Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 15, 1995 TAG: 9506150056
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SARAH HUNTLEY AND SHEBA WHEELER STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The struggle began with a crash - the sound of the door between the basement and kitchen crashing off its hinges. The Roanoke County woman woke with a start.
She ran into the hallway, where the man waited in the shadows. When he stepped into the light and bellowed her name, she recognized him.
And she realized he was there for her.
"It scared me because of the sound of his voice and the fact that he broke in," she said. "My first thought was to get out of the house as fast as I could."
The man says there was no attack, that the couple engaged in consensual sex, as they had many times before.
The couple met in a bar in 1989 and had become romantically involved. He had lived with her for a while. In exchange for the room, he helped out with yard work and other household duties.
By her account, he wasn't supposed to be there that night. They had broken up, she said, and after a dispute over money, she had ordered him to stay away.
He said she asked him to come over and stay the night so he could help with yard work the next day.
"I thought she loved me, and I loved her," he said. "We lived like husband and wife."
Nine months later, the woman, whose name is being withheld because she is a rape victim, took the stand in Roanoke County Circuit Court and began her testimony against her onetime friend and lover, John Douglas Bayne.
The 31-year-old handyman was facing charges of rape, abduction, attempted sodomy and burglary. And the judge was facing a tough decision.
"This is the kind of case where so much of it starts off sounding the same, but then it diverges wildly," defense attorney Thomas Dickenson Jr. said.
According to the woman's testimony, she tried to escape from the house as soon as she realized it was Bayne in the hallway, but he grabbed her by the wrist and covered her hand and nose with his palm. They struggled, and she quickly lost her breath.
"I thought, 'I'm going to die. He's come here to kill me.' That's what I thought. Then I decided I couldn't die this way. I kept begging him not to hurt me ... and I thought maybe I can reason this out with him," she told the judge.
Bayne kept saying she should have given their relationship another chance, the woman said, so she told him she would try again if he promised to see a counselor the next day.
"I would've said anything to him," she said. "Every time I tried to resist, he would get really upset. He didn't seem to know what he was doing. He was so out of it."
The woman said Bayne threw her to the floor in the living room and, after trying to perform oral sex on her, raped her. After that, he returned to normal, she said.
"It was like nothing ever happened. He said we'd get up tomorrow and mulch the yard," she said, shaking her head.
The woman waited until Bayne dozed off, then fled and called police from her son's home. The officers who responded found Bayne sleeping peacefully in a bed at the woman's home. He seemed confused, police said, but he didn't resist arrest.
When Bayne took the stand, he acknowledged that the door connecting the basement and kitchen came off its hinges as he tried to come inside. But he said he didn't force it open.
The defendant also acknowledged that he'd had "a few beers" before arriving at the woman's house.
Although he had lived at the home on and off, Bayne said, the woman did not give him a key. He often entered the house through unlocked windows or the basement door, and the woman never complained, he said.
Bayne said he and the woman met in the hallway and had a pleasant conversation about her cats. They moved into the living room, where she turned on the television set, and they began to have sex, he testified. He later went to sleep.
"Next thing I knew, the police were shaking me by the feet, waking me up," Bayne said.
The defense put a series of character witnesses on the stand. At least one witness testified that Bayne and the woman had continued their romantic relationship right up to the night of the attack. And one of the woman's neighbors told the court he was driving in front of the woman's truck as she fled from her home and she never tried to signal him for help.
But Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Randy Leach said Bayne was not believable and pointed out that he has a prior conviction on cocaine possession charges.
"I think we have proven this case beyond a reasonable doubt, and I don't find his explanation at all credible," Leach said. "To call any intercourse at that point 'consensual' is ludicrous. The woman was scared to death."
The trial lasted two days, beginning June 8 and continuing Wednesday. It got off to a late start after prosecutors tried to close the courtroom to the press and the public during the victim's testimony. After hearing lawyers' arguments, the judge ruled that the court would remain open.
By Wednesday evening, shortly after 6 p.m., after hours of contradictory testimony, the decision was in the hands of Judge Richard Pattisall.
He found Bayne guilty of rape and burglary but dismissed the charges of attempted sodomy and abduction. The woman began to cry while the judge delivered the verdict.
Since the woman did not submit to sex freely, this was enough to prove a rape had occurred, Pattisall said, and no physical show of force would be necessary. Leach needed only to show that the witness had felt fear and intimidation - both emotions Pattisall believed did occur.
"What might be a consensual, mutual relationship in the past can change," Pattisall said. "This relationship did change on this evening."
Bayne, who was held without bond, could face life in prison when he is sentenced. Dickenson said he and Bayne are going to discuss the possibility of appealing the verdict.
by CNB