Eight rape victims relived the terror and pain of being sexually assaulted as they testified Monday in a preliminary hearing of an accused serial rapist.
The often graphic testimony brought many of the victims to tears, as the women, ranging from ages 15 to 52, took the witness stand in 2nd District Court during the first day of a two-day hearing for Jason Brett Higgins, 23. The hearing resumed Tuesday.The 1991 Ben Lomond graduate and Ogden steelworker has been charged with 21 first-degree felonies - nine counts of aggravated sexual assault; nine counts of aggravated kidnapping; and three counts of forcible sodomy.
Prosecutors filed two new charges Friday, alleging one of the victims, then 14, was raped twice by Higgins. Higgins is accused of attacking the girl in October and November. Higgins was arraigned on the new charges Monday.
One of the alleged victims was walking home from a high school pep rally in October when she was attacked by a man who had just passed her near a church parking lot.
"He grabbed me, I started to scream, then I bit him," the 16-year-old said. "He put his hand over my mouth and told me he would stab me. . . . Then he told me to get on my hands and knees."
While the girl was being raped, the victim told her attacker that she was only 14 and she had contracted the AIDS virus, which was a ruse, she testified.
"Did this bother him?" deputy Weber County Attorney Bill Daines asked.
"Obviously not," the girl said.
Prosecutors and witnesses described the rapist as selecting his victims carefully and following a similar pattern for each attack. None of the victims knew the perpetrator, they testified.
Among the similarities in the cases, Higgins is accused of:
- Pulling or dragging all eight women from a sidewalk or street into a vacant lot or secluded area.
- Threatening to kill most of them with a knife and demanding that they, "Shut up!"
- Raping them in a specific and particular manner.
- Leaving behind physical evidence in each case.
Another 16-year-old girl testified Monday she was walking down Adams Street at dusk on Dec. 30 when a man passed her by and said, "Hello."
She returned the greeting, then the man attacked her from behind, dragged her to a nearby tree and told her to disrobe.
"I told him no, that I'd rather be stabbed than raped," the girl said. "Then he pulled off my pants and held a ball point pen to my ear. I asked him why he had to do it to me, why he couldn't get a girl-friend, and he said I was his girlfriend for the night."
One of two 52-year-old victims testified she was walking for exercise in the Ogden City Cemetery on Feb. 11 when a man approached her, pushed her on the grass and asked for money.
The woman said her attacker pushed her headband down around her eyes so she could not see, then raped her. During the attack, the man asked her age, then unexplicably stopped the attack and asked for her forgiveness, weeping uncontrollably.
She said she asked her attacker for his name to pray for him and he replied, "Brett." The attacker then gave her some advice on how not to be raped, the woman testified.
Only one of the victims said she could positively identify her attacker. The 52-year-old Roy woman testified she remembered her attacker's facial features as he approached her as she went on an early morning walk. She then picked Higgins' picture out of a police photo line-up.
Daines argued DNA from blood and hair samples tested at the State Crime Lab will also link Higgins to the rapes.
In his opening statement, Daines said the likelihood of someone other than Higgins leaving behind the exact type of hair and semen samples found at the crime scenes was between one in 580,000 white males in one case and one in 650 million in six cases. The probability in another case is one in 2 million white males, Daines said.
Defense attorney Geoffrey Clark agreed that the series of "unspeakable" attacks have "gripped this county and city in a lock of paranoia, frustration and fear."
But he maintained prosecutors have the wrong man and accused police of shoddy work.
"Those are staggering numbers the state is relying on," Clark said. "But this case will come down to three points: qualifications, accreditations and motivations."
Clark said investigations into the rapes by the Ogden Police Department and other area law enforcement agencies have been riddled with "inaccuracies and ineptitudes" as they rushed to find a perpetrator.
"They think DNA is going to get a monster off the street," Clark said. "Now they've played pin the tail on the monster. But it's not that easy. (Higgins) is a man who is not guilty of these crimes."
Before the hearing, defense attorney John Caine asked 2nd District Judge Thomas D. Lyon to close the preliminary hearing.
But Lyon said Caine's arguments were not compelling enough to bar the public from the hearing.