By Brian Anderson
Contra Costa Newspapers

April 12, 2002

OAKLAND —Michelle Michaud suffered from post traumatic stress disorder, making it difficult to leave a man friends say was the source of her trouble, a psychiatrist said Thursday.

Dr. Pablo Stewart told jurors in the continuing trial of Michaud and James Daveggio that the initial source of the woman's woes likely began prior to her 11th birthday.

It was in those early years, Stewart said, that Michaud's father, Leland Michaud, repeatedly sexually abused his daughter. Daveggio and Michaud could face the death penalty if convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing a Pleasanton woman, Vanessa Lei Samson, 22, on Dec. 2, 1997.

The woman was strangled and dumped on the side of a rural road in Alpine County.

As Michaud grew older, her ordeal worsened, another witness testified Thursday.

Michaud rented space at a Sacramento massage parlor where her father regularly visited his then-16-year-old daughter for sex, said Sherry James, the shop's owner.

Leland Michaud also forced the girl into prostitution, acting as her pimp and taking a cut of her earnings, according to courtroom testimony.

All of that abuse contributed to Michaud's stress disorder, Stewart said, and made it harder for her to leave Daveggio.

"She has a propensity - that she could be controlled by someone else in a relationship," Stewart said.

"Fighting (traumatic events) and resisting it causes you more difficulties than it does going along with it."

He cited interviews with the woman, her son's psychologist and a police report of a sexual assault of which Michaud allegedly was a victim.

Leland Michaud, who was never arrested or charged for the reported abuse, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Daveggio, some witnesses have testified, had a powerful effect on Michaud.

They said the usually upbeat woman began using methamphetamines heavily after meeting the man and was lured into a twisted pattern of sexual deviancy.

The pair also had abducted a Reno college student off a street, assaulted her and then dumped her in a remote area near Auburn.

Daveggio was convicted of the attack after Michaud pleaded guilty in exchange for a reduced sentence and testified against him.

But prosecutor Angela Backers has indicated that Michaud was known as a dominatrix, a woman who was more prone to force others to do what she wanted them to do.

Under Backers' questioning, witnesses have repeatedly said Michaud was her own woman and capable of fending for herself.