Victim testifies Jesse Matthew said, ‘I will kill you if you scream again’
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Version 0 of 1. The woman testified she was just three or four steps from the safety of her Fairfax City home when the nightmare began. She heard footsteps from behind, and the powerful man lifted her off the ground “like a baby.” She screamed in terror as he dragged her to a grassy patch just feet from surrounding homes. The attacker beat her, laced his fingers around her neck and then began sexually assaulting her as she fought back. “He said, ‘I will kill you if you scream again,’ ” the victim told a hushed Fairfax County courtroom Monday. “He said, ‘Let me do this, and I’ll let you go.’ ” The woman’s life was probably saved, she said, when her attacker suddenly ran off. She then rasped “help me” to a man passing by. Naked from the waist down, she ran toward him slathered in mud and blood. The harrowing account came on the opening day of the trial of Jesse L. Matthew Jr., 33, of Charlottesville, who could face life in prison if convicted in the 2005 Fairfax City sexual assault. The victim’s testimony gave voice to allegations against a man who authorities believe is a serial offender, a predator who ambushes young, vulnerable women as they walk alone at night. Matthew was first identified as a suspect in the Fairfax case through DNA evidence after police said they linked him to the high-profile disappearance, and later the slaying, of University of Virginia student Hannah Graham last fall. He is charged with capital murder in that case. Police say Matthew also has been linked forensically to the investigation into the killing of a second college student, Morgan Harrington. The Virginia Tech student was slain in 2009 after attending a Metallica concert in Charlottesville. Matthew hasn’t been charged in that case. In his opening statement Monday, Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh offered a sweeping account of the events of the fall 2005 Fairfax attack. The woman was abducted, beaten and assaulted, and perhaps saved by the headlights of a car that could have illuminated the dark patch where the assailant had the victim pinned to the ground. Public Defender Robert Frank said in his opening statement that Matthew’s DNA, which was found beneath one fingernail of the victim in the Fairfax County case, may have gotten there accidentally. He said DNA remnants from other people were found there as well. “There is a possibility the DNA that was found on the scrapings came from an innocent contact,” Frank said. He also said the composite sketch police produced based on the woman’s description looked nothing like Matthew. Morrogh said the woman, a native of India who was 26 then and had come to the United States to study, was about to embark on a new career that September day in 2005. She spent a lazy Saturday reading at a bookstore near her home and lost track of time. The Washington Post generally does not name the victims of sexual assault. The woman noticed it had gotten dark, so she began heading home, making a brief stop at a Giant for milk. Prosecutors said that as she turned onto her block on Rock Garden Drive after 8:30 p.m., a stranger asked her a question about the address of one of the homes. The woman answered but began walking more quickly — Morrogh said the victim sensed that something about the man seemed off. She was at the front walkway of the townhouse she rented when the attack began. “This case is about an innocent young woman snatched off a sidewalk,” Morrogh said. “She was in the springtime of her life.” The woman spoke in even tones on the stand as Matthew, who wore a yellow dress shirt and his braids pulled back, watched intently. Her voice quavered only when she described the sexual assault. After she was dragged to the grass, the woman said, her attacker slammed her head into the ground, punched her in the face, and placed his hands around her neck and over her face. Morrogh said she fought “like crazy,” punching and kicking the man. The woman testified that the attacker sexually assaulted her, then he tried to rape her. She passed in and out of consciousness. Then, she noticed the man walking by and began trying to yell at him, but she could barely get out a sound. Mark Raul Castro said that he came upon the victim while visiting the neighborhood to watch a televised heavyweight boxing match at a friend’s house. Castro said he’d been walking through a parking lot when he saw a figure in the darkness from the corner of his eye. “She looked like she was nearly dead,” Castro said. Castro began shouting for the man who had assaulted her to come out, but he had gone. Castro said he knocked on doors in the neighborhood until he found someone who could call police. The woman was transported to a hospital and examined by nurses who specialize in sexual assault. Photos taken in the hospital after the attack and displayed in court showed she had a swollen eye and marks around her neck. A sample of material was taken from beneath the woman’s fingernails and later produced a match with Matthew’s DNA. Soon after the attack, the woman returned to India. She agreed to come back to Fairfax to testify in the trial against Matthew. Prosecutors did not ask the woman whether she could identify Matthew as her assailant. She said the attack left her deeply traumatized and physically violated. “I was in a state of shock,” she said. “I was not able to understand if this was reality or some kind of bad dream.” Dana Hedgpeth contributed to this report. |