She had just gone to the rest room to wash her hands, but as the 21-year-old woman who worked in a Denver medical complex was about to leave, a muscular man grabbed her and forced her into a stall.
“Please don’t touch me, please don’t hurt me, please don’t rape me,” she pleaded.
The man ignored her and covered her mouth and threatened to kill her if she screamed. He told her to raise her dress and then he assaulted her, the woman told investigators.
On Thursday, Detective Larry Moore and Patrolman John McGrail recounted the woman’s Aug. 4 attack in the Kaiser Franklin Building, 2045 Franklin St.
The day after her attack, the woman calmly picked out career criminal Luther Hill, 42, as her attacker, the officers said.
When she saw Hill’s picture, the third in a sequence of six photographs, the victim had no doubt he was the assailant, Moore testified.
On her identification form, the woman wrote that she recognized her attacker’s eyes, scar and a white spot in his hair.
Jason Pink, Luther’s attorney, asked Moore if investigators immediately stopped looking for other potential suspects because of the woman’s identification. Moore said the investigation focused on Luther because he was identified by the victim and for other reasons as well.
Moore testified that Luther’s mother had identified her son as the assailant after reviewing surveillance video at the hospital.
During the preliminary hearing Thursday, Luther was often agitated and had to be told repeatedly to calm down by the six sheriff’s deputies watching and by members of his family.
Denver County Judge Aleene Ortiz-White ordered Luther to stand trial on four felony counts – kidnapping, sexual assault, unlawful sexual contact and drug possession.
During the attack, Luther took time out to smoke crack cocaine, which he had placed in the stall where the attack took place, the woman said. Investigators recovered crack cocaine from the stall.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
