THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 24, 1995 TAG: 9501240286
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LYNN WALTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 116 lines
Four days before Christmas 1993, a 24-year-old Virginia Beach woman was watching ``How the Grinch Stole Christmas'' at 10:15 p.m. while she waited for her husband to come home from work.
Just 15 minutes later, she was opening the door for police, wrapped in a blanket and crying hysterically. Her bathroom and bedroom door jambs had been splintered. A white decorative mask lay smashed on the bathroom floor.
``I've been raped,'' she sobbed. ``The man just jumped off the balcony.''
Monday, the woman calmly told a jury what happened that night, how, in those few minutes her life was changed forever by a tall, slender intruder.
She told how she locked herself in the bathroom, banging on the wall and screaming for her neighbor's help in the apartment next door. She told how her attacker broke through the door and held a knife to her throat as he ordered her to tell the neighbors, through her locked front door, that she was fine.
Then she pointed at the defendant, Kerri Charity, who is accused of being the ``North End Serial Rapist.''
Charity, 24, is charged with a total of five rapes and sexual assaults in a string of related attacks that kept women along the Oceanfront jittery for nearly a year in 1993.
In an unprecedented legal move in Virginia Beach, four of those attacks are being tried together in a trial expected to last up to two weeks.
All four victims are expected to tell their stories, but ultimately the jury must deliberate on less dramatic evidence on which the case hinges - DNA.
Prosecutors must convince the jury that Charity's DNA has been linked to two of the cases. Then, they must prove that he committed the others by showing that because the techniques used were so similar, they had to have been done by the same man.
Defense attorneys must convince the jury that DNA evidence alone is not enough for conviction.
Other than DNA evidence, only one assault - the one described Monday - has any evidence connecting Charity to the crime. That evidence includes contradictory eyewitness identifications and circumstantial evidence.
In opening arguments Monday, prosecutors said the December 1993 attack - which led to Charity's arrest on Christmas Eve - was Charity's downfall.
``While he got away from every crime scene, he will not get away with the crimes,'' said prosecutor Pamela Albert in opening statements. She outlined how police spotted Charity jumping from the balcony in the 5000 block of Coltfield Court, lost him on foot, later picked him up in his car, lost him again and finally arrested him two days later.
Defense attorney David P. Baugh says police got the wrong man. Baugh focused on two elements he says discredit both witnesses: descriptions of Charity's hair and his coat.
The victim who identified Charity in court Monday never saw her attacker's face. She described his head as shaven, with a stubble. A police officer testified that the man he saw jumping off the balcony had short black hair. Charity's head was clean-shaven when he was arrested two days later.
The officer said the suspect had a brown jacket with a number inside a circle on the left arm. The victim said his jacket was black with a silver zipper.
``Each witness destroys the credibility of the other,'' Baugh told the judge.
The jury seemed riveted by the victim's testimony Monday as she described how she stopped the videotape and started to get ready for work.
``I heard a noise so I put down my curling iron,'' she said. ``I heard a creaking on the floor, footsteps and clothing rustling. I peeked my head out the door and saw a tall, thin black man standing at the end of the hall, his jacket over his face, just looking back at me. It sounded like he was laughing at me.''
She slammed the bathroom door and began screaming and banging on the wall. The attacker broke through the bathroom door, grabbed her hair and put one hand over her mouth. With the other, he held a knife to her throat. When the neighbors banged on her front door, he told her what to say.
``The neighbor asked if there was an explosion,'' she said. ``I said I was OK. When they said, `Are you sure?' I hesitated. (The attacker) said, `Say it or I'll cut your throat.' I was told to thank them for their concern.''
The attacker then raped her on the floor of her bedroom, using vulgar anatomical references and making racist remarks.
As he prepared to leave, he forced her into a closet. She knew he was still in the apartment when she heard police - who had been called by the neighbors - knocking at her door. As she opened the door, she saw the attacker leap from the balcony.
Three more cases will be outlined during the trial:
On Jan. 10, 1993, in the 2200 block of Willow Oak Circle in Marina Shores, a 22-year-old woman was forcibly sodomized in her apartment.
On July 21, 1993, in the 300 block of 26th St., a 25-year-old woman was watching television when she heard an intruder break in. She was forcibly sodomized in her bedroom.
On Aug. 14, 1993, in the 900 block of East Piney Branch Drive in Birdneck Village, a 36-year-old woman was watching television when a man entered her apartment and knocked her to the floor. He raped her in a bedroom.
In each case, the attacker was a black man who entered the homes of the victims, all white women, with no evidence of a break-in. Each time, the attacker stayed behind the victim, forcing her into her bedroom, covering her head or face and raping or sodomizing her from behind as she lay face-down.
Each time, the attacker threatened to kill the victim with a knife and, after the attack, stole personal property after telling the victim not to move.
On Monday, prosecutor Pamela Albert described an attacker who was smart and apparently knew something about DNA evidence that could be collected from sexual assaults. Each time, he attempted to wipe evidence from his victims and took with him victims' clothing that could have retained evidence.
``The defendant is very clever, very clever and very confident,'' Albert said. ``Police tried to get fingerprints from four apartments. There were none. They collected evidence from four victims. Twice they got it. The wiping worked, but not every time.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color courtroom drawing by Alba Bragoli
``Do you see the man who attacked you that night?'' prosecutor
Pamela Albert, left, asked the victim. The woman pointed at
defendant Kerri Charity, right. ``The man sitting at the defense
table,'' she said.
KEYWORDS: TRIAL RAPE SEX CRIME DNA by CNB