Victim testifies in kidnapping, rape trial

This is an update to story posted online earlier Wednesday.

VICTORVILLE — Outside the Victorville court room, the key witness in a Newberry Springs kidnapping and sexual assault trial behaved like any other 16-year-old girl. She walked the halls, chatting quietly with another teen girl and giggling.

Inside the court room, on the stand, she was not any other 16-year-old girl.

Sniffling and trying to piece together long-ago events, the victim of an alleged kidnapping and sexual assault testified on Wednesday as to what she remembered about the suspect, Robert Daniel Harrison, and an April day five years ago. Defense attorney Michael Duncan focused on gaps in the girl’s memory and possible influence from investigators and deputy district attorneys.

Harrison is standing trial in Victorville on charges of kidnapping and sexual assault dating back to an alleged abduction in Barstow in 2002.

He would ordinarily be facing a maximum sentence of four life terms if convicted, according to a report from 2002. However, his prior convictions of burglary double his potential prison sentence to eight life terms if convicted on all charges.

The victim testified that Harrison, whom she identified in the courtroom, grabbed her out of her backyard on the 600 block of East Virginia Way, put her on the floor of his truck, drove her to a property in Newberry Springs and sexually assaulted her.

“I’m going to take you back to April 2002. Do you remember something that happened to you?” Deputy District Attorney Kay Neshat asked.

The girl said that she and her brother, who testified on Tuesday, came home to a locked house. Both had forgotten their key and sat outside. Her brother went through a hole in the backyard wall to meet some friends in the nearby Food 4 Less parking lot. After some time, she said, she got up to join her brother.

“Someone was talking to me that I didn’t know,” she said. “I was walking to the hole in the wall, and he grabbed me.”

The man put her in his truck and drove her away, she said. She does not remember much about the drive — grass fields, airplanes, trains, hay stacks, sprinklers and a road she called the “butterfly road.”

“Because it goes up and down like a roller coaster and gives you butterflies,” she said. “I didn’t know if I was going to see my family again.”

Next, she said the car stopped at a property with two “trashy” houses. Neshat showed photos of a Newberry Springs property littered deep with trash.

“That’s the house that he took me to,” the victim said.

Much of what happened next, the girl said she could not remember, but what she did recall froze an already attentive jury. Nervously rotating back and forth in her chair, the girl described being tied to a chair in a closet, the suspect’s strange behavior and multiple instances of assault. Neshat probed for details her witness could not offer.

“Is it that you don’t want to remember?” Neshat asked. “Is it difficult to remember this?”

The girl said that what she told police five years ago was true, even if she does not remember it now. Often during the testimony, Duncan objected to Neshat’s use of previous statements. However, Judge Jules Fleuret allowed testimony to continue.

The girl said Harrison eventually took her home after about 24 hours.

“He told me not to tell my mom,” she said, “and he gave me $10 and told me to get something to eat.”

Later that day, she said she told her mom and grandmother, both of whom testified Tuesday, and the police became involved.

Neshat said the girl did well on the stand by answering the questions as best she could. The lapses in memory did not frustrate Neshat, she said.

“All you can ask is for someone to answer the questions truthfully,” Neshat said. “After five years ... it’s difficult stuff to remember.”

Just before lunch recess, Duncan began his cross-examination. He focused on what she did not remember and suggested that the prosecution could have helped her with her responses.

Holding up a nondescript brown suitcase the girl identified as Harrison’s, he asked the girl why she was sure this was Harrison’s suitcase.

“I don’t know,” she responded.

“Because you assumed she (Neshat) was showing you the right suitcase?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Following lunch, Duncan questioned the witness for about 15 more minutes before she was excused. Neshat then called two other witnesses, a nurse who examined the victim and a crime scene investigator.

The trial will resume on Thursday at 1:30 p.m. with the testimony of Barstow Police Det. Leo Griego, the case’s primary investigator.

The Desert Dispatch normally does not identify the alleged victims of sexual crimes. When the girl was first reported missing, the Dispatch initially reported her identity and personal information in order to aid with the search. Once the circumstances of her kidnapping were made clear, the Dispatch stopped identifying the girl. In order to protect the victim, the names of involved family members will not be released. The judge also denied requests to photograph the trial out of concern for the victim’s privacy.

Contact the writer:

(760) 256-4123 or aaron_aupperlee@link.freedom.com

Trial Summary

Tuesday:

• Opening statements from the prosecution

• Testimony from the victim’s older brother, mother and grandmother

• Lt. Rich Harpole of the Barstow PD testified about the initial search of Harrison’s property

Wednesday:

Testimony from:

• The 16-year-old victim

• Michele Snow, a former BCH emergency room nurse who examined the victim

• Russell Rekarward, former San Bernardino County crime scene investigator who worked the Newberry Springs crime scene

Thursday:

• Expected testimony from Barstow Police Det. Leo Griego, the primary investigator and case agent