Woman, 77, tells of rape, beating

A 77-year-old white-haired woman testified yesterday that when a stranger attacked her in her Olney home in early June, tearing off her dress, she asked him: "Don't you have any decency?"

He answered, she testified: "Stupid woman, there is no decency. There is no God."

In a steady voice, the woman yesterday told the court how the stranger raped her, stomped on her naked chest, bound her with scarves and threatened to kill her.

Police linked Kevin McKeither, 47, of Napa Street near York in Strawberry Mansion, to the horrific crime through DNA evidence.

At his preliminary hearing yesterday, Municipal Judge Karen Simmons held McKeither for trial on charges of rape, aggravated assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, robbery, weapons and related offenses.

As the elderly woman testified, McKeither, a strong-looking, heavyset man in a blue prison shirt, looked at her and listened, showing no emotion.

The woman said that about 2 p.m. June 5, she had returned home from food shopping.

Inside her dining room, a man - whom she later described to authorities as having a dark complexion - "jumped on me," from behind, she testified.

"He put his hand across my mouth. He covered my eyes. He ripped my dress. He told me to lay on the floor," she said.

"He showed me a knife and said, 'If you don't do what I tell you to do, this knife will penetrate your neck,' " she testified.

After he pushed her down on her stomach and removed her bra and underpants, "he raped me," she testified matter-of-factly.

Prosecutor Bill Davis asked the polite, elderly woman in a lilac dress if she could be more specific.

She said that it was his penis that he pushed inside "my bottom" - meaning that he penetrated her anally.

"There is no word to describe that," she then said. "I was so shocked. My mind stopped working at the time."

Afterward, the man told her to turn around and then penetrated her vagina, she testified.

The woman said that when she was lying on her back, the man "stepped on my chest for the longest time. I couldn't breathe."

After demanding money and grabbing her wallet, the man tied her hands and feet and covered her eyes and mouth with scarves she kept in the house, the woman testified.

When he left, he took her wallet, which had about $100.

The man's last words to her, she testified, were: "You call the police and it will be worse."

When the man left her house, the woman wept, but then freed herself.

She washed herself. She then put on a new, clean dress.

She called a friend, who came over quickly. Together, they called 911. An ambulance took her to Albert Einstein Medical Center, where she remained for 10 days, primarily for chest and breathing problems.

On cross-examination, public defender Elizabeth McHugh pointed out that the woman initially told authorities in a 911 call that she did not know if the man penetrated her.

The woman said under redirect examination: "All I know was it [his penis] was inside. I was like half-dead person at that time."

Davis later told the court that a DNA sample from a scarf taken from the woman's house tested positive for McKeither's DNA. The judge dismissed an attempted-murder charge because there was no evidence presented of an intent to kill. Authorities have said that at the time of the attack, McKeither had been staying with a relative who lived across the street from the victim's house and had been watching the elderly woman for a couple of days. *