Rape victim: ‘I know those eyes’

By Matt Pordum (contact)

Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2005 | 8:37 a.m.

One of the victims of a man who prosecutors alleged committed a series of rapes in the late 1990s identified her attacker based upon his eyes.

The woman said in October 1997 a man broke into her apartment on South Pecos Road, but she previously had never been able to identify him other than to describe him as skinny, soft spoken and roughly 5 feet 9 inches tall.

Things changed on Tuesday as she looked at 38-year-old Dushon Green at the defendant's table.

"I don't want to accuse, but that's the guy; those are the eyes," the woman said while crying. "I know those eyes because they stood out."

She said Green's eyes were the same as her attacker's, saying because it was dark and the man had a dark hooded sweatshirt on that his "eyes stood out like in the mask worn in the movie 'Scream.' "

She said she had just gone to bed at 3:25 a.m. when she heard a door open and footsteps, which she believed to be her upstairs neighbors going to work.

She soon realized someone was in her one bedroom apartment and froze after seeing "the shadow of a male figure standing in the doorway" of her bedroom.

The woman said the man first asked her for money but soon "charged toward me, went for my neck and ripped my underwear off."

The woman said the force of her attacker's hands around her neck were so strong she "had the marking of hands around my neck for three weeks afterwards."

She said she is still haunted by the attacker whispering "that wasn't so bad was it" after he sexually assaulted her.

"It's been eight years and I hear (the whisper) all the time," she testified.

The woman's account of being raped was consistent in many details to the testimony of four other rape victims who testified Tuesday at Green's preliminary hearing before Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Ann Zimmerman.

All of the women testified that a man broke into their apartments, wearing dark clothing, and gloves. Each of them said the rapist choked or covered their mouths and noses in order to keep them from screaming while he sexually assaulted them.

But except for the woman who said she recognized Green's eyes Tuesday, none of the victims were able to identify their attacker's face.

Two of the other women, including one who said she was sexually assaulted in December 1996 at her Paradise Road apartment and another who said she was raped in October 1997, testified their attacker used duct tape to cover their eyes, mouth and tie their hands behind their backs while he sexually assaulted them.

Another victim said that in March 1998 a man forced her to put a pillow case over her head and another woman said in June 1998 her attacker pushed her face to the floor while he sexually assaulted her.

Green, who is being held on $620,000 bail on 34 counts of sexual assault-related crimes, sat emotionless, barely making eye contact with any of the five women who took the stand Tuesday.

All five testified they called police immediately after being raped and were taken to the hospital where they had rape tests performed by nurses.

Detectives arrested Green after the long-stored DNA evidence from the five cases was matched to Green's DNA, police said.

Investigators with the Criminal Apprehension Team took him into custody at his home on Cambridge Street near Desert Inn Road and Maryland Parkway.

Green's preliminary hearing is expected to continue in a few weeks at which time prosecutors are expected to call a criminalist who tested the DNA. The testimony is expected to show that DNA recovered from each of the five victims pointed to Green as the sole attacker.