He was older. He looked regular except he had kind of long bleached hair like a rock star and he had a professional camera, so I thought he was from a skateboard magazine. They’re always shooting commercials and TV shows on the Promenade. I didn’t think about it.”
The offender was described as being in his late twenties, about six feet tall, long legs but muscular torso, possibly a weight lifter. The victim is five feet, 110 pounds. She is very young in appearance, and it is possible the offender thought she was even younger than fifteen. She described him as wearing a black sweatshirt, baggy nylon pants and boots that were shined. (See lab report: shoe print on victim’s back.)
“He asked me if it was all right to take my picture and I said, ‘What’s it for?’ And he said, ‘I just like taking pictures of pretty girls,’ which I knew was a line so I said something like, ‘Yeah, right,’ and he apologized if he offended me and went back to the skaters and told them they’d better chill before they got a ticket. ‘They bust you for skateboarding but murderers go free,’ he said. ‘Cops are idiots.’ He lit up a cigarette and told me I should never start because smoking could kill you. He said the cops were a lot cooler in England. He started telling me about London, he used to work for an English newspaper and took pictures of Sting, and I went, ‘Is that where you got that haircut?’ and he goes, ‘Yes.’ But then I started feeling nervous in case my mom saw me talking to him, so I said I had to go and walked up to Fourth Street.”
The victim estimated she encountered the offender on the Promenade three or four times over the next few weeks. Once he was feeding the pigeons. Once he was photographing a homeless man. They would have casual conversations. “I like your sunglasses,” he told her one day. “Where’d you get them?” She named the shop and he said he knew the owner. He said he could get her a deal. He never came on to her, he did not ask her name, but she felt he was her special friend, an older person who was accepting and happy to see her while she was experiencing exclusion at her new school.
On Thursday, the 23rd, the victim had gone to a commercial venue on the Promenade called Crystal Dreams, a New Age — type store, desperately looking to buy marijuana to impress the “in crowd” at school. She was rebuffed by the owner, who claims to be “antidrugs,” and felt humiliated. As she exited the store she saw the offender sitting outside on a bench. His appearance had changed. He had cut off the long hair and was sporting a buzz cut. Despite this rough-and-tumble appearance, he seemed concerned that she not put her backpack on the ground.
“He said I shouldn’t get it dirty, it was a nice backpack, and picked it up and put it between us on the bench. I told him I didn’t care if it got dirty. He asked what was wrong. ‘I’m trying to score and that girl inside is being a bitch.’ ‘You’re trying to score what?’ he asked. ‘Weed. Do you have any?’ He laughed and lit a cigarette. ‘Let me tell you something that’s going to save your life,’ and told a story about a friend of his, a girl, who shot up heroin in the neck and died in his arms. I said that wasn’t me, and he said of course it wasn’t and pulled out this album and started showing me photographs. ‘That’s you,’ he said.”
The photos were not of the victim but of girls like her. Close in age, medium in stature, long hair, white. She reported that the shots looked professional, taken in parks or on the beach or posed with cars. All the subjects were clothed.“He told me he’d seen a lot of girls and picked me out of the crowd right away. He said I could become a model, like the girls in the pictures. I shouldn’t even think about the kids in school. ‘They’re not fit to carry your purse.’ They were jealous of my talent. He used the word ‘talent.’ I was feeling better. He said he had pictures of me in the van. I said, ‘No way!’ He said yeah, he’d taken some candids and they really turned out great. The van was in a parking structure half a block away. I took my backpack and went with him. It didn’t seem like a big deal.”
The van was parked on the roof of parking structure number five. It was older, dark green, rear double doors. The victim was not able to identify the make. Most of the parking spaces were empty and there were no other pedestrians visible.
“I felt weird being alone up there with him. I was hoping someone would come out of the elevator, but I told myself that was stupid, just a reflex that gets drummed into your head. He was very polite. He went around to the driver’s side and unlocked the doors, and I climbed in on the passenger side. There was a camera bag on the front seat, so I put it on the floor.“
As soon as I was inside his whole thing changed. He yelled at me to get in the back. He scared the crap out of me just with his voice. I tried to open the door, but it was locked. Then he took out a gun. I never saw a real gun. I think I went into shock. He said, ‘Give me your money.’ I couldn’t open the zippers on the backpack fast enough, and he started screaming at me to hurry up. I started opening my wallet, the change spilled all over. ‘How much do you have?’ I said about ten dollars and my mother’s credit card for emergencies. He stuffed everything into the place where you put the CDs. He had a bunch of junk in there. Some wire, a roll of duct tape, some loose bullets and about three knives. I was totally freaked when I saw that stuff.“
He told me again to get into the back. I guess I expected some artsy thing since he was a photographer, but inside there were filthy mattresses on the floor and the windows were covered with black paper and there was like fishnet hanging. I was really, really scared. He had the gun to my head. I was crying. He said, ‘I’m going to kill you. If you do as I say, I’ll let you choose which way you die.’ I said, ‘Please don’t, please don’t,’ and said I could get a lot of money for him, but he said, ‘Take off your clothes.’ I took off my sweatshirt. I had to pull it up over my eyes, and I was sure he was going to shoot me. But then I could see him again, and he was right there looking at me, but it was like his face was a mask. He made me take off my T-shirt. I don’t wear a bra, so he started feeling my breasts. It was disgusting and it hurt. Then he told me to put my hands out, and I did, and he put these handcuffs on me and that was the worst. I felt like I was a slave. He said if I made any noise he’d kill me. He pushed me down on my back and knelt over me and unzipped his pants. I kept crying and saying, ‘Please don’t hurt me,’ but he sat on my chest, put his penis in my mouth, and I couldn’t breathe.”
The offender was not able to get an erection.“
His filthy underwear was in my face. He said, ‘Are you a virgin?’ and I couldn’t answer so he’d grab my hair and make my head nod and he said, ‘You’re not a virgin. You’ve done this before. You love it. You’re good at it. You love it. Does this do it for you?’ and make my head nod like I was a doll. He was heavy, and I couldn’t breathe, and it went on and on. I could not believe this was happening on the roof of the parking structure. I thought I would never get out of that van alive. It was worse than a nightmare. He kept telling me what to do, like, ‘Suck on it,’ over and over and making my head nod, or banging it against the floor, and this went on and on until finally he, I guess you’d say, ejaculated down my throat and all over my face, and I started heaving like I was going to throw up and he got off me and said, ‘Spit,’ and I spit into a filthy rag, a rag you’d wipe the engine of a car with, then he rubbed it into my face and all over my breasts. I thought at least it was over, I was coughing, but then all of a sudden he put this thing, they said it was a chain, around my neck and strangled me until I almost blacked out. He did that over and over again. It was like he held me underwater. I tried to fight, but he was too strong. All I could say was, ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ Finally he told me to sit up and quit crying. ‘You’re my woman now,’ he said, which struck me as so stupid I started to laugh. ‘You think that’s funny?’ he said, but he was smiling. He tucked in his shirt, and it seemed to take a long time. He fussed until the buttons of the shirt were lined up with the buckle on his pants. Then he pulled a cooler out of the netting and I thought, Oh my God, what does he have in there? but it was only sodas and sandwiches. ‘Want a Coke?’ he asked like a normal person, the person he was like on the bench. While he was busy getting it, I was looking around to escape. I remembered hearing you should never, never get into a car with them, and I knew if we drove away he’d definitely kill me. I thought if I could get to the back doors fast I could jump out, even with the handcuffs, before he turned around, but then he turned around. I was still naked on top, but also smeared with oil from the rag and disgusting stuff all over me. I felt totally filthy and degraded, but I wanted to live; so I decided to do whatever he said and try to be nice to him. I made up my mind about that. He wouldn’t let me hold the Coke. He fed it to me until I drank it all. Then he said, ‘Lie down and die.’ I felt really drunk and passed out.”
After a few minutes of silence there was body movement and a couple of sighs of disgust. Handcuffs were brought out and fiddled with.
“We believe he drugged her with Rohypnol or GHB,” I told the team. “She doesn’t remember much of the rest of the assault, but we have forensic evidence — the lab report is also in your packet — that gives an emerging picture of the scenario. The big question now is, where?” “How about
I smiled. “Hopefully this guy,” pointing to the composite.
