'Cold' look unforgettable, rape victim testifies; woman burned while escaping attacker in west Little Rock

Courvoisiea Allen
Courvoisiea Allen

A Roland woman who was severely burned climbing an electric tower to escape a pursuing rapist said Monday that she will never forget his "cold" eyes as she pointed out the Little Rock man police say was her attacker.

Testifying in an evidentiary hearing, the woman identified 23-year-old Courvoisiea Allen as the man who abducted and raped her in October 2016. Allen is charged with rape, kidnapping, second-degree battery, aggravated assault and terroristic threatening. The charges carry a potential life sentence.

The 26-year-old woman was burned over 40 percent of her body and had to undergo a weeklong series of skin grafts, authorities said.

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson on Monday rejected defense claims that Little Rock police had manipulated the woman into choosing Allen as her assailant, clearing her to testify at Allen's April trial about how she picked Allen out of a police photo lineup.

Although the woman had told police her attacker's most distinctive feature was his "cone-shaped" goatee, she told deputy prosecutor Erin Driver on Monday that she recognized him by his eyes from the photos of potential suspects police showed her.

"Because of the look in his eyes ... it was cold," the woman said.

Sex-crimes detective Paige Cline told the judge that the woman selected Allen's photo almost instantly and mentioned his eyes.

"She immediately went to that picture and said, 'I'll never forget those eyes,'" Cline testified.

Police had to wait two weeks before the woman was sufficiently recovered to answer questions. Detectives then had to choose a time when her pain medication had worn off so she would have a clear mind as they questioned her at Arkansas Children's Hospital's burn unit.

"I needed her to be coherent," Cline testified.

The woman's identification of Allen allowed police to get a warrant for his arrest.

Although the woman was almost completely covered Monday in an ankle-length dress and long-sleeved blouse that reached to the palms of her hands, scarring on her chest was visible during her 15 minutes on the witness stand Monday.

Pending from the judge is a ruling on the statement Allen gave police before his arrest. Defense attorney Willard Proctor has challenged the legality of that interview, which was conducted the day the woman was found.

Allen did not testify, but Proctor had him take off his shirt in court and submitted it as evidence after the woman described the shirt Allen had worn to court as "khaki" colored, which she said meant brown or tan. Allen's shirt was "clearly" white, Proctor said. Allen was wearing a black T-shirt underneath his white shirt.

The attorney said the woman's apparent inability to tell the difference between those colors was proof that her perceptions were so flawed that her identification of Allen as her attacker could not be trusted.

The woman's October 2016 escape into a west Little Rock utlility substation caused a late-night power failure that affected 8,000 homes and took power workers six hours to repair.

Police found her seriously injured and smelling of burned skin in the parking lot of the HomeGoods store at the Promenade on Chenal shopping center after she approached a motorist waiting for the store to open, begging for help.

Her attacker had agreed to give her a ride, she said, telling police he'd done so often, as many as 10 times before.

She said she'd had to jump from her attacker's moving car to get away from him after he'd forced her to perform oral sex. She said he cut her with a knife during her ordeal.

The woman said she ran into the woods as her assailant chased her. She climbed the fence around the substation, then up the electric tower with the man in pursuit, she told police.

She said he managed to grab her leg as she climbed the tower.

She told police the man had told her his last name was Nelson and that he was the younger brother of a man she'd gone to high school with. Their families were also friends, she said.

She said her assailant had picked her up from the parking lot of the Wal-Mart at Arkansas 10 and Chenal Parkway, where Allen worked. Surveillance video from the store showed her getting into Allen's car, police said.

The woman told police she was at the Wal-Mart because she'd just walked away from an argument with her boyfriend and had been asking several people in the parking lot for a ride.

ADVERTISEMENT

More headlines

Metro on 12/06/2017

Upcoming Events