Alleged church rapist indicted
- 4/15/11
- Categorized in: DeKalb News
The bones in her face were broken. She was strangled and raped. And it all happened in a church.
Now DeKalb’s district attorney wants to personally ensure that the man accused of the “monstrous” rape of a Stone Mountain church worker pays for the crime.
“The victim was a woman in the church, minding her own business…and she was brutally attacked,” said DeKalb District Attorney Robert James, who will serve as lead prosecutor in the case.
“If anything calls for me to be personally involved, it’s this case,” James said.
On April 5, John Russell Carter, 50, of 157 Mill Court in Atlanta, was indicted by the DeKalb County Grand Jury for the rape of a woman at St. Timothy United Methodist Church, located at 5365 Memorial Drive. The 12-count indictment includes: rape, armed robbery, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, burglary and possession of a knife during commission of a felony.
“This was an extremely violent and vicious act,” James said. “He brutally attacked and raped a woman while at church.”
According to police, the 53-year-old female victim was working in a church office around 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 26, when she answered an exterior office door. When the door was opened, the suspect forced his way into the building.
During the alleged attack, Carver is accused of choking the victim with his hands until she lost consciousness. He allegedly stomped her head, and hit and kicked her face until her eyes were swollen shut. Carver is accused of “seriously disfiguring her face…by fracturing the bones in her face by kicking and hitting her,” according to the indictment.
And all of this was allegedly done while he was brandishing a knife with a three-inch blade.
The indictment includes a charge of kidnapping with bodily injury. James said the law allows for a kidnapping charge if the victim is moved anywhere against her will, even if it is to another part of the building.
The suspect allegedly stole money and a cell phone from the victim. The phone was later recovered by police after it had been sold to a person near Underground Atlanta.
Carver was named the suspect after being linked to the case on March 16. DNA evidence was processed by the Georgia Bureau of Investigations. At that time, Carver had been in custody at the Fulton County Jail after a March 7 arrest for violating his parole.
According to Georgia Department of Corrections records, Carver has been incarcerated for robbery, armed robbery and the obstruction of a law enforcement officer.
Carver was out on parole after serving time for possession of cocaine charges in Richmond County.
You're alomst as bad as the rapsit in that you feed them and allow them to be stronger, more violent rapists & murderers.
One thing, and it is mostly a "pet peeve."
It is irrelevant that this victim was in a church, "minding her own business." Had she been a barely dressed prostitute noisily trying to give political pointers to District Attorney Robert James in the hallway of a crowded crack house... the response of the justice system and its representatives ought to be the same.
I know, my point of view is unrealistic. Who ever heard of prostitutes being raped in crack houses in the presence of a county official?! And, of course, whoever defends John Russell Carter would never stoop so low as to find some irrelevant inflammatory detail involving the crime victim, so as to deflect all that is implicit in her status as a humble person of faith. Imagine, say, that it should come out that she was over six months behind in tithing or that her nephew was a serial litterbug... Then Dekalb DA James would be forced to foist the prosecution of the case onto some underling, saying 'If anything calls for me to be personally UNinvolved, it’s this case, given the purported unworthiness of this crime victim...'
I am just trying to say that we owe this woman all the respect in the world, and all the judicial and prosecutorial attention due every brutalized crime victim, by virtue of her status as a human being.