Wearing a powder blue blouse, black skirt and black strapped pumps, the girl answered Assistant Prosecutor Jennifer McElfresh’s questions comfortably, until details of the alleged sex acts were requested. Her face crumbled and she began softly crying. Spaeth granted a brief recess and family members and friends, even one female juror, all left the courtroom in tears.
The family members never returned to the courtroom, but the girl testified without much emotion to the details of four alleged sex acts in a bedroom and bathroom of the home in the 700 block of Sycamore Street on June 19, 2005.
The girl told the jury she was turning her purple Precious Pearls bike around in a driveway when a man with a mole on his lip and a bird tattoo on his shoulder, who was sitting at a picnic table drinking beer that day, summoned her over with a silent gesture.
When she went to him the girl said he picked her up, bike and all, and carried her into the house. She said he tossed the bike into a closet and carried her like a baby upstairs to a bedroom, slapping her in the face when she tried to scream. He then “forcefully” took off her pink shirt, capri pants, sandals and eventually her purple underwear. He proceeded to have anal, vaginal and oral sex with her, she testified.
She said at some point when someone knocked on the bedroom door, she was “squished” between the door and wall. She said she didn’t cry out for help because, “He said he would kill me.”
After Cruz allegedly fell asleep, the girl ran from the house naked, past another man on the porch of the house, to her home across the street. She said her father asked what happened to her and she just pointed across the street. She said her dad grabbed his gun and ran across the street and her grandmother dialed 911.
McElfresh said Cruz allegedly fled the scene and eventually ended up in Mexico and was captured by authorities there and returned to Butler County in September.
The prosecutors say they have fingerprint and DNA evidence Cruz had contact with the girl and medical evidence will prove she was raped. Defense attorney Lawrence Hawkins III, laying the foundation for future witnesses, asked the girl if she ever told a therapist that nothing happened. She said no. He asked her if she told police there was another person there when Cruz allegedly carried her into the house on her bike. She said she didn’t remember. He also told the jury his client does not have a mole or tattoo. He says the physical evidence will exonerate Cruz.
“In reality you are going to hear a story from a teenager,” he said during opening statements. “The story is going to be elaborate, it’s going to be disturbing and untrue.”
Public outrage over the crime sparked a week of unrest in the 4th Ward neighborhood and heightened racial tension there in 2005. The Sycamore Street home where the alleged rape occurred was razed after being vandalized and twice set on fire.
The trial resumes on Tuesday.
Contact this reporter at (513) 696-4525 or dcallahan@coxohio.com.
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