Girl, 15, recounts alleged kidnapping, assault

By Cara McCoy

Published Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2009 | 1:55 p.m.

Updated Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2009 | 7:32 p.m.

UPDATED STORY: Jury convicts man on kidnapping, sexual assault charges

A 15-year-old girl took the witness stand Tuesday to recount for a Clark County jury the graphic details of what happened two years ago when she was allegedly kidnapped and sexually assaulted in a northwest Las Vegas apartment.

The girl, who was 13 at the time of the alleged crime, testified for nearly two hours in the trial of Edward Adams, 26, who is charged with first-degree kidnapping and sexually assaulting a minor, all with a deadly weapon, as well as battery and open and gross lewdness in connection with a Dec. 14, 2007, incident at a vacant apartment near Buffalo Drive and Charleston Boulevard.

He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

During questioning Tuesday from prosecutor Craig Hendricks, the girl said she was scared from the moment she saw Adams, who was in the area of her junior high school that day.

The girl — she is not being named because it is the Sun's policy not to identify the victims of alleged sex crimes — had never seen the balding man with a goatee and a Band-Aid above his eye before that afternoon, she said.

As she walked home from school, the man, who had been sitting on a wall smoking a cigarette, approached her from behind and grabbed her, she testified. He told her not to attract attention or to try and run because he had a gun, she said.

Although she said she never saw the gun, she testified that the man was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and kept his left hand in a pocket. She thought she saw the shape of a gun, she said.

She told the court that she was “100 percent positive” that Adams was the man who assaulted her. Although he has appeared in court clean-shaven, wearing a white, collared, button-down shirt and tie, she said she was certain that the man she encountered on that December afternoon was the man sitting at the defendant’s table.

Adams was arrested about a month after the alleged attack, after fingerprint and other evidence linked him to the crime scene. The girl and other witnesses who had seen her that day picked Adams out of a photo lineup.

DNA evidence later positively linked him to the crime, according to court documents.

Adams’ attorney, deputy public defender Jeffrey Maningo, has said the sex acts between the girl and his client were consensual and that she willingly went with him to the apartment after school.

The girl told a different story from the witness stand.

From the moment she encountered Adams until the time she left the apartment, she prayed that she would see her family again, she said. Although she had walked home from school before, her mother usually picked her up. This particular Friday afternoon, she opted to walk home after plans for a sleepover with a friend didn’t work out.

Walking alone, she became apprehensive when she saw Adams, she testified.

As Adams led her by the wrist down the street, she was crying and shaking, she testified. She saw a friend as she walked down the street and mouthed at him, “help me,” afraid that if she said it aloud Adams might kill her, she said.

The friend, also a young teenager, didn’t understand and wasn’t able to help, she said.

At the apartment, Adams allegedly assaulted the girl, bound and gagged her with tape, then continued to assault her, she said. She was afraid of what might happen to her if she fought back, she said.

After the alleged assault, Adams returned a cell phone to the girl, as well as its battery, which he had removed. She started walking toward a nearby business when her mother called, she testified. Her mom had been worried because the girl was late coming home and her phone was going straight to voicemail.

She was a responsible child who always checked in with her parents about her whereabouts, her mother testified Tuesday. She said she had been in a state of panic from the moment her daughter didn’t answer her phone from the first time she called her at about 3 p.m. She said she told her husband that if she couldn’t get a hold of her daughter by 4 p.m., she was going to call police.

At 3:51 p.m., the girl answered her phone. The alleged crimes were committed in the span of about an hour.

Adams had specifically told her not to call the police and told her not to use her phone until she arrived at the business, the girl testified.

She told her mother to meet her at the nearby business and she would explain everything. When her mother arrived, she called 911. The girl was taken to University Medical Center, where she was examined and interviewed by police.

The 911 call was played for the jury. During the call, the dispatcher instructed the mother not to permit her daughter to wash, including her hands or face, until after she was examined.

She expressed to the dispatcher that she “never thought something like this could happen.”

It was about a month before the evidence was all processed and linked to Adams, Metro Police investigators testified Tuesday.

But it was only a few weeks ago that the girl felt comfortable to leave the house without her parents, her mother said, saying that she recently went to a movie with some friends.

Since the alleged crime, her daughter has changed: She’s apprehensive around strangers and acts afraid in some situations that were once comfortable for, her mother said.

She became fearful of going places alone. For a time, she even slept in her parents’ bedroom.

Randall McPhail, a senior crime scene analyst with Metro, walked the jury through photographs of the crime scene and described the different types of evidence that was collected and where in the vacant apartment it was found.

He explained how the fingerprints and DNA linked to Adams were recovered. He also explained how the girl’s clothing and some items at the crime scene were collected as evidence.

Maningo Tuesday pointed out discrepancies in the girl’s testimony. He said there were differences in what she said during a preliminary hearing and in her statements to police with regard to specific acts Adams had allegedly committed against her.

He again pointed out that the girl hadn’t seen a gun. She testified that she believed he hid it under a cushion of the sofa in the apartment. Maningo had said during opening arguments Monday that the weapons enhancements in the charges against his client weren’t appropriate because no one saw him with a gun.

Adams was arrested a month after the alleged attack and has remained in the Clark County Detention Center on a combined $375,000 bond, according to jail records.

Because of a prior felony conviction, his sentence could be enhanced, Hendricks said.