FAYETTEVILLE -- April Wallace was jogging with earbuds in her ears when she heard steps quickly coming up behind her, she told a police dispatcher shortly after it happened. Before she could turn to look over her shoulder, a man put his arm around her neck and tackled her to the ground.
"It was just another person on the trail, and I passed him running," Wallace, whose last name at the time was Robertson before her recent marriage, said in the 911 call, audibly out of breath and in tears.
Jurors heard the recording Wednesday during the first day of the trial of Richard Leroy Turner, 34, who's charged with kidnapping and aggravated assault. The trial is set to continue this morning.
Prosecutors said investigators connected Turner to the attack with DNA evidence and Wallace's description of her attacker, while Turner's attorneys said he's the wrong man.
"What Ms. Robertson went through is terrifying," Little Rock attorney Bobby Digby, who is representing Turner with Charlcee Small, said in his opening statement.
Wallace, a reporter for the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, called police one Sunday afternoon in September 2015 minutes after the incident. She told the dispatcher a man tackled her, punched her face and dragged her into the brush near the trail just north of the Botanical Garden of the Ozarks.
The man then abruptly let her go, saying he was protecting her from other people who had kidnapped his daughter, said deputy prosecutor Brian Lamb, who's working on the case with senior deputy prosecutor Terra Stephenson. No one was arrested the day of the attack.
Jurors then heard from the dispatcher, two men who worked as Fayetteville police officers at the time of the attack and two Fayetteville detectives involved in the case.
Detective Roy Knotts, the case's lead investigator, said he interviewed Wallace for more than an hour. She described a large metal ring on the man's hand engraved with the word "dad" and said the man was wearing sunglasses, Knotts said. The detective also used swabs to collect DNA samples from Wallace's cheeks and fingertips and from a pair of sunglasses found at the scene.
Turner's name popped up on a list of former or current inmates at the Washington County Detention Center whose belongings included a ring with "dad" on it, Knotts told the jury. The DNA samples from the sunglasses were also connected to Turner by the state Crime Lab, he said.
The defense didn't call any witnesses Wednesday, but Digby laid out some of his strategy in his opening statement. For example, he pointed out his client has several tattoos covering his arms. When the 911 dispatcher asked Wallace whether her attacker had tattoos or other identifying features, she answered, "Not that I could tell." She also said her attacker was wearing short sleeves, Digby said.
Digby also said investigators looked into two other men with similar descriptions and lacking tattoos who were around Lake Fayetteville around the same time. Knotts confirmed this, but said he eliminated the others as suspects after showing their pictures to Wallace.
NW News on 11/17/2016