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Key observer testifies that the sex in the Calhoun High battery case was ‘100% consensual’

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By Tyler Jett 5 min read

View a timeline and our coverage of the Calhoun post-prom attack.

photo Avery Johnson, Fields Chapman, and Andrew Haynes, from left, converse during a break while in Gilmer County Superior Court Judge Amanda H. Mercier’s courtroom on Thursday. The three are defendants in a sexual battery case from a Calhoun High School post prom party earlier this year.

ELLIJAY, Ga. – In the case of whether three former Calhoun High School students had sex with a female classmate against her will, Rhett Harper is the key witness.

Besides the defendants and the alleged victim, Harper was the only person in the room during an alleged attack at a post-prom party last May. He says he saw everything.

But whose side is he on? Defense attorneys and prosecutors in the sexual battery case tried to sort that out during a pretrial hearing in Gilmer County Superior Court on Thursday.

Testifying for the first time in the case, Harper told the court that, in the early morning hours of May 11, he walked into a bedroom and saw Fields Benjamin Chapman and Andrew Isaac Haynes having sex with the victim. He then watched Haynes leave and Damon Avery Johnson take his place.