one woman.

Crazy.

Your friends clearly were
concerned enough about you...

They could have said, "Listen,
we've got to let her go. Stay there."

She gets r*ped, that's her problem,

if she gets beat up,
if she gets m*rder*d, that's...

They tried to get you to come back,

I believe for your own safety
and nothing else.

-Yeah. I agree.
-Because they're...

And you were still severely
under the influence of alcohol

and there is no question in my mind
that you got the worst of this fight.

-Mm-hm.
-They may not have been severely injured,

but you precipitated this fight.

You just got the worst of it.

I don't believe that gives them permission
to strike me multiple times.

Oh, it does, actually.

Actually, if you precipitate a fight
and put your hands on somebody else,

grab their hair, they can use whatever...

Outside of a weapon.
It can escalate to the next step.

You can't go and get a g*n
and sh**t somebody,

but your actions precipitated
everything that happened that night

because you were too loaded.

-I don't disagree.
-And I feel...

I don't disagree with you, Judge.

And so what I'm telling you is
when you have a fight,

a physical fight, no weapons involved,

somebody is going to always get a little
more hurt than somebody else.

-Does that make it right, though?
-[Judge] That's gonna happen.

Does it make it right? No.
But it doesn't make it a lawsuit.

Your case is dismissed, we're done.
Thank you very much.

[Kevin] This court is adjourned.

I don't believe it was right.
I was assaulted quite terribly.

I'm really grateful
that this is all over with.

I was struck multiple times
until I fainted.

It's shocking to hear the lies
that she's stating about us.

But you know, obviously the judge
saw right through them.

We're not friends anymore. Never again.

I will never allow those women
into my life, especially my sister.

I just wanted to be able to speak
to the truth of what happened.

Yeah, no, friends and tequila do not mix.

I don't have a reason, I think,
to ever talk to her again.

Well, it's a good lesson
about getting too inebriated

and then trying to bring
a lawsuit afterwards, I think.

It's tough, I mean, no one
deserves to get those sorts of injuries.

The photos obviously show
that she was severely injured,

but it's not a lawsuit.

Like you said, someone in a brawl
always ends up getting the brunt of it.

And just because you get the brunt of it

doesn't mean
that you have a viable lawsuit,

especially when you were the aggressor.

It's a good lesson, Sarah,
but I'm always amazed.

-These were five...
-Yeah.

...substantial young women...

-You know, I like my wine.
-[chuckles]

Never enough to punch someone in the face.

Never enough to become that aggressive.

Most people do not.

Even to be in a position,
as the plaintiff was,

where she has a super-responsible job.

-She's in charge of other people.
-Yeah.

-To risk going into a stranger's home...
-Mm-hm.

...where there are three unknown men
and one woman there for the weekend

-is just a total lack...
-It just shows her state of mind.

Just so lack of good judgment.

Frightening. It should be a lesson
to everybody, you know.

-Have a limit.
-Yeah.

-Be able to say, "No more."
-This is it.

-Right.
-Yeah.

[narrator] Are you a victim of an as*ault?

[

[theme music playing]