Video of Finley Stadium rape victim shown in court

photo Devontavious Bryant

For much of the video, the victim is crying.

When she stands in front of the police car and tells Officer Daryl Slaughter what happened, she can barely choke out the words. When he asks her for her name, it comes out as a wail. When she huddles alone in his back seat, there are muffled cries.

And when she calls her husband on Slaughter's phone, the words "I was raped" come out as sobs.

Out for a morning jog, the 30-year-old woman was attacked by two teens near Finley Stadium during the early morning hours of Oct. 12, 2012, police say. Devontavious Bryant, 20, and Deacon Williams, 18, have been charged with aggravated rape, aggravated robbery and aggravated assault in connection with the attack.

On Monday, a judge ruled that prosecutors can show the dramatic police cruiser video, taken in the hours after the attack, when the case goes to trial. Assistant District Attorney General Cameron Williams successfully argued that the woman's statements were "excited utterances" that should be included, even though similar statements could be considered hearsay and excluded from trial.

Cameron Williams began by asking Slaughter to describe the woman's state when he picked her up in the parking lot of PSC Metals about 20 minutes after the attack. Slaughter said the woman's face was streaked with tears and her hair was disheveled.

He could tell she had "been through something pretty traumatic," Slaughter said.

The prosecution's argument hinged on her emotional state at the time the video was recorded. "Excited utterances," defined as statements relating to a startling event made when the victim is under stress, are an exception to the state's hearsay law, meaning they can be included in court.

On Monday, prosecutors showed 47 minutes of the video to Judge Don Poole.

It begins shortly after Slaughter meets the woman, who flagged down help from a driver, in the parking lot of PSC Metals. The woman and Slaughter stand together in front of his cruiser, and she tells him she's been attacked. She agrees to take him back to where it happened.

In the courtroom, Bryant shook his head and ran his hands over his face while the video played.

At one point, the victim asks to use Slaughter's phone to call her husband. He talks to the man first, then passes it to her. She tells him over and over what happened, and before passing the phone back, wails "I love you."

Attorneys for Bryant and Deacon Williams made no objection to the entire video being entered as evidence, though Bryant's attorney, Charlie Weiss, asked that a transcript be given to a jury instead of the entire two-hour video. Poole said he saw the video as evidence and would give that instruction to a jury.

Cameron Williams told Poole the prosecution plans to amend the men's charges to aggravated rape and robbery, a lesser charge than aggravated robbery. The aggravated assault charge will not go to trial, which is set to begin next Tuesday, Cameron Williams said.

Contact staff writer Claire Wiseman at cwiseman@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6347. Follow her on Twitter @clairelwiseman.

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