Overcome by emotion, reported victim testifies for third time in Haskell dorm rape case

For the third time in as many trials, a woman who said she was raped by two men inside a Haskell Indian Nations University dormitory room was overcome with emotion on the witness stand.

“I can’t talk,” she said Monday as soon as prosecutor C.J. Rieg asked her about the incident, which reportedly took place in the early-morning hours of Nov. 15, 2014.

“I’ve got to breathe,” she continued, fanning her face. “I can’t catch my breath.”

Judge Paula Martin quickly called for a five-minute recess before resuming the testimony in Galen Satoe’s second criminal trial.

During the testimony the woman, who is now 21, told jurors what she could remember of the morning when Satoe, 22, and Jared Wheeler, 21, reportedly raped her in the dorm room that the two men shared.

The woman, Satoe, Wheeler and others all knew one another from their native southwest Oklahoma, where they went to high school together.

The woman said she had dated Satoe’s brother but that she and Satoe never were anything more than friends who occasionally flirted. She came to study at Haskell, in part, because of all the familiar faces.

“If felt more safe and more familiar for my first time being away from home,” she said.

In November of her freshman year at Haskell the woman was 19 years old. One Friday, Nov. 14, the woman said she and her best friend, Aryana Bedeau — who testified last week — spent time with a large group of other students. Bedeau woke the woman up from a nap in the evening and the two headed to Satoe and Wheeler’s room, where the group “hung out.”

While the group was drinking throughout the evening the woman said she drank only two beers and was not drunk.

Later during testimony defense attorney Angela Keck showed jurors a taped interview between police investigators and the woman. In that conversation she denied that drugs were a part of the evening.

Also in that interview the woman told police that throughout the evening Satoe grabbed her several times and would not let her leave the room on multiple occasions.

She didn’t think anything of the behavior, though, because they were all friends, the woman said.

Before midnight, the group headed to a gas station to pick up beer, the woman said. During that trip off campus Satoe and Wheeler fought twice, she said; the first argument was over a set of keys and she said Satoe hit Wheeler, and the second fight was a rehash of the original argument.

At this point both Satoe and Wheeler were drunk, the woman said.

After getting beer, the woman said the crowd dwindled to just her, Bedeau, Satoe and Wheeler.

Around 2:30 a.m. the dorm’s resident adviser, Ernie Wilson, came to Satoe and Wheeler’s room and kicked out the two women, noting that it was past curfew for women to be on the men’s side of the building.

The woman said she and Bedeau wandered the building for a short time before sneaking back into Satoe and Wheeler’s room; however, Bedeau quickly left to go to the bathroom.

After Bedeau left, the woman said, Wheeler locked the door and turned the lights off in the room. At first she didn’t find the behavior abnormal, as they had hung out in the dark before.

But then Satoe began grabbing the woman, she said.

“He started kissing on me and hugging me,” she said. “He started pulling my pants down, pulling my shirt off.”

The woman said she told Satoe to stop multiple times and eventually asked Wheeler to help.

“(Wheeler) stood over us for about two seconds and he started kissing me,” she said.

Satoe and Wheeler then both raped her, she said.

“Every time I tried to get up they just put more force,” she said. “I kept saying ‘stop, Galen!’ … He just kept saying ‘come on, girl.”

Eventually the woman said she was able to run from Satoe and Wheeler’s room, down the hall and to the room of a friend, Jonae Scabbyrobe, who testified last week.

“I was freaking out, I was, like, crying,” the woman said. “I remember, I was about to pass out.”

As Scabbyrobe went to find Bedeau the woman said she ran into Satoe once more in the hallway. He asked if she had taken his wallet.

“He said he knew it was (expletive) up, what he did, but it was even more (expletive) up to take his wallet,” she said.

The woman said she broke contact with Satoe and went into the bathroom to shower. At first she didn’t want to call police because her home community in southwest Oklahoma is small and she didn’t want the incident to affect her family.

“Back home everybody knows each other,” she said. “I didn’t want any drama … I knew it would be a big deal like it is now.”

Ultimately Bedeau called the police and both Satoe and Wheeler were arrested that morning. They were released from jail later that same day after each posted a $75,000 bond. Both were expelled from the university.

Also on Monday Lawrence Police Detective Randy Glidewell testified that when he searched Satoe and Wheeler’s room after police were called he found 30 empty beer cans, a used condom and several sheets stained with what might have been blood.

The defendants have maintained throughout the trials that the encounter was a consensual threesome.

Satoe faces two felony counts of rape and a single count of aiding and abetting attempted rape. The jury in his first trial, which finished in August 2016, was unable to reach a unanimous verdict and a mistrial was declared.

After Wheeler’s first and only trial also ended with a hung jury, he pleaded no contest to a single felony count of aggravated battery. He was sentenced in November 2016 to serve 60 days in jail, the maximum the judge could give him.

Satoe’s trial will continue Tuesday morning.