By Rachel Beck
Gazette-Times reporter | Posted: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 12:00 am
Hearings to determine whether accused murderer Joel Courtney's past criminal history can be introduced at his trial next year concluded Tuesday afternoon in Benton County Circuit Court.
Three witnesses testified in all, including a woman who said Tuesday that Courtney kidnapped her at gunpoint in 1993, when she was 14 years old.
Courtney is accused of the rape and murder of Brooke Wilberger. A student at Brigham Young University, Wilberger had just completed her freshman year when she disappeared from a Corvallis apartment complex parking lot on May 24, 2004. She is presumed dead, although her body has not been found.
The state had filed a motion to allow evidence at his trial of Courtney's "other acts," including two sexual assault convictions. The trial is scheduled to begin next spring.
The state also has moved to consolidate the murder case with charges of the attempted rape and attempted murder of two Oregon State University students whom Courtney allegedly spoke to a short time before Wilberger disappeared, not far from the parking lot from which she vanished, leaving behind only her flip flop sandals and a bucket of sudsy water.
The woman who testified Tuesday, who said she had a photographic memory, detailed how a man approached her in 1993 after he saw her shoplift deodorant from a northeast Portland grocery store. The man, who said his name was "Dave," asked her if she needed help. When asked by Benton County Deputy District Attorney Karen Kemper to describe the man, the woman said he had a "short forehead" and "square face," plus good teeth and spiked blonde hair.
Casting frequent glances at Courtney, the woman explained that she was a runaway at the time, and although she said the man seemed nice, she didn't want him to get her in trouble. She told him she was going home.
Not long after, the man came sprinting after her, holding a gun. He forced her into his car and drove her to an area away from people. She testified he groped her and asked her to take off her clothes, which she started to do, but then told him "no." He then tried to get her to put handcuffs on, but again she refused.
The woman said she started reciting the Lord's Prayer aloud and prayed for God to forgive the man. God spoke to her, she said, telling her to get out of the car. She did, and ran to a nearby store and watched as the man she'd escaped from drove back and forth. She was too scared to tell the cashier what happened because, between the gun and the handcuffs, she thought the man might be a police officer.
The woman said she reported the kidnapping to police shortly afterward, when she was picked up for being a runaway, but the officer reportedly told her, "That's what happens when you run away."
When she came across photos of Joel Courtney online recently, she thought she'd identified her abductor. After contacting police in February, she saw images of Courtney from a 2004 court appearance and was convinced.
"I was 100 percent sure," she said. "My body started shaking."
No charges relating to the incident have been filed.
Jesus Ordaz, who is Courtney's brother-in-law, testified that he and Courtney spent the night of May 23, 2004, at a house party, where they drank heavily. There was drug use going on in one room, Ordaz said, and he saw Courtney go into the room more than once.
He and Courtney didn't get back to Ordaz's house, where Courtney and his family were staying, until about 6 a.m., Ordaz said. Courtney told Ordaz he had to be in court in Lincoln County that morning. After placing four calls to the court, Courtney left the house around 7:30 a.m. in a green van that belonged to his employer.
Ordaz didn't see Courtney again until two days later, when Courtney returned with the van, which was covered in mud.
About two weeks later, the company flew Ordaz to New Mexico to retrieve the van, which Courtney had taken without permission.
Also testifying Tuesday was Courtney's sister, Dina McBride, who recalled that her brother unexpectedly showed up at her house in June 2004.
"He walked in the door and said, 'You won't believe where I've been for the last three days,' " she said.
Courtney proceeded to tell her he had been kidnapped by men with guns and knives. He mentioned a girl, McBride said, but she couldn't remember what he'd said.
Kemper provided McBride a transcript of a telephone interview between McBride and a detective, which McBride said refreshed her memory. She said Courtney talked about a blonde girl and blood.
"What happened to the blonde girl?" Kemper asked.
"She died," McBride said.
Courtney's attorneys did not question any of the witnesses, citing the fact that this was not the guilt phase of the trial. They said they would question witnesses later in the proceedings.
Arguing for the "other acts" motion, Kemper said witness testimony shows "similarity, timing, repetition" in Courtney's behavior. In hearings held last week, the court heard from a woman Courtney was accused of sexually assaulting in 1984 and a Russian exchange student he kidnapped and sexually assaulted in Albuquerque, N.M., the Monday after Thanksgiving in 2004. He pleaded guilty to the New Mexico charges and was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
Prosecutors alleged in the pretrial court motion documents that Courtney has a pattern of seeking to abduct young, slender women by force, using a vehicle, restricting their mobility and then sexually attacking them.
"This evidence goes to plan, opportunity and intent," she said.
In response, defense attorney Steven Gorham said the victims and alleged victims who testified have little in common apart from being female.
"Basically, the state is trying to throw mud at Mr. Courtney," he said.
Senior Assistant Attorney General Stephanie Tuttle from the Oregon Department of Justice argued the motion to consolidate for the prosecution. The morning Wilberger disappeared, she said, Courtney had made a plan to "abduct, sexually assault and kill a young woman."
With all the victims and alleged victims, Courtney's intent was the same. The difference, Tuttle said, "was how far along he got."
Williams will take the motions under advisement. The next scheduled date for proceedings is a pretrial conference set for June 9.