OT: Trial begins in grad student torture case

[Berly]

Nowadays, it takes a lot to phase me. It's sad how desensitized I am to how sick and twisted the world is. This whole story gave me chills and broke my heart. I don't even think I'd wanna live after all that.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24993223/

[WannaBreatheYou]

Oh my God.

I realize under the Constitution everyone is entitled to a good defense, but people who offend sickos like that make me sick.

[Berly]

I know. That's one of the first things I thought when I read it. You have to give up part of your soul to be a defense attorney and represent people like this.

[NicksSummerGurl]

I can't believe she lived through all that. Is it a miracle from God or cruelty from God, I'm not sure.
Bless her heart.

[Berly]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/06/05/2008-06-05_unspeakable_horrors_as_trial_opens_in_to.html

[C_Drake]

Wow....there are no words to describe this. I'm so very glad the woman was able to free herself and identify this man. If she didn't do that, he would be free to do this to someone else. That takes a lot of courage....and I commend her for that.

[KevyFan99]

Wow....there are no words to describe this. I'm so very glad the woman was able to free herself and identify this man. If she didn't do that, he would be free to do this to someone else. That takes a lot of courage....and I commend her for that.


I agree. Also how sadistic can one human(if you can call him that) be?? That poor woman. :greyno:

[NeeCee]

WTF is wrong with people. Reading what he did to her just made me so sick feeling. How can one person feel the need to do something like this to someone! That poor women! She will be scarred for life!

[psychoredhead]

just when i thought nothing fazed me anymore, this really disturbed me. and i don't know if her surviving is a miracle, or just cruel.

[Berly]

The defense is claiming that he's got some mental retardation & that the years he spent in prison for other crimes turned him into an animal. First of all, that's an insult to retarded people. Not that there can't be violent retarded people, but if they are, it's not because of their retardation. All the retarded people I've met over the years have been innocent, gentle souls. So that defense is effed. Secondly, all the years he spent in prison before this is what made him snap? Obviously he wasn't an upstanding citizen if he ended up in prison to begin with. So prison didn't make him this way. Futhermore, to call him an animal is too kind. Animals don't torture each other.

The girl is a badass, though. After going through what she did, she had the presence of mind to use the fire from the futon to burn the cables she was tied up with to break free.

[psychoredhead]

and to pay close enough attention to remember what he looked like to id him to the cops

[pixiedust]

That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. People are so sick. I've become extremely paranoid around people over the years because there are people out there like him.

It's really amazing that she faked being blind so that she could make sure she knew every detail of that thing and was able to burn the cords to free herself. I probably would be too paniced to think of that.

[Berly]

The victim testified yesterday. Poor thing.

NYC student recounts torture
She recounts 19-hour attack that included rape, boiling water and bleach
The Associated Press
updated 8:47 p.m. ET, Mon., June. 9, 2008
NEW YORK - A Columbia University graduate student who was raped and tortured during 19 hours of nightmarish sadism pointed out Monday the man on trial for the attack as the one who drove her to ask for death and try to kill herself.

Her gaze steady and her jaw tightly set, the 24-year-old woman pointed directly at Robert Williams in court Monday when asked whether she saw her attacker in the courtroom.

The woman identified him as she resumed testimony she had begun Friday to describe an almost unimaginable ordeal of searing pain, degradation and fear at the hands of her attacker.

Williams, a 31-year-old ex-convict who had refused to come to court Friday but was forced to appear Monday, stared straight ahead.

His lawyer, Arnold Levine, agreed that the identification hurt the defendant, although Williams has offered no discernible defense.

"It's always damning when a witness identifies your client," he said.

Levine had no questions for the witness after her direct testimony.

'I was sure I was going to die'
The witness described at least seven instances of rape, sodomy and forced oral sex over the 19 hours her assailant was in her apartment in upper Manhattan.

At one point, the woman testified she was able to grab a pair of scissors the man had made her use to cut her shoulder-length hair to an inch long in some spots.

"I tried to stab him in the neck," she testified, adding that she cut two of her fingers on the scissors' blades. "He grabbed my hand and threw me into the corner."

The witness said she tried to stab Williams because "when he started raping me again, I was sure I was going to die."

"I asked him, 'How does this end?' and he said, 'You know how this ends,'" she testified. "I took that to mean he was going to kill me."

During the ordeal, the attacker also forced her to ingest massive doses of painkillers that caused liver failure, and ordered her to gouge out her own eyes with a butcher's knife.


When she refused, she said he twice threw bleach in her face in an attempt to blind her.


more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25068659

[KevyFan99]

[QUOTE=Berly]
"It's always damning when a witness identifies your client," he said.QUOTE]

No kidding Einstein!!! :rolleye2:


I hope this guy rots in jail and or hell for what he put her through!! His lawyer too for that matter for defending him!! :redmad:

Don't know why this isn't quoting right but you get the idea of my post.

[Berly]

^^I meant to comment on that. That genius remark stood out when I first read it. Like no kidding, asswipe.