Horrifying Details Recounted as Hamilton Heights Rape Trial Begins

In April 2007, a Columbia graduate student was raped and tortured for 19 hours in her Hamilton Terrace apartment. More than a year later, her suspected rapist is now in court, facing 71 criminal charges including attempted murder, arson, rape and sodomy.

Assistant District Attorney Ann Prunty describe the harrowing ordeal in her opening statement. From the NY Times:

Over many torturous hours, [the victim] had been repeatedly raped, sodomized and forced to perform oral sex, a prosecutor told a jury on Thursday. The accused, Robert A. Williams, 31, had doused the woman’s face and body with boiling water and bleach, forced her to swallow handfuls of pills and to chase them with beer, sealed her mouth with glue, and bound her wrists and legs with shoelaces, cords and duct tape, said the prosecutor, Ann P. Prunty. And now, Ms. Prunty said, he was asking the woman to gouge out her own eyes with a pair of scissors.

Williams allegedly wanted her to blind herself, so she would not be able to identify him. The victim ended up trying to stab her neck, and Williams allegedly continued his abuse, using a butcher knife, to, as Prunty said, "slice into her face and eyelids, carving and disfiguring her face." The victim passed out from the pills and awoke to find her futon on fire--her attacker meant to kill her, but she managed to burn through the ties of her bound hands and escape to find help.

Police conducted a manhunt to find Williams, 31, who has a criminal history including attempted murder (twice) and assault. He was found a week later when he tried to break into a Queens apartment; residents there stopped him and called the police. One said, "If we had known he was a rapist, he wouldn't have made it off this block."

Police have previously said they have DNA evidence linked Williams to the rape, but his defense attorney has previously said he was argue his client is mentally ill (though psychological exams found Williams fit for trial). The victim is expected to testify today and the trial will continue throughout next week.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on June 6, 2008 9:43 AM

Comments [rss]

chris lee

Hopefully this will serve as a cautionary tale to all of the good natured, naive students and hipsters that move into these sketchy neighborhoods. They congratulate themselves on their ability to get along with the locals not realizing that it's a numbers game, they cannot FATHOM the random and arbitrary violence of MANY of the people in the ghettoes.

bluemonday

agreed.

i remember this happened at the same time as the VTech shootings and it was barely covered if at all. i hope people pay attention now.

allie25

rusty nails are free, you can find them in the garbage.. shove one up the old pee hole, then cut it off with another rusty one. seriously, i wish someone would do us all a favor and shoot this guy point blank between the eyes. though, that might be too humane.

reading the description literally made me sick.

donner

Wu-tang reference= awesome.

JenChungsBaby

Even Law & Order SVU wouldn't touch this one with a ten foot pole. He's going away for life and that's all. Too bad some prison guard is going to have to risk his life every day dealing with this piece of shit.

eyekantspel

do we really need to spend millions of dollars on a trial, appeals, and paying for this monster's room, board and medical care for life?

just kill the fucker. take him out back and kill him. i don't care if it's slow or quick, as long as it's done.

Anna_Merkin

Re-reading an old post from Jen Chung made me realize that this guy is the worst kind of sociopaths and has been further hardened as a result of being an ex-con. It's almost as if this were a matter of time for him to do what he did.

The old report states that he "wrapped two razor blades in tissue paper, put them in a balloon and stuffed them into his rectum." Wow.

See Jen's comment above for the link.

Guest

Hey Snoopy, how about we remove his eyelids so he can't close his eyes and then make him watch the Sex in the City movie on repeat? Oh, and the electricity used to power the movie comes from his own blood slowly trickling out of his body onto some kind of water wheel that turns the generator. Is that green enough?

Anna_Merkin

Snoopy, do you really want this to be the gross-out board?

1) Stripping him naked in a room full of mirrors and using an X-Acto knife to slowly remove his skin until you reach the minimum that's needed to preserve life, pausing only to revive him with alcohol as he passes out.

2) Dipping his genitals into honey and letting fire ants loose for periods of 10-15 minutes at a time.

3) Leaving him out on top of a tinfoil-covered roof during the hottest days of the year, with no water.

4) Using him as a test specimen for various pharmaceuticals that are administered by hypodermic needle.

5) Sewing his arsehole shut and feeding him, and feeding him (ok, I got that from The Wu Tang Clan).

Jen S

What a monster.

Spirit of 76

Waterboarding is too easy. How about waterboarding with scalding water? Then when we tire of it, burn him at the stake.

Snoopy

There are a lot of creative thinkers on this blog. Can't we come up with a really horrific punishment for this dude? The rusty nail thing is a good start. Nothing lasting more than 90 days please. Don't want to spend too much of the taxpayers dollars. Special rewards if it has low carbon footprint, is ecologically sound and is sustainable.

JRod5417

HBDC- Perhaps, but you have to agree its easier to kill someone with a gun than tying them to a bed and lighting a match. Just saying.

Guest

JRod, that's highly unlikely. If he was going to kill her, he would have done it within that 19 hour period, gun or not.

JRod5417

OTC- Its probably a good thing she did not have a gun in her apartment, since he likely would have used it to kill her.

allie25

cut off his dick with a rusty nail.

Polite New Yorker

I will pile onto the lynch mob. The rightful delivery of justice in this case cannot be done within the confines of the law.

What can be done within the confines of the law is removing those responsible for his release from prison to begin with.

OTC

Stories like this always make me wonder why some women oppose the right to carry a concealed firearm.

If she had a gun, this would have been over fast, and he would have gotten what he deserved.

She should sue the city for violating her Second Amendment rights and allowing this to happen.

g0thamg1rl

It's truly difficult to even read the horrific things this young woman had to endure. It's scary people like this are functioning in our society/our city. Yes, I'm glad he was apprehended as well but now he's just going to sit in a jail cell where our tax dollars pays for his meals & accommodations. Our country is way too lenient on criminals as sick as this...

Guest

This guy should have all of the devices from this book applied to him.

Anna_Merkin

The Al Sharpton comments are puerile. Clearly, the judicial system will work here. This guy's not going to see the outside world for the rest of his life. Given his focus on groups that are perceived to not receive proper representation, why would Al Sharpton get involved here?

Anna_Merkin

Jesus. That account of her torture made my heart heavy. I do wonder how a person can live a functional life after such a thing.

I won't pile onto the lynch mob. It is good that he was apprehended. It's just too bad that his prior history wasn't enough to keep him out of civil society.

I just don't understand this level of depravity. Then again, I cannot understand much of the violence that humans show against one another.

Snoopy

Al Sharpton? Is the defendant black?

Peter

Where is Al Sharpton?

Nunyah Bidnit

There's a Hamilton Heights Rape Trail?

gfrance

People like this are allowed to go free by parole boards, because the system is utterly clogged with non violent drug offenders. The war on drugs is the problem. Decriminalize, and get animals like this in prison and keep them there for a long time, and allow non violent drug users to live in peace, as long as they cause no harm to others. It's really simple.

Dirk

Wow... I'm speechless. This guy is inhuman. I wish that he could have the exact same thing done to him.

AnonEMouse

My heart aches deeply for this woman. To endure what she did is beyond human-- what this man did to her is beyond human.

I can't understand how people can be so horrible & cruel.

I hope this man gets what he righfully deserves.

mdow

@aveb4life, i really hope you're right. i hope they take care of him really fucking well in there.

i've liked some of the ideas, and i'm thinking a waterboarding with head in a vice 19-hour session would be fitting. daily.

good job, parole board. bunch of fucking clueless pig assholes.

eyekantspel

A horrific crime.

There should be an exception to the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment specifically for crimes like this.

dooWOP

Perhaps some anger management sessions may be in order?

aveB4life

life in prison wont cut it. when inmates learn of his crime, they will take care of it. he wont last more than a few months i'm sure.

ed_Extinct

has a criminal history including attempted murder (twice) and assault.

and somehow a parole board thought he was fit to reenter society. the city should be sued for any and all releases of this manner—they happen every day.

or

we should really reconsider who deserves to live and who deserves death. murderers, rapists and pedophiles cannot be cured and should be put to death.

Offbalance

Life in prison. Life. In. Prison.

I can't believe that all we're able to do to this walking waste of blood and organs is life in prison. I'd really like to send him somewhere where he can enjoy the same kind of horror and hell that he put his victim through. Anyone know of a good spot? He deserves what they did to the guy in Braveheart, and that's at the LEAST.

SikBug

In these types of situations I full hearty believe that jail or even a death penalty would never never be enough punishment. Also why is this guy roaming the streets after having two attempted murder charges?

ed_Extinct

Animals are bred from animals. this animal should be waterboarded until he is dead.

tblake

Why does it take so long to get things like this to trial?

Jen Chung

She certainly has a strong will to live. She was in the hospital for a while (liver damage from the pill overdose), but apparently her recovery was impressive, all things considered.

theevilone

The depravity is just stomach turning. Jail is too good for this guy. I hope he comes to some horrible end. And I hope it takes 19 hours.

plk779

Jesus, what a psycho. If he'd done that to me, I'd want to kill him myself.

JRod5417

The description of the victim's attack is so brutal it makes you wonder how she can lead a "normal life" afterward. Hopefully, that same brutality will result in a life sentence for this creep.