Published: November 19, 2009 10:12 pm      

COURTS: North Tonawanda woman takes stand in rape trial

LOCKPORT — Day three of Daryl Burton’s trial for allegedly raping two women began with the judge declining a request that the allegations be split into separate trials.

And, on Thursday, it ended with the emotional testimony of a North Tonawanda woman who told jurors the brutal story of Burton’s alleged crime.

Judge Matthew Murphy III denied the motion to sever the two rape cases against Burton as the trial continued in Niagara County Court. Murphy said prosecution and defense attorneys should have requested splitting the two cases before the trial began.

Burton, 40, lived in Lockport during the alleged rape and assault of two victims: A Niagara Falls teen who said she was held against her will by Burton from Oct. 3 to 14, 2008, and a 25-year-old mother of two from North Tonawanda on Feb. 22.

Defense attorney David E. Blackley re-examined the Niagara Falls victim’s statements from Wednesday’s testimony.

The next prosecution witness was Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Caroline Etheridge, who has worked as a nurse for more than 40 years. Etheridge said she did a preliminary examination of the victim after Lockport police officer Julie Rohde took the victim in for treatment.

Etheridge testified that “there was quite severe bruising” noticeable on the victim’s arms, legs and buttocks during the examination at Eastern Niagara Hospital-Lockport on Oct. 15, 2008.

After a one-hour hour recess, the second alleged victim testified, bringing some jurors to tears.

The 25-year-old North Tonawanda woman said she met Burton through the suspect’s brother in January 2009. The victim said the two hit it off right away, and everything was great. They talked on the phone for nearly a week before Burton began regularly hanging out and spending the night at the woman’s residence, she said.

“I’m not one of those male chauvinist pigs,” Burton allegedly told the victim when they first met in person. The woman also said she was immediately attracted to him, because of the closeness of his faith to hers, and they began to have consensual sex.

Shortly after they began dating, the victim said: “He started being controlling, possessive, short-tempered with me” and told the victim he was God.

The woman said she saw Burton’s temper ignite when the suspect found out she went grocery shopping with the father of her two children, whom she was not dating at the time.

“Daryl got upset,” she said, adding that that Burton began to cause an uproar with her ex. She later asked Burton to leave her home. Burton’s absence was brief. She said they made up and the suspect came back into her life, but he had a much worse attitude toward her.

“He started calling me names, commanding me to do things,” the 25-year-old said.

“Where?” Wojtaszek asked.

“In the bedroom.”

The alleged rape and abuse came nearly a month after they met.

Feb. 22 started like any usual day, the victim told jurors. They had consensual sex and then she had a friend over. Everything was OK, until Daryl came into the living room with the victim and her close friend, she said.

“He started degrading me to her,” the victim said. He said things like the victim was “his cook, masseuse, maid and sex slave.”

The victim said her friend tried to stand up for her, but later left to go home. Afterward, the victim said she wanted to eat a bowl of cereal before she was went to bed, but Burton told her not to eat, because he thought she should lose weight.

“I blew him off and just walked to my bedroom,” the victim said. Burton followed her and put his arm in the door jam, preventing her from leaving the room when she tried, the victim said.

“He kept pushing me and pushing me on the bed,” she said, as she attempted to move from his hold. She said the defendant put both of her wrists in his hold and pinned her down. “He put all of his body weight on me” and she said she tried to punch him to get Burton off her.

“I was just yelling: ‘Let me go, let me go,’ ” she said, and the louder she said she screamed, the more Burton would tell her he would “muzzle her.”

Burton allegedly began rubbing his body against his victim’s as he began to force himself on her, the victim said.

“I was thinking he was going to rape me or kill me,” she said.

She said she started feeling very light-headed and was losing her breath when she said Burton put his hands around her neck and began to rape her as she yelled at him to “stop.”

“The last thing I remember was opening my eyes, and it was really blurry,” the victim said. Burton was still laying on top of her. He left the room shortly after, and they didn’t speak with each other until later the next day.

The victim said she woke up in the morning with soreness all over her body. In the shower, she said she noticed marks all over her neck, arms, legs and buttocks that were not there prior to the alleged rape.

That same morning, the victim said Burton made her lay with him and tried to force her to perform oral sex.

“I stopped after about a minute,” she said, giving Burton the excuse that she “wasn’t in the mood.”

When the victim had the chance, she told the jurors she immediately called her friend who was over the night before and her parents to explain briefly what had happened. She said she was advised to go to the North Tonawanda Police.

North Tonawanda police officer Stephen Endres and Detective Karen Smith both took the stand to describe what had happened when the North Tonawanda victim reported the rape and assault to them.

Endres said he was called to investigate the assault and arrived at her apartment complex to interview the victim.

“I noticed significant bruising to her throat area,” Endres said. The victim told him she was “choked,” and the officer took pictures for documentation.

Smith said upon further investigation, she asked the victim to give a statement and conduct a controlled, tape-recorded phone conversation with the suspect.

On the tape, the suspect reportedly kept asking the victim if police were with her. She denied that they were, and the suspect denied the allegations, according to the testimony.

Blackley is expected to cross-examine the 25-year-old victim when the trial continues today.

Police said Burton is facing 45 years imprisonment if convicted on four counts of second-degree assault, three counts of third-degree rape and third-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance in Lockport, and first-degree sexual abuse and second-degree attempted assault in North Tonawanda in February 2009.

Contact reporter Britney Milazzo at 439-9222, ext. 6251.