Harris trial: Accuser in 2004 rape case takes witness stand in Richland County Court
The woman said she thought she would be safe accepting a ride.
Now 60, she testified Tuesday, on the second day of the LJ Harris trial, about an alleged rape from Aug. 29, 2004.
Harris, 43, is charged with two counts of rape and single counts of attempted rape and felonious assault. The accuser, who was 40 in 2004, took the witness stand for two hours in Richland County Common Pleas Court.
The case had been cold for two decades until last spring, when there was a hit on a national database that contains the DNA profiles of convicted offenders.
The accuser said she lived in Wooster in 2004 and came to Mansfield to attend a memorial service for her father-in-law. The woman said she stayed overnight with her estranged husband on Wood Street, then stormed out when she found him on top of her, wanting sex.
The woman testified she was walking to her sister-in-law's residence on Johns Avenue in the early morning when a man pulled up in a white Lexus trimmed in gold. She was clad in pajamas.
"It was a nice car, the gentleman was clean-cut," the woman testified. "I thought it was OK to accept a ride from him."
She said they drove in the right direction before the man, whom she identified as Harris, pulled over and demanded oral sex.
"I told him, 'No, I'm married. I don't do that,''' the woman testified.
She said Harris then punched her in the face.
"This is for real," the woman said she realized.
Accuser testifies
The woman said Harris went at her face with a straight razor, which ended up cutting her thumb.
As she testified, Harris shook his head in disagreement.
The woman said Harris told her to keep her head down and punched her in the back of the head every time she looked up.
She said Harris pulled over in an alley near Sheridan Avenue and told her to get in the back seat.
"That's where he started raping me," the accuser said. "I was being violated, taken advantage of."
She said Harris raped her both vaginally and anally.
"It was very painful. I was praying for him not to kill me," the woman said as she started to cry.
"He was hitting me in the back of the head while he was raping me," she said.
The woman said Harris wiped her with a housecoat and grabbed her by the back of the neck.
"He started walking me behind this old abandoned garage," the woman said. "I was doing my last prayer."
Noting she ran track in high school, she said she decided to run away. She was naked. The woman said Harris ran toward his car.
She later encountered a teenage boy and two teen girls. The boy gave her his T-shirt to cover up.
The teens offered to take her to the hospital, but she wanted to go back to her husband's apartment.
"I was ashamed. I just wanted to get inside my husband's house," she testified.
Woman initially did not want to go to hospital
When they arrived at the apartment building, the outside door was locked. The woman then relented and went to the hospital, where she underwent a sexual assault examination.
"I was so ashamed. The police came," the woman said. "I didn't want anybody to know what happened to me."
The nurse examiner said as long as the woman had not showered or bathed, there was a chance to recover DNA evidence.
Assistant Prosecutor Olivia Boyer asked the woman how the incident has affected her.
"It changed my whole life," she said. "By November, I started using drugs."
She said she turned to crack cocaine to forget. The woman said she had nightmares and was afraid to leave the house. When she did, she dressed down to avoid attention.
"By January (2005) I was in jail for the first time in my life," she said.
The woman was in and out of jail and prison for several years before finding sobriety in 2014.
"Crack cocaine robbed me of my joy, my happiness, my family," she said.
She became sober when she decided she wanted her life back more than she wanted drugs.
The woman was surprised to hear from Mansfield police Sgt. Jered Kingsborough from the detective bureau last year. Now living in South Carolina, she was hesitant to relive the case after rebuilding her life.
Eventually, she said she realized she had a chance to put everything behind her. She identified Harris from a photo array even though his hair was different.
"When I saw it, cold chills ran over my body," the woman said. "Everything came crashing back down on me, and I relived it."
Defense attorney questions woman about criminal record
On cross-examination, defense attorney Jennifer Harmon focused on her criminal record. Common Pleas Judge Brent Robinson said she could refer to the woman's record to assess her credibility.
Harmon questioned if the woman's husband could have been the one involved considering he wanted to have sex with her.
"Did your husband punch you in the back of the head?" Harmon asked, to which the woman replied "no."
Harmon also referenced the woman's felony record, which includes trafficking in drugs and tampering with evidence. She asked her when she began running drugs.
The witness said that is when she began using crack cocaine.
On redirect, she said she had never experienced such pain after consensual sex. Rebecca Schulte, a retired nurse from then-MedCentral Hospital, performed the sexual assault exam. She testified the woman had tears to her genitalia.
Schulte said there was semen on the back of the woman's right leg.
Maggie Hergenrather, a DNA technician for the police department's crime lab, tested the semen. She said the likelihood of anyone other than Harris contributing the DNA was 1 in 307 billion. Earth's population is 8.1 billion.
Kingsborough, the lead investigator in the case, was the state's final witness. He described the accuser identifying Harris from a photo array.
"She slammed it (folder) shut," Kingsborough said. "She had a look of fear and anxiety. It's the most emphatic (reaction) I've had to date."
Kingsborough said Harris seemed confused when he contacted him some 19 years after the alleged rape. He was unable to meet with the defendant until Harris was arrested, when he collected mouth swabs for DNA evidence.
The trial will resume Thursday with the defense presenting its case.
mcaudill@gannett.com
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This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Accuser testifies about 2004 rape allegations in Richland County Court
