photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Tristan James appears at a hearing on April 7, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

A woman testified on Monday that she had been drinking heavily the night she was allegedly abducted by a fellow student and raped before escaping back to her Haskell dormitory.

The accused, Tristan Aden James, 20, a Haskell Indian Nations University student, is charged in Douglas County District Court with one count of rape, one count of kidnapping and one count of eluding police, all felonies. The charges are in connection with a series of events in the early hours of Nov. 2, 2024. He is alleged to have abducted the woman and raped her in his car, then to have led police on a chase through the city, as the Journal-World reported.

“I was screaming and crying and telling him to stop and he kept doing his thing,” the 18-year-old woman testified during James’ preliminary hearing on Monday.

She said she had never met James before that night, but when he invited her over to his car, a white Hyundai Elantra, and already knew her name, she and her friend got into his car and chatted for a while. Her friend got out of the car, and she tried to follow but struggled to find the door handle. She said she had been drinking several types of alcohol throughout the evening.

Throughout the woman’s testimony, James could be seen smiling and shaking his head.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Tristan James smiles and shakes his head while a woman testifies at a hearing on April 7, 2025, in Douglas County District Court. James is accused of kidnapping and raping the woman.

She eventually found the door handle, but James leaned across her and stopped her from opening it, she said, hen grabbed her arm, pulled her close and kissed her. She called a second friend for help, but that friend did not arrive in time.

“He locked the doors. I said I just wanted to get out,” the woman said.

The next thing the woman knew, James had thrown the car in reverse and sped away from the dorm only to stop again a couple blocks away, she said.

“I called (my friend) and said, ‘He’s taking me,’ and my friend told me to jump out of the car, but I couldn’t find the handle,” the woman said.

Once parked again, he climbed on top of her, she said, and assaulted her with his fingers.

“I was in shock,” the woman said.

She said James ignored her cries and told her that he knew “she wanted it.” While “squirming,” she eventually got her hand on the door handle, opened the door and rolled onto the ground.

Still in shock, the woman walked across an open field from where the car was parked back to her dorm. She said she saw her friend’s car speeding toward James’ car, but didn’t realize exactly what was happening. She went inside her dorm and began to cry as she told another friend what had happened.

During the incident, the woman was still on the phone with her friend. The friend testified that when she first got the call from the woman, everything seemed fine. She said when she went to meet the woman outside the dorm it appeared that the woman was kissing the man inside the car. She said she left the woman to walk another friend back inside and when she put the phone back up to her ear, she heard the woman’s panic.

She said she ran back to the car where the woman was, just in time to see the white car speed away.

“I was running, trying to chase the car,” the friend said.

She saw some friends nearby and enlisted them to chase the car. They found the car a few blocks away, and she got out and approached James’ passenger car door, but he sped off again. The friend then called the police, jumped back in her friend’s car and gave chase.

Lawrence police officer Charles Smyser testified that he joined the chase around 19th and Massachusetts streets. He said James flew through the red light past him despite Smyser having his lights and sirens on. He said the car that was chasing James stopped at the light and that he did not pay attention to them as he chased James in connection with a suspected kidnapping.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Lawrence police officer Charles Smyser testifies at a hearing on April 7, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

Smyser said he turned around and chased James at speeds exceeding 70 mph past the KU campus, down Naismith Drive to 23rd Street, where James hit a crosswalk pole. The chase ended when James crashed a second time into the pedestrian underpass at the corner of Louisiana and 27th streets next to Broken Arrow Elementary School.

James’ preliminary hearing was cut short on Monday after his attorney, Angela Keck, said that she had four law enforcement officers to call as witnesses but that none had been available for the hearing.

According to court records, Keck issued subpoenas to the officers only one week before the hearing, and two, whom Keck named as critical, asked the court to quash the subpoenas because they were out of town on a training assignment.

James is scheduled to appear again on April 18, when Judge Sally Pokorny will hear the rest of the evidence and determine if there is probable cause to believe that James committed the crime. James is currently in custody on a $100,000 bond.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Tristan James, left, and his attorney, Angela Keck, appears at a hearing on April 7, 2025, in Douglas County District Court. Keck imitates the pushing motion a woman testified she made while pushing James off of her during an alleged assault.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Tristan James appears at a hearing on April 7, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.