FAYETTEVILLE, W.Va. — A Fayette County jury took a half-hour Thursday to convict a man in the rape of a woman jogging on the rail trail in Oak Hill last year.
The 12-member panel convicted Thomas Gene Carter, Jr., 48, of Oak Hill, on one count each of sexual assault, sexual abuse, robbery and kidnapping. The jury also found Carter would have no chance for mercy on the kidnapping conviction.
“He didn’t show the victim any mercy in this case,” Fayette County Prosecutor Larry Harrah said following the trial’s conclusion Thursday. “It was his intent to come back and possibly kill her.”
Harrah called the verdict “just,” but also said it’d be a long time before the victim would be able to recover from such a traumatic and horrific experience.
“She’s got a long way to go,” he said. “She is going to be dealing with this for the rest of her life, and there’s just no way around that.”
The defense called only one witness to the stand Thursday morning. Carter did not take the stand in his own defense.
In closing arguments, the Fayette County prosecutor urged the jury to consider the amount of physical evidence against Carter including DNA evidence found on the victim.
“You’ve got to give credit to the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department,” Harrah said. “That department really rose to the occasion and stepped up. They are a good bunch of guys and they do great work over there.”
Carter’s attorney, Scott Steanten, told the jury more testing should have been done and the prosecution had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that his client was guilty.
Steanten said there will be an appeal–particularly due to the confusing nature of the question over mercy. This was the first kidnapping case Fayette County had in court since the statute’s changed in 2012, and neither attorney is certain that the “mercy phase” of the trial conducted Thursday was conducted properly.
“It definitely will be appealed because there are some issues that need to go up to the Supreme Court,” he said. “Just about how did we handle this? Did we handle this correctly? Is there another way we should have handled it? Just some issues like that.”
Harrah similarly agreed that compliance with the new statutes provided some confusion. The court wound up following the guidelines established for a 1st degree murder mercy hearing.
The victim testified Wednesday during the trial and Thursday during the mercy hearing, recounting her decision to go for a run on the White Oaks Rail Trail on a sunny June afternoon last year. She said after turning around she was attacked from behind, tied up with rope and duct tape.
“She’ll never forget what happened to her,” Harrah said. “She’ll live with it the rest of her life. She’ll always have to deal with it, but hopefully she can sometime begin to heal and cope with it.”
Carter could be sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison. He will be sentenced Oct. 6.