Veto St. victim: 'saying no and crying'

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - A 19-year-old woman broke down in tears as she testified Wednesday that four suspects took turns sexually assaulting her during a home invasion at a West Side home.

She testified for nearly a half-hour in a hearing for the suspects -- about as long as she said the attack lasted.

"I'm saying no and crying," the woman testified, "and then one of 'em cocks a gun to my head and puts the blanket over my face."

The woman said the suspects pistol-whipped her in the face and head, tied her hands behind her back,
blind-folded her with a bandana. She said she was raped by two suspects and forced to perform oral sex on
two others.

The attack happened about 4 a.m. on June 4 after a party at a home at 646 Veto St. NW.

One of the victims , Dillon Vance, testified how it started. "There's a knock at the front door, someone saying that they lost their wallet. I unlocked the front door and let them in."

It was a robbery plan cooked up earlier in the evening after the 14-year-old accomplice and another suspect were at a party at the home on Veto Street NW.

The 14-year-old was sent back to case out the place, "to see how many people was at the party, when it was going to end, to be exact, when we was going to break into the house," he said.

Soon, witnesses say, all five suspects returned with that lost wallet story, pistol whipping party-goers, stealing electronics and then finding a 19-year-old woman asleep upstairs.

Four suspects -- James Hodges, 19, Dorian Jones and Rederick Melton, both 20, and Brandon Towns, 25 -- are each charged with three counts of sexual assault, along with robbery charges and home invasion. They were in court on Wednesday to determine whether they will face trial, and all were bound over on all the charges.

The 14-year-old boy also is charged in juvenile court with robbery and home invasion. He testified in the early afternoon and said he witnessed the sex assaults. One of the suspects, he said, raped her with a gun.

Witnesses say party-goers, including the victim, had been drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana.

Zachary Nedow, who lives at the home, said he was sleeping in the same upstairs bedroom as the victim when he woke to a man walking in.

When he went into the hall to investigate, he said, the four men attacked him, pistol-whipping him, forcing him to the floor.

"I got pistol whipped in the head, had guns to my head and other various weapons held to my body."

The 14-year-old remembered it this way: "A dude comes out in his boxers and comes from behind the door and hits him."

Most wore bandanas and hoods, witnesses said.

Nedow said the victim, a guest at the home, was still sleeping, and it appeared the men didn't at first notice her. He said they tied him up with belts, struck him repeatedly with guns and with weights from his room.

"I told them to take whatever they want as long as they don't hurt us," Nedow said. "They kept on hitting me and telling me to get down."

Then, Nedow said, they noticed the woman under a blanket, who had awakened and was screaming.

"They realized she wasn't wearing any clothing," he said. "I grabbed one of her legs, I'm trying to hold her."

"Every time I yelled to her, they hit me in the face, telling me they're going to kill me," Nedow said.

The woman said she was raped in the bedroom, then forced to perform oral sex in the bathroom before being taken back to the bedroom, where she was attacked again.

That's also how the 14-year-old remembers it. "They ripped the blanket off of her. They start touching her and she's trying to fight back, but - " His sentence went unfinished.

"They start raping her right in front of me," Nedow said.

The suspects, he said, were walking in and out of the room, saying, "Do you want to take a turn?"