Woman testifies she was raped, threatened

A woman testified Friday that a 47-year-old Douglas County man raped her twice, threatened to shoot her and threatened to cut her with a knife late last year at his apartment south of Lawrence.

The testimony came at a preliminary hearing in District Court. Despite a defense attorney’s complaints about lack of physical evidence, Judge Robert Fairchild ordered the man to stand trial for two counts of rape and one count of aggravated kidnapping.

The 29-year-old woman, a Kansas City, Kan., resident, had met the man through a mutual friend. She testified she was planning to stay at his home and make money by driving him to work because he had problems with his driver’s license.

She went to his apartment at a home in the 1000 section of East 1326 Road for the first time on Dec. 18. She testified that shortly after she went to sleep, he attacked her and then raped her twice during a roughly four-hour period before she took the keys to his truck and left.

The evidence shown Friday did not include any DNA or rape-kit results. But at a preliminary hearing, prosecutors must show only that there’s probable cause for a crime.

“(The victim’s) testimony has established the elements of rape,” Assistant Dist. Atty. Amy McGowan said.

Defense attorney Greg Robinson argued if the incident had been as violent as the woman testified, she would have had more injuries than the bruising and redness detectives saw on her wrists and thighs.

“There’s no physical indication of this alleged rape,” Robinson said. “The only thing we have is her testimony that it happened.”

Fairchild scheduled a jury trial for June 14.