PROVO — The soft-spoken but not intimidated woman showed little emotion Thursday as she described details about how she was severely beaten, sexually assaulted and left for dead.
When the 19-year-old Utah Valley University student came to after blacking out — possibly for hours — she said she found herself lying in a wooded area of the Provo River Trail, her pants and underwear around her knees and her shirt and bra pushed out of place.
She tried to stand, but couldn't because she was too dizzy and was having trouble breathing. Her entire head was numb.
"I could tell I was bleeding. I could tell I was missing teeth," the woman testified in court Thursday. "My head was really heavy."
She then resorted to crawling, at first going the wrong way, and then doubling back and heading toward the main dirt path where she found three passers-by.
"I said, 'Please call 911. I've been raped. I need help.'"
Her compelling testimony about the June 9, 2010, events came during the first day of a three-day preliminary hearing for Shawn Leonard, 34, who is charged with attempted aggravated murder, aggravated sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping, all first-degree felonies. The Springville man also faces first-degree felony charges of aggravated robbery and aggravated kidnapping in connection with a robbery on the same day of the attack; and escape from official custody, a third-degree felony, in the escape from a jail work-release program.
The preliminary hearing for the two cases is being held simultaneously.
Leonard, with tattoos around his neck and all around his right arm, wearing a white jumpsuit with "UDC Inmate" written on the back, sat in a reclined position with his right hand on his chin or on the side of his face as the woman testified against him. He showed little emotion himself.
The woman, who now lives in Cedar City, testified how she had only lived in Provo a month when she decided one day to walk along the Provo River Trail in a wooded area near her apartment complex. She took some notepads and pencils to do some writing.
She passed a man wearing a red hoodie as she walked to a place along the river to write. On her way back, about an hour later, the same man grabbed her from the side with both arms and pulled her off the trail into the bushes, putting one hand over her mouth and telling her not to scream, the woman testified.
After realizing he'd cut her lip as he grabbed her, the man asked her if she was OK, she said. He then told her he wanted money. She said she didn't have any but could get him some.
The woman testified the man at that point told her to lie on the ground and face away from her so he could run away. She asked if she could just sit on the ground because she didn't want to get dirt in her bloody lip.
The victim sat down, facing away from the man, believing that he would leave. The next thing she felt, however, was a string around her neck choking her.
The student said she fought her attacker, trying to kick and "claw" him, but she blacked out. She believes she was then pulled by her neck deeper into the bushes. She could feel the man feeling around in her pockets. But when the man realized that she was coming to, the victim testified that he strangled her again and she blacked out a second time, possibly for three hours.
The woman lost eight teeth during the attack. She had her jaw wired shut for months. She still experiences double vision when she looks down. She can't drive and said she continues to have trouble sleeping at night.
When prosecutors asked the woman who did this to her, she pointed to Leonard and quietly said, "He did."
One of the first people to find her was Conner Hall. He testified she was sitting on the sidewalk, holding her knees to her chest and bleeding severely from her face.
"She said, 'Please help me, I've been raped,'" Hall recalled. "She was covered in blood."
While the woman was blacked out, police believe her face was smashed with both a rock and part of a cement cinder block. In court, the actual cinder block with what appeared to be a blood stain was presented as evidence. Upon cross examination, police admitted the stain had not been tested in a lab and confirmed to be blood.
A photograph of a blood stained rock was also presented as evidence.
The victim said she lost six teeth at the scene and two more were later removed because they were so badly damaged. Provo police testified they found four teeth at the crime scene and the fragment of a fifth. She was in the hospital for two weeks and underwent several surgeries in the months that followed. Her jaw was broken and had to be wired shut. The woman said she lost 20 pounds because all she could eat were liquids or mashed potatoes. Today, the 5-feet 11-inch woman weighs 115 pounds.
Thursday, the student said she still had to wear braces to reset her remaining teeth before implants could be put in her mouth. Her right eye was displaced because of the swelling, she said. The woman eventually had metal plates installed in her cheek, behind her eye and under her jaw.
She also has trouble sleeping at night to this day and has a rapid heart rate that she has to take blood pressure medicine for — something she didn't have to do before the attack.
An emergency room doctor and a resident physician from Utah Valley Regional Medical Center both testified about the extensive injuries the woman suffered. Dr. Gary Sanderson said her neck was so swollen that it was almost cutting off her airway.
Sanderson said when she was first brought to the hospital, he was thinking: "If I didn't get an airway in place and secured immediately, she would die."
Sanderson commented several times on the extreme amount of swelling and bleeding around the victim's face. "We couldn't even see the eyeball on that side it was so swollen," he said.
Despite her severe injuries, many courtroom observers noted Thursday how remarkably good the woman now looks considering what she has gone through.
"It's a miracle what the doctors have been able to do," said prosecutor Craig Johnson outside the courtroom. "It's a miracle she's alive."
Johnson said the case was likely seconds or minutes away from being a death penalty case rather than an attempted murder. He said he will not offer or accept any plea deals in the case.
"The public needs to know how much damage he did. He was a predator," he said of Leonard.
Provo police detective Brian Taylor showed a diagram in court of where 34 items were found spread out at the crime scene, many of them presented as evidence such as teeth and the rocks allegedly used in the attack.
Some items were found in or near the Provo River such as a Utah County Jail ID bracelet with Leonard's picture.
Outside the courtroom, the victim's mother gave only a few brief comments to the media, saying that her daughter is doing well now.
"She really is amazing," she said.
The preliminary hearing is scheduled to resume Friday and then again on Feb. 18 when a DNA expert from Sorensen Forensics is expected to be back in the country and able to testify.
e-mail: preavy@desnews.com
Twitter: DNewsCrimeTeam