Affidavit allegation: Man raped drunken teen after leading her away from Lawrence college bar
Chain of policework identified suspect
photo by: Mike Yoder
In October 2016, a 17-year-old reported to Lawrence police that she’d been raped by a man she met at a bar near the University of Kansas campus.
The teen told police she was very drunk when the man — whose name she wasn’t sure of — isolated her from her friend, walked her to a nearby home, raped her, then walked her back to the bar.
That report and a chain of police work that followed eventually led to the arrest of Albert N. Wilson, 21, of Lawrence, according to the affidavit prepared by police in support of his arrest.
Wilson was charged Oct. 11 in Douglas County District Court with one count of rape, a felony.
The Journal-World requested the affidavit and received it from the court this week. The allegations in the document have yet to be tried in court.
The victim reported the rape on Oct. 5, 2016, and told police this, according to the affidavit:
The night of Sept. 10, 2016, and early the next morning she was with her cousin at the Jayhawk Cafe, 1340 Ohio St., and “very intoxicated” when two men separated them and touched both of them inappropriately.
She said one of the men “led her out of the bar and walked her to an unknown home.” She told him multiple times that she was “too drunk” and said “no,” but the man raped her then “led” her back to the bar.
The woman told police the suspect was a black male, about 5 feet 8 inches tall with short brown hair and an athletic build, and wearing a multicolored sweater. She said she thought his first name was Albert.
In the next few days, police talked to more people. According to the affidavit:
The cousin told police that when the suspect and victim got back to the bar, the two women left and she contacted a sorority sister trained to deal with sexual assault.
As to how drunk the victim was, the cousin told police she was very intoxicated, with “very slurred and slow” speech. Another man from the bar that night told police she was so intoxicated he had to hold her up at the bar to keep her from falling down.
The woman contacted by the cousin told police she talked to the victim about 1:30 that morning and that the victim seemed disheveled and tired and appeared to have been crying. She believed the victim had been drinking but did not seem intoxicated by then.
In the next few weeks, police gathered and pieced together other clues, one link at a time.
According to the affidavit:
Surveillance video from the bar showed the victim being led out about 12:10 a.m. by a man in a sweater with bright colors.
Video showed the same man had entered the bar about 11 p.m., using someone else’s driver’s license. The man the license actually belonged to entered the bar one minute later, using the same license, and video showed the two together inside.
Police confirmed the driver’s license holder was a KU student, and got his cellphone number from the university directory.
From his phone records police gleaned another number: the number the friend was on the line with at the same time he and the suspect are captured on video talking on their phones, then meeting in front of the bar and hanging up, roughly half an hour after the suspect left the bar with the victim.
From the second number, police learned the subscriber’s street address and got a list of residents of that address, which included Wilson. Police used Wilson’s driver’s license photo to identify him as the suspect from the bar’s surveillance video.
From the KU directory, which listed Wilson as an online student, police learned his address was near the bar — in the 1300 block of Kentucky Street.
On Nov. 18, 2016, police found Wilson at home and took him to the police station for an interview. When police showed him surveillance photos from the bar, Wilson said it was him in the pictures. But he said he did not remember the alleged victim, and said multiple times that he didn’t remember what happened.
The affidavit, signed Sept. 13 of this year, doesn’t say anything about forensic testing.
It does say that the woman went to the hospital for a sexual assault exam the day of the incident, though she did not report the rape to police until a month later. The affidavit also says police took a cheek swab from Wilson and collected the sweater he was wearing the night in question.
Wilson is currently jailed on $75,000 bond, according to court records.
According to the charge against him, the section of state rape statute he is accused of violating is knowingly engaging in sex with a victim who did not consent and was overcome by force or fear.
Wilson’s appointed attorney, Forrest Lowry, declined to comment for this story on the allegations in the affidavit. Wilson’s preliminary hearing in the case is scheduled for Nov. 22.
More coverage
• Jan. 10, 2019 — Jury finds man guilty of raping teen he met at Lawrence college bar, unable to agree on other count
• Jan. 9, 2019– Defendant at trial: ‘She didn’t seem intoxicated at all … I didn’t rape her’
• Jan. 8, 2019– At trial of Lawrence man, woman describes being raped as teen, devastation that followed
• Jan. 7, 2019– Rape trial begins for man accused of leading intoxicated high school girl away from Lawrence college bar
• Nov. 22, 2017– Judge orders man accused of raping teen he met at college bar to stand trial
• Nov. 9, 2017– Affidavit allegation: Man raped drunken teen after leading her away from Lawrence college bar