Victim takes stand at trial Sister recounts rape

MANASSAS, Jurors fought back tears in Prince William Circuit Court on Tuesday as 15-year-old Kristie Reed testified against the man accused of raping her, saying she did what he told her to "because I didn't want to die."
Her testimony came on the second day of the capital murder trial of Paul Warner Powell, 22, who is accused of fatally stabbing Kristie's sister Stacie Reed and attempting to kill Kristie Reed at the girls' Yorkshire area home.
Powell, who is white, was angry that Stacie dated a black teen-ager, according to court records and testimony. Powell had been a friend of Stacie, who was a 16-year-old freshman at Osbourn Park High School.
As Kristie Reed sat on the witness stand, Commonwealth's Attorney Paul Ebert asked her to identify a photo of Powell, she said she didn't want to look directly at him.
Staring directly at jurors, Kristie told them what happened during the attack on Jan. 29, 1999.
She said Powell opened the door at her house when she arrived home from school. She asked where her sister was and he said in the bedroom. As Powell followed her into the house, Kristie looked into her sister's bedroom and saw a broken mirror.
Kristie, 14 at the time, looked into her own room and saw Stacie's motionless body on the floor.
Two jurors wiped their eyes as the girl began to cry on the witness stand.
"He told me to go downstairs, " she said. She said she did "because I didn't, want to die."
She testified that Powell ordered her to take her clothes off and raped her. There was a knock on the door upstairs.
"He took my shoes and cut the shoelaces and tied me up, " Kristie testified. Powell went upstairs, she said.
"I was trying to scoot across the floor to hide, " Kristie testified.
But Powell came back down and took the girl's glasses off her. He began to strangle her and she lost consciousness. The next thing she remembered was her mother's fiancee coming home.
She said she felt numb as her step-father talked to the dispatcher. Powell had also stabbed her in the abdomen and cut her wrist, prosecutors said.
Robert Culver is now married to Lorraine Reed Culver, the girls' mother. He found the girls at home when he returned from work.
Robert Culver arrived home shortly after 4 p.m. and noticed that the cordless phone wasn't in the kitchen.
He began to look for it and found Stacie's body. He shook her and said she wasn't breathing. Culver dashed downstairs to get a phone kept in his bedroom when he heard a faint voice call, "Bobby."
He turned to see Kristie lying on the floor, her hands and feet bound, her neck slit, and a wound on her abdomen. Kristie pointed to the phone and Culver called 911. Jurors listened to a tape of the call Tuesday.
As he knelt next to Kristie, Culver frantically told the dispatcher that one of his daughters was unconscious and the other's throat was cut.
Jurors listening to the tape heard Kristie groaning in the background as Culver told the dispatcher he feared the attacker was still in the house.
"Don't let her talk sir, OK?" the dispatcher said.
"You'll be OK, Kristie, don't talk, " Culver told the girl.
Culver told jurors that Kristie said something about wanting to leave the house.
"She said, 'I think he's still here.'"
Culver put a cloth on Kristie's bleeding neck. Police and paramedics arrived at 4:23 p.m. and asked Kristie who attacked her.
"Paul Powell, " she replied in a faint, raspy voice.
Powell had been living with his friend Brian Lowery on Cascade Drive in Spotsylvania County. Lowery, a knife collector, testified that he routinely let Powell carry two of his knives.
Lowery testified Tuesday that Powell made derogatory comments about racial minorities and "claimed to be" a white supremacist. On the day of the attack, Lowery woke up to find that Powell had left and taken Lowery's 9 mm pistol and a car owned by another roommate without permission.
After the girls were attacked, Powell had left their McLean Street house and hung out with his friend, Kevin Elliott, Elliott testified Tuesday. Prosecutors allege Powell stole $37 from Stacie Reed's dresser drawer.
When Elliott, 32, asked Powell about a bruise on his face, Powell said he "got in a fight with some bitch, " Elliott said. Powell paid for drugs in Washington, D.C.
and the two went to the home of Elliott's girlfriend on Old Hickory Court in Manassas.
News of the attack came on TV and Elliott jokingly said: "Why did you do that, Paul?" The man had no idea Powell was involved.
Police traced Powell to the house and arrested him. A forensic scientist testified Tuesday that Stacie Reed's blood was found on the sheath of Powell's knife.
Ebert on Tuesday asked Kristie Reed to show jurors the scars that still cover the front of her neck. She said she has pain in her stomach and part of her throat is numb.
Powell, who could be sentenced to death, showed little reaction during Monday and Tuesday's testimony. Prosecutors will call more witnesses today.