Anatomy of a rape
Long ride home turns into nightmare for local woman

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Phil Stake
Staff writer

GALLUP — James Martin, 44, is being held without bond at Gallup McKinley Adult Detention Center for allegedly raping a 22-year-old woman.

The woman’s name is withheld to protect her identity.

Martin is charged with criminal sexual penetration, a third-degree felony; false imprisonment, a fourth-degree felony; and kidnapping, a second-degree felony. If convicted on all charges, he could spend 20 years in prison.

According to the arrest-warrant affidavit filed June 23 and signed by McKinley County Sheriff’s Investigator Owen Peña, Martin sexually assaulted the woman about 3:30 a.m. March 18. Police identified Martin through DNA comparison, the results of which were received from the state lab June 18. Martin was arrested five days later, after police obtained a second DNA sample using saliva obtained from Martin through a search warrant.

Another clue was Martin’s cell phone. The young woman took it from the console of his Neon minutes after she was attacked, and Peña subpoenaed AT&T for the associated phone number. The number later showed to be the same one Martin had listed with his probation officer, according to the affidavit. He is on probation for stealing a car in February 2007. The victim never learned his name, so she took his phone as evidence.

The victim’s telling of events leading up to the rape begin about 2 a.m., March 18, outside a bar on Gallup’s east side.

She told police she drank five beers at the bar, spoke briefly with a white female, whose name she never got, and then started walking home.

Before she got there a black man with a mustache and goatee drove by and offered her a ride, which she accepted.

He was about 5 feet 8 inches tall, wearing a blue ball cap, no logos ... blue jeans and a diamond-patterned polo. The diamonds had little dots in the center. He had a clean car, a two- or three-year-old, dark-gray Neon ... inside was an after-market CD player that glowed the interior blue.

She got in and directed him to a friend’s mobile home inside Red Hills mobile home park. Her friend was asleep, so the woman left again with the same man, whom police believe to be Martin. She remembered passing the community trash bins on the way out. Shortly thereafter the man stopped and gave the woman a can of high gravity, which he pulled from the trunk. She accepted the beer, as well as his offer to “cruise for a bit.”

The man left the area. Then he left Gallup altogether, headed south on N.M. Highway 602. He tried to talk to her but she was too nervous to retain what he said. She wondered where he was taking her. They passed the Mustang store in Vanderwagen, but turned around in the parking lot at El Sabino. They were driving back toward Gallup when she realized that her cell phone was out of range, and she didn’t know the time. He turned right on a road she didn’t recognize.

She asked the man why he was taking her out that way.

She told him she is “not one of those girls who gets drunk and then just does whatever,” according to the affidavit. He turned around and headed back toward town. She wanted a cigarette and asked the man if he had one, but he didn’t.

She suggested they stop at Allsups, instead the man took her to a truck stop on Gallup’s west side, and asked a truck driver for a cigarette. Meanwhile the victim grew more nervous, thinking he may sell her to someone. After one attempt, she said forget it and take her home.

The man headed east, took a right near Western Skies mobile home park and stopped, after about two miles, on the side of Mendoza Boulevard.

She again told him she is not the kind of girl to just have sex with him. He began talking to her but the woman couldn’t tell police what he said. Then the man got out of the car and came to her door and took her cell phone. She pushed him away when he tried to kiss her, pleading “No!”

The man wrapped her in a bear hug and dragged her about 15 feet, behind some bushes. The woman told police she pleaded with him, saying “Don’t! Please!” When she told him she’d do whatever he wanted if only he would return her cell phone, he said “okay,” and let her go.

They walked back to the car and got in. The man covered the blue, glowing stereo with an object she couldn’t describe, and the interior went dark. She felt him pull her toward him; he kissed her on the mouth. She pulled away and said “she did not want to do this,” according to the affidavit.

She distracted the man by asking again for her cell phone. As he reached for it she opened the door and tried to flee.

He grabbed her jacket and climbed over the emergency brake. She pleaded with him to stop and the man asked why she was crying.

She told him she can’t do this. He told her to get in the back seat.

She tried to break free from his grip, again, and again he held her ... “and then the suspect told her, ‘You want it the easy way but you want it the hard way,’” according to the affidavit.

They were both outside the car when the man closed the door and dragged her once more behind the bushes. But he didn’t know the woman had taken a recorded CD out of his car. She dropped it for police to find later and they did, sending it to the lab for fingerprints.

Afterward, she told him to take her home. She told him she lived in Gamerco, not wanting him to know her real address.

Along the way she took his cell phone without his noticing.

He tried to talk to her ... he tried to apologize. She told him not to worry about it, “even though it was hurting her deep down inside and then she didn’t talk to him for a while,” according to the affidavit.

She pointed at a stranger’s house and he let her out. She walked across the lawn as though it were hers, and waited for him to drive away. She said he was gone in a few seconds, and she called police from The Tropics bar. She met with McKinley County Sheriff’s Deputy Paul Davis and told him the whole story. She told him about the CD and gave him the phone.