ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 21, 1997 TAG: 9702210080
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: LISA K. GARCIA STAFF WRITER
Rape and attempted sodomy charges against two Virginia Tech football players were certified to a grand jury Thursday in Blacksburg General District Court.
The woman who accused the men testified that each one raped her while the other held her arms down. She also said she had drunk more than a bottle of wine and was "out of it ... in the land of unreality" during the incident.
Brian Edmonds, 22, wept after Judge T.D. Frith Jr. announced his decision. James Crawford, 20, showed little emotion, but hung his head. Family members crowded around the men after the hearing and offered support and shared tears.
Both men have maintained that they never had sex with the woman; in response to her accusation, they filed a $32 million lawsuit against her the day after their arrests.
One of the players' mothers sobbed loudly after the hearing and screamed, "My child is innocent! Somebody help!"
The hearing lasted about 3 1/2 hours and included the testimony of 12 witnesses - an unusually large number for a preliminary hearing. Nine of the witnesses testified during the defense's case.
Matt Pethybridge, one of the attorneys representing the men, said the witnesses were needed to testify about the timing of events.
"Mostly we're just trying to show there's not a whole lot of time in there for a whole lot of activity," he said. "The evidence speaks for itself. There are some questions about timing. Big ones."
The 19-year-old woman said she was in the men's apartment during a party the night of Dec. 13 and early Dec. 14. After a group of women left the party - all members of the Tech track team - the woman said she stayed in the apartment looking for Tyron Edmond, another Tech football player.
Melanie Burgess, 18, said she and her fellow track members left the party at 1:32 a.m.
"I asked twice in the car what time it was and no one said anything," she said. It was then, Burgess said, that she looked at the clock in the car and noticed the time.
The alleged victim said Crawford and Edmonds raped her shortly after the track team members left. Several track women said she was in the apartment when they left. Other witnesses testified that the woman was in the apartment across the hall about 1:30 a.m.
The woman said Edmonds pulled her into his bedroom and told her "Tyron would be coming."
Crawford entered the bedroom soon after, she said, and the men turned off the lights.
During the incident, the woman said, she did not scratch the men and the only thing she said was that she kept "asking for Tyron yelling louder and louder."
She said Crawford pulled off her knee-high boots without unzipping them and tore off her stockings and underwear. Then Edmonds got on top of her and raped her while Crawford held her arms down, she said. The men then switched places and, while Crawford had sex with her, Edmonds tried to force her to have oral sex, she said.
It was about that time that she yelled louder and the men put on their clothes and left, she testified.
Nathaniel Williams, Crawford's and Edmonds' roommate and a Tech football player, testified that the woman awakened him asking for Tyron Edmond. He said she left his bedroom and he stayed awake for a few minutes before going to the apartment across the hall.
Williams' bedroom shares a common wall with Edmonds'. He said he did not hear the woman yelling.
Several witnesses testified that the woman entered the apartment across the hall, where Tyron Edmond lived, without shoes and in tears.
Shani Beamon, a Tech student who was at the party across the hall from Crawford's and Edmonds' apartment, said she was watching a movie when the woman came in. She described the movie scene and said she has since rewatched the video twice to determine that the woman had entered 1 hour and 52 minutes into the movie. The film had started on the Movie Channel at 11:30 p.m. If there were no pauses in the showing, that would put the woman's entry into Tyron Edmond's apartment at shortly before 1:30 a.m.
Several witnesses, including the alleged victim, said she used the telephone in Tyron Edmond's apartment to make a long-distance call to Maryland after the incident. After reviewing the telephone bill, Tyron Edmond testified the call was made at 1:30 a.m.
The judge explained that his job was to determine if there was "probable cause" that a crime had occurred, not that it was "beyond a reasonable doubt" that it had occurred.
"On a scale of 1 to 100, we only have to go up to about a 10," he said earlier in the hearing, referring to the level of evidence needed.
A Montgomery County grand jury will decide April 8 whether to send the case to trial in Circuit Court.
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshots) Crawford, Edmonds. color.by CNB