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Courageous Victim Recounts 19 Hours Of Rape And Torture In Stunning Courtroom Testimony
Tuesday June 10, 2008
CityNews.ca Staff
Warning: the following story contains extremely graphic and disturbing testimony about a terrible crime. Viewer discretion is strongly advised.
We can't tell you her name but she was able to tell a jury about what happened to her. And her determination to recount some of the most incredible savagery ever heard in a courtroom is testimony to her courage and her desire to see justice done.
The recall of a Columbia University student that unfolded in a New York City hall of justice on Monday was almost too hard to hear. The 24-year-old victim sat in the witness box with her jaw clenched and her mind focused, as she retold the unimaginable ordeal she claims she suffered at the hands of 31-year-old Robert Williams (top left).
The ex-con stared straight ahead as his 24-year-old accuser poured out her story of a 19-hour rape and torture session, a day-long siege so brutal she begged her attacker to kill her.
It happened on April 13, 2007 when Williams allegedly burst into her New York City apartment.
He's accused of forcing her to have oral sex and raping her seven times during that ordeal, but that wasn't the worst of it.
He allegedly scalded her with boiling water from a kettle, forced her to take massive doses of painkillers, used a knife to mutilate her face and slice her eyelids and ordered her to gouge out her own eyes using the same blade.
When she refused, cops say he threw bleach into her face in an attempt to blind her.
"I was burning all over," the witness related in terms so vivid many jury members had to look away. "He threw the rest of the bleach into my face, but I was able to close my eyes in time. I was breathing it in. My lungs were burning."
And still she didn't give up. At one point, she fought back, using the scissors police contend he forced her to cut her hair with. "I tried to stab him in the neck," she testified, noting she cut two of her own fingers in the attempt. "He grabbed my hand and threw me into the corner.
"When he started raping me again, I was sure I was going to die.
"I asked him, 'How does this end?' and he said, 'You know how this ends,'" she told the hushed courtroom. "I took that to mean he was going to kill me."
By the time her attacker poured a second kettle of boiling water on her open wounds, the woman was pleading for him to kill her so the pain would stop.
"I was screaming and crying and in so much pain and agony," she testified. "I said, 'Just kill me. You know you're going to kill me anyway. Just kill me.'"
But she claims he refused. "No, you're not good enough for that," she said he told her. When he ordered her to gouge out her own eyes a second time, she took the blade, ready to commit suicide.
"I was in so much pain I decided to aim for my neck, and if I died it would be so much quicker than how he was going to do it," she related. She tried to fall onto the blade but missed.
That enraged the intruder so much that he struck her with something, possibly her own TV set. The attacker then slashed at her eyelids again, "beating my face, my eye sockets, with the blunt end of the knife."
She screamed until she mercifully blacked out.
But mercy wasn't something this man had for her.
When she came to, she was alone in her apartment and tied to her bed. Her intruder was gone but had left one last terrible surprise for her. He started a fire in her room, hoping to kill her as she lay there helpless. She couldn't untie her hands so she made one last incredible decision to burn off the ties that kept her captive.
She finally broke free and despite the unbelievable violence and injury, managed to reach her front door as the flames spread quickly behind her. She raced out of the apartment and found a couple who took her to their residence and called 911.
The woman suffered liver failure from the overdose of pills, severe scarring and burns and spent months in physical therapy. She's finally able to move normally again, but her physical and mental scars may never heal.
At first Williams refused to appear in court to hear her recount what happened that day. But a judge ordered his presence as she stayed strong on the stand and finished her agonizing story of survival against all odds.
The attorney for the accused admits it was a tough day. "It's always damning when a witness identifies your client," Arnold Levine notes in something of a massive understatement. He refused to cross examine her and her long day came to an end.
It's expected he'll argue witnesses have identified the wrong man.
Williams is facing 71 different charges, including attempted murder, assault, rape and arson. If convicted, he'll likely spend the rest of his life in jail.
Photo courtesy: New York City Police Dept.
