Devontavious BryantThe woman who says Devontavious Bryant raped her in 2012 took the stand during his jury trial Wednesday. She described the way two men attacked her during an early morning jog on Reggie White Boulevard. One of them threatened her, she said.
"He said he had a knife, and he said that he was going to break my face if I tried to run away," the woman told a jury.
The Times Free Press does not identify victims of sexual assault.
The woman was calm as she recounted the attack. She described starting her run at the Rush gym on Fourth Street and noticing two teens on bikes. Just after she crossed onto Reggie White Boulevard, she said, someone grabbed her from behind.
The assailants demanded her money and phone, and when she told them she wasn't carrying either, they took her mp3 player, she said. Then one of them, taller and wearing a yellow hoodie, choked her. She woke up on an embankment, where the one in a gray hoodie offered her a choice, she said: perform oral sex on him or take off her pants.
When she tried to crawl away, they caught her and took turns raping her, she said.
Deacon Williams, 18, pleaded no contest to rape and guilty to robbery late last week and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Bryant's trial began Tuesday.
On Wednesday, prosecutors presented the bulk of their evidence against Bryant. Two Chattanooga Police Department crime scene investigators described the embankment where the rape took place, and the jury was shown pictures.
The ground had scattered bushes and was covered with leaves. Investigators found two condom wrappers and a cellphone with a shattered screen on the ground. In a bush, they found a pair of pink panties the victim later identified as hers.
In testimony, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation crime lab specialist Keith Proctor said no DNA was found on either condom wrapper. Only Williams' DNA was found on the yellow hoodie that prosecutors say Bryant was wearing at the time of the attack.
But District Attorney Neal Pinkston asked if DNA would always be found on an item someone had worn. Proctor answered no, because DNA from a skin touch, unlike that found in bodily fluids, is faint and does not always leave markers.
A search of Bryant's home yielded a condom with his DNA inside. During cross examination, defense attorney Joshua Weiss asked Proctor, "Do you think it would be odd to find someone's DNA in a condom in their own trash can?"
That condom did not have DNA from the victim, Proctor said.
Prosecutors also showed two surveillance videos, one from City Cafe and one from the Chattanooga Convention Center. Both were taken in the hour before the attack. In both, one teen is wearing a yellow Adidas jacket and an afro wig. Weiss asked lead investigator Daniel Francis if he could be sure who those teens were.
"In the video of the convention center, you can't see anyone's face?" Weiss asked.
Francis said he couldn't, but pointed out their clothing matched the victim's description of her attackers.
Weiss raised lengthy objections to the way police investigators showed the victim a photo lineup. She picked out Bryant, and on the stand said she could see his face even though his hood was pulled over his head because the afro wig he was wearing kept the hood off his face.
Weiss said he asked a graphic artist to create a lineup with wigs and yellow jackets, and argued that lineup would have been more accurate. Francis disagreed, saying he does not think he is allowed to "doctor" photos in a lineup.
The victim told Weiss the altered photos would not have made the man who assaulted her easier to identify. Her memory was fresh in the minutes after, she said. It was fresh when she pointed him out at a hearing in the months after. And it's fresh now, she says.
"I've relived it a lot," she said.
Contact staff writer Claire Wiseman at 423-757-6347 or cwiseman@timesfreepress.com.