Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 15, 1992 TAG: 9201150270
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MONICA DAVEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD LENGTH: Medium
STUDENT DESCRIBES SEXUAL ATTACK AT SCHOOL
A Bedford County high school student testified Tuesday that a faculty member tried to rape her during study hall.The student wept and trembled as she described details of the alleged attack at Jefferson Forest High School last February, when she was 17.
William Douglas Carroll, 35, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to the attempted rape charge, which could carry a 10-year prison sentence.
Defense testimony and evidence has yet to be offered in the trial, which was expected to conclude today.
The student testified that Carroll - who was a library aide, study hall monitor and drill team instructor at the eastern Bedford County high school last year - befriended her after she transferred there in February.
Carroll worked in the library during the hour she was assigned to be there for study hall.
"I thought it was really nice of him to be putting forth the effort to be nice to me," the student said. Being a newcomer, she didn't have friends at the school.
"He seemed like he was going to be a friend more than a teacher," she said. The student said she confided in Carroll about her difficult past, which included sexual abuse by a relative and conflict with her mother.
She had ended up with a foster family in Bedford County after her mother dumped her off at a mall and didn't come back, the teen-ager remembered revealing to Carroll.
"He seemed really sympathetic," she said.
Within days, however, Carroll's friendliness turned ugly, the student testified.
One day, he offered to show the student how to file magazines in a small room for audio-visual equipment off the library, she said. When they were inside the room, Carroll started kissing and touching the student, she testified. She told him to stop and he did, she said.
"I thought that was the end of it," she said. "When we were back in the library, he acted like it wouldn't happen again. . . . I thought he was just going to leave me alone."
A couple days later, though, Carroll asked the teen-ager to put away several magazines for him, she said. As she filed the magazines in the side room, Carroll walked in, slammed the door and shut off the lights, she testified.
She said he cornered her and began kissing her.
Then, she said, Carroll threw her onto a cart designed to hold television equipment, held her down and took her pants off. He took his own pants off and pressed against her thigh, she testified.
"I was trying to get him off me," she said, in a barely audible voice. "I was trying to scratch him, to push him away. . . . I started crying and screaming."
Just then, she said, something caused the door in the room to rattle and Carroll believed someone was approaching. Carroll pulled his pants on and went back to the library - warning the teen to get dressed and never to tell anyone, she said.
On cross-examination, defense attorney Ed Dawson tried to poke holes in the student's testimony.
He pressed her to explain why she had not reported the attack until May.
"He was my teacher," she answered. "Who would believe me?"
Why had she agreed to go to the side room a second time after the first incident? Dawson asked.
"Because he was the teacher and I was the student," she said.
Dawson also tried to point out lapses in the student's memory and inconsistencies between her testimony Tuesday and earlier interviews with investigators.
The student could not remember the specific date of the attack nor whether she could see Carroll's face in the darkened side room.
She also could not say which had happened first: the lights being turned off or the door being slammed. "I just remember seeing him standing there and the lights went out and the door closed," she said.
Under more questioning from Dawson, the student admitted that she was taking prescription medication and that she had attempted suicide last month.
Dawson asked what had brought on that attempt.
"I just couldn't take it anymore," the teen-ager said, sobbing.
Jurors today are expected to hear a taped interview between a sheriff's investigator and Carroll, who was fired after the allegation was made.
Jurors also will travel to the high school to see the layout of the library and side room.
Circuit Judge William Sweeney has yet to decide whether he will allow prosecutor Philip Baker to present statements from other female students at the school.
Outside the jury's presence, several students testified Tuesday that Carroll had asked them questions about their sex lives, touched them or rubbed against them while he worked in the library.
One student, asked why she had never reported the rubbing incident she described Tuesday, replied: "I just thought he was my teacher. Who were they going to believe - a D student or a teacher?"