THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 3, 1996 TAG: 9603030053
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LYNN WALTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: Long : 254 lines
When Raymond Holder was released from the Portsmouth jail in May 1994 after nearly nine months awaiting trial for a rape he did not commit, he took a deep breath of fresh air.
He was exultant, finally proven innocent by DNA tests, exonerated by a judge, ready to start rebuilding his life.
Two months later, Holder, then 23, bottomed out.
Unable to convince old friends and neighbors in his neighborhood around the 1900 block of Elm Avenue that he had not raped a 12-year-old girl, he despaired.
``In their mind, I did it,' Holder said. ``Friends thought I was guilty. They thought it was science compared to a little girl's word. They thought I must have had a good lawyer.''
On the morning of July 12, 1994, a remarkably calm Holder filled a bathtub with hot water, took two razor blades from a safety razor and lay soaking in the water for a long time thinking about his childhood, friends and family.
Then he cut both wrists and drifted into unconsciousness. Holder was saved after his aunt became concerned, found the bathroom door locked and called paramedics.
Much has happened in the 19 months since Holder tried to end his life. He is fighting to rebuild. And, he says, he has decided to fight for restitution.
He has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of Portsmouth and four police officers for false imprisonment. A federal judge will decide Monday whether the case has enough merit to move forward.
The question is no longer whether Holder is guilty of rape. DNA identifications, like fingerprinting, in a case like Holder's are irrefutable.
The question now is whether the city or the officers involved were in any way responsible for his false imprisonment. And if they were, if they should reimburse Holder for anyharm done.
The city has filed a motion to dismiss the case, saying in court papers that the officers acted in goodfaith, arresting Holder only after the victim identified him on the street as her attacker 10 days after the rape.
The city's position, court papers show, is that the officers had probable cause to make the arrest based on the victim's identification and the fact that Holder looked like a composite drawing of the rapist.
A victim's identification of her attacker traditionally has carried tremendous weight with police, the courts and juries.
The city says the officers handled the arrest properly.
If the judge decides Monday that the city is right, the case is essentially over and Holder must find the means to pay more than $10,000 in medical bills and recover more than $10,000 in lost wages for the time spent in jail.
That's the tangible loss. The continuing intangible loss to his reputation and spirit is impossible to put a figure on, Holder says. In the lawsuit, he asks for $500,000 in costs and $350,000 in punitive damages.
On Aug. 25, after getting off work at China Garden, where he worked as a prep cook, Holder bought a lottery ticket and started walking toward his mother's home.
As he walked in the door and headed up the stairs, he did not know he had been followed by a car with a 12-year-old girl inside. Next, a police car pulled up and several officers came to the front door.
The girl, he learned later, had seen him walk past her grandmother's house and told family members he was the man who raped her 10 days before.
She told police the man she saw on the street was wearing a blue sweatshirt and had ``cornrowed hair or braids close to his head,'' according to one officer's deposition. Booking shots taken that day show Holder did not have braids, court records say.
Holder says an officer at the front door eliminated him as the suspect. He says he then went out the back door and picked a piece of fruit from a tree.
An officer looking through cracks in a privacy fence radioed fellow officers that he had found the man they were looking for. Holder was handcuffed and taken to police headquarters.
One of the officers who arrested Holder, Mark Lewis, was an auxiliary, or volunteer officer, and did not receive a salary from the city, court papers said.
He was also the officer who 10 days earlier had taken down the girl's description of the rapist. Holder's lawsuit contends Lewis should have noted that Holder did not look like the original description.
Holder says there were so many similar red flags that police should have known they had an identification problem.
Early on, the lawsuit says, police ignored information provided by the mother that the girl was ``mentally retarded.'' One officer said the girl was ``slow.''
Had they pursued that information and asked for a developmental assessment, they would have discovered the girl was obsessed with sexual attack and had problems holding onto reality in that regard, court papers show.
The assessment, done by the Tidewater Child Development Center before the rape, recommended an investigation into the possibility that the child had been sexually assaulted or molested.
In depositions, the police officers involved said they had received no training in dealing with a mentally handicapped victim.
The final red flag, Holder says, was his repeated pleas for DNA testing.
``Yes, it's unusual for rape suspects to ask for DNA,'' said lead detective Sylvia Kaiser in a recent deposition. Usually, court officials say, defendants do everything they can to avoid it.
Though the girl mistakenly identified Holder, no one has suggested she lied about the attack. She reported it immediately, and medical tests revealed the presence of sperm that would eventually exonerate Holder through DNA testing.
On Aug. 15 about 9 p.m., as the girl walked with two cousins through Abbey Square Apartments near Randolph and Chestnut Streets, a dirty, ragged man with a big belly grabbed her from behind, she told police.
``He had a sharp piece of glass and said if I move, holler or scream or scratch him he was going to kill me (and rape me) . . . and I hollered and told (my two cousins) to run,'' the girl told police in her original statement.
The man was wearing blue pants and a blue jacket, was rough, used profane language and had an aggressive demeanor, the girl told police. He was about 30, had medium length braids, a short and heavy build and a medium brown complexion, she said.
Holder was 22, 5-foot-7, about 140 pounds, neat, articulate and mild-mannered. He does not have a big belly.
He has dark skin and wore his wavy hair tight to his head.
The girl gave police two names she thought might be the attacker. They were Shawn and Rodney.
The next day, she gave police a description that was used to create a composite drawing. The composite showed a discrepancy from the girl's earlier description. She told police preparing the composite that her attacker was neat, not ragged and dirty.
Police procedure after Holder's arrest is a major part of the lawsuit. The suit contends that before a photo lineup:
Police allowed the girl to watch as they brought Holder out of his house handcuffed and load him into a marked police car.
A police officer told her she had correctly identified the rapist, that he was inside the detective bureau and that his name was Raymond Holder.
The girl saw Holder inside the detective bureau within minutes of picking him out of the lineup.
Police say the girl did not see Holder inside the detective bureau.
The girl's mother said in a sworn statement for Holder's lawyer that she and her daughter both saw Holder when they came into the detective bureau. In a later sworn statement, she contradicted the earlier statement.
``We seen him,'' the girl's mother said in the statement taken by Holder's attorney. ``(the officer) told us . . . Raymond Holder was in the little small room . . . as we go by, just take a little glimpse of him, don't look hard in his face . . . I took a little glimpse of him. I seen his face . . . She told (my daughter) I think we have the right one.''
In a later deposition, the mother said she had seen Holder on the way out, not on the way in. The girl said she was too scared to look.
The name of the mother and daughter are not being used because it is the policy of the newspaper not to identify the victims of sexual assault.
The lawsuit contends the police department should not have put the victim and suspect in the same area.
Holder waited in jail for nearly nine months, repeatedly reminding his public defender that they still had not drawn blood for a DNA test.
He knew if they tested, he would be exonerated.
Lead detective Kaiser said in depositions that she repeatedly asked prosecutor Marjorie Taylor to authorize DNA testing of Holder's blood.
Taylor said in an interview after Holder's release that it had been Kaiser's responsibility to get the blood. Further, she said, it wasn't her responsibility to seek out DNA evidence when she had an eyewitness identification.
Circuit Court Judge L. Cleaves Manning, who eventually ordered the testing, disagreed.
``The job of the commonwealth's attorney's office is to see that justice is done, not (just) to prosecute,'' Manning said.
On March 7, the state forensic lab received a blood sample from Holder and began DNA comparisons to the sperm recovered from the victim, completing its report April 30.
``Raymond Holder is eliminated as a possible contributor of this material,'' the certificate of analysis said.
As a result of the report, Holder was ordered released from jail, his name finally cleared. He believed at the time that it marked the end of his troubles.
On the morning of July 12, 1994, Holder went over the case again and again in his mind. He was despondent. At one point, he said, he looked around the room and ``realized that they had thrown away my life like it was nothing to them.
``I thought, `I just don't want to live. I'm done with it.' It was simple. I had lost everything.''
Holder swallowed pain killers and cough medicine and lay down on his bed to die. He got sick to his stomach instead.
He ran the bath water and began to determinedly slash his wrists.
``In the movies it's so easy,'' Holder said, expecting to pass out right away. ``I did it again. I thought, `I'm dying,' but nothing happened. So I cut again.''
Holder said he slashed each wrist about five times.
``My wrists are wide open. I'm trying to do it right,'' Holder recalled in a recent interview, demonstrating how he spread open the skin with his fingers.
``I'm looking with my fingers. The slashes were about an inch-and-a-half wide. I could see the flesh and the blood spurting out. I just lay back and then I started to feel light headed.
Then, he started hearing voices.
``At first it sounded like people screaming, then I heard children's voices, crying, calling out my name, `Raymond. Raymond. Raymond.' That's the last thing I remember until the paramedics pulled me out of the tub.''
In a suicide note, Holder wrote, ``I think I've reached my limit on pressure. My burden has become too much to bear. Being locked up for something that I did not do.''
Court papers show that Holder's suicide attempt was serious. He spent time in intensive care and was transferred to Maryview Psychiatric Hospital for two weeks.
Holder remembers waking from surgery that first day to find charcoal in his stomach, tubes in his nose and mouth, stitches in his wrists and splints on his arms, Holder said.
``The pain was awful, Holder said. ``I thought, I'll never do that again. I'm thinking. Man, I didn't go. And I'm also thinking I still wanted to be dead.''
During the weeks he spent at the hospital, Holder's feelings changed. Perhaps it was the counseling, or the other patients, or something within himself, he's not quite sure.
And over the following 19 months, he says, he has found renewed strength within himself and from the friends around him, especially at China Garden, where he was rehired as a busboy and works 50 hours a week.
He says he has a deep belief in God and a respect for all religions that he believes ultimately lead to the same God.
Holder has volunteered to work as Director of Community Leadership Development for United America, a nonprofit charitable organization based in Chesapeake.
The organization brings volunteers together to address problems in their immediate community. Part of the mission is to help victimized people learn to stand up for themselves.
``I was impressed by Raymond's ability to speak so clearly and communicate to get his ideas across,'' said Ross Aranipour, Chief Executive Officer of United America. ``I became even more impressed when I found he had vision above all that. He's overcome the obstacles against all odds. And then, he is willing to help others.''
Still, Holder said, he wants to close a long and painful chapter of his life. If the judge allows the suit to continue Monday, it will come before a jury April 2.
``We're going to definitely win,'' Holder said. ``This isn't about getting money to buy a big car or new clothes, though I do need a computer.
``I have to do something to bring about change so this won't happen to anyone else.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Graphic
TIMELINE
Aug. 15, 1994: A 12-year-old girl is attacked, raped and
sodomized on a path near Randolph and Chestnut Streets in
Portsmouth.
Aug. 25: The girl identifies Raymond Holder on the street. He is
arrested and signs a release form to allow his blood to be drawn and
tested for DNA evidence.
Dec. 8: Circuit Judge L. Cleaves Manning orders DNA testing after
prosecutors and police deny responsibility of ordering Holder's
blood to be drawn.
March 7, 1995: The lab receives Holder's blood sample.
April 30: The lab determines Holder could not be the rapist.
May 6: Holder is released.
July 12: Holder attempts suicide and is hospitalized for two
weeks.
Aug. 21: Holder files a motion for judgment in Circuit Court. It
is later transfered to federal court.
March 4, 1996: A federal judge will determine whether the suit
has merit. If he does, the suit will proceed to a jury.
April 2: Jury trial.
KEYWORDS: LAWSUIT PORTSMOUTH RAPE SEX CRIME
TRIAL APPEAL DNA by CNB