In the early morning hours of Sept. 14, 2013, a Denver woman fell into a deep sleep in her first-floor studio apartment when she began dreaming someone was groping her breasts.
But it was no dream. When she gradually awoke, she realized a man was in her bed, assaulting her.
Christopher Sean Wilson, 37, who lived across the hallway from the woman at the time, has been charged with one count of burglary and one count of sexual assault. He has pleaded not guilty to both and faces up to life in prison if convicted. The trial is expected to last until Thursday or Friday.
The 31-year-old woman, who is not being identified by The Denver Post because she is a victim of a sexual assault, told jurors on Tuesday about how she woke up.
“I figured at that point, that if I pretended I enjoyed it, they would leave DNA or something,” the woman said in measured tones.
She said she then decided to fight back, punching the man in the stomach and throwing him from the bed. The man fell to the floor, repeatedly saying, “I’m sorry.” She yelled back, repeatedly, “How did you get in?”
A struggle ensued. She forced him into a headlock twice before he fled through the apartment front door — which had been unlocked that night, as it was most nights, she testified. Police arrived moments after the woman ran, naked and covered in her bedsheet, crying to a friend next door, who called 911.
A few days later, the woman testified she saw Wilson in the apartment complex hallway and was immediately struck with fear. On Sept. 17, 2013, he surrendered at the Downtown Detention Center after police tried to contact him about the case. He was arrested the next day.
“I thought what had happened the night before was a horrible dream,” he told a police detective, prosecutor Lindsay VanGilder said in opening remarks. “I kept expecting someone to get me for what I did.”
According to prosecutors, he told the detective he had a dream, saw a door open in his hallway, and a girl lying in bed, with her back toward him. Wilson stopped short of admitting anything else, prosecutors said.
Wilson’s attorney, Nick Avila, told jurors that no DNA could tie his client to the sexual assault, and fingerprints obtained from the woman’s apartment door don’t match Wilson.
The woman could not identify Wilson in a photo lineup, but she also testified she had seen him only in passing a handful of times before the assault.
“This is a question of whether what Mr. Wilson confessed to was actually a crime, or the ramblings of a very troubled man,” Avila said. “There are similarities to what Mr. Wilson testified to and what happened. There’s no question about that. The real question comes down to whether it was actually Mr. Wilson.”
Daniel Petty: 303-954-1081, dpetty@denverpost.com or
