Testimony from beyond grave

By TONY BLAIS, Court Bureau
Last Updated: 15th January 2010, 9:30pm

An alleged Edmonton rape victim has testified against her accused attacker from beyond the grave.

The evidence the woman gave about the alleged attack at an earlier preliminary hearing, shortly before she died, was read by Crown prosecutor Avril Herron yesterday at the Court of Queen’s Bench trial of Adam Blea.

The unusual form of testimony was opposed by defence lawyer David Willson, who argued the woman had not been cross examined and her evidence was unreliable because her demeanour could not be viewed by the court.

However, the judge ruled the evidence could be read.

At the Dec. 17, 2008, preliminary hearing, the woman testified she had been living at a downtown women’s shelter on May 28, 2007, and had gone out to get something to eat when she ran into a man who asked her for a cigarette.

The woman, who cannot be identified under a court-ordered publication ban, said the man offered to get her some crack cocaine and told her to follow him.

As they crossed Jasper Avenue at 96 Street and began heading for a path leading down to the river valley, she said she was grabbed and dragged down the hill.

She testified he jumped on her and began removing her clothes. At one point she said she pushed him and tried to run away, but said he grabbed her and began choking her.

She then said she was HIV positive in the hope it would scare him off, but she said he started punching and kicking her and calling her names, and she told him she had lied.

The man then forced her to perform oral sex on him and then raped her, she said, adding she called for help when she saw two men approach, and her attacker ran off.

It is not known how the woman died.

Blea, 27, is facing three counts of sexual assault causing bodily harm, two counts of sexual assault with a weapon, three counts of unlawful confinement, kidnapping, choking, assault and two counts of uttering death threats.

On Wednesday, a homeless woman testified she was raped near the downtown river valley by a man who had offered to take her to get “cheaper beer.”

The 42-year-old admitted alcoholic told court she had been at a liquor store on Jasper Avenue on Aug. 17, 2006, when the man approached. She said she went with him, but was later grabbed from behind, pulled down a hill behind an apartment building and repeatedly raped.

She also said he choked her with a stick to her throat.

On Monday, a woman testified she left a downtown bar to take a walk for some air on June 17, 2006, and said a man pushed her into a building under construction and repeatedly sexually assaulted her in a “six-hour ordeal.”

From: http://www.edmontonsun.com/news/2010/01/15/12488976.html