Defense: Regusters was rescuer, not abductor

After a day of emotional, hard-hitting closing arguments by defense and prosecution lawyers, a Philadelphia jury begins deliberations Thursday in the kidnap-sexual assault trial of former day-care worker Christina Regusters.

In his closing statement to the jury, defense attorney W. Fred Harrison Jr. posed a novel theory of the case, in which he all but conceded that Regusters was involved in last year's kidnapping of a 5-year-old girl from her West Philadelphia school. Harrison, however, argued that Regusters saved the girl from the real abductor and set her free.

Assistant District Attorney Erin O'Brien argued that the evidence proves Regusters alone kidnapped the child, sexually assaulted her, causing internal injuries requiring surgery, and abandoned her in an Upper Darby playground.

"She and she alone kidnapped, planned and brutally raped a 5-year-old," O'Brien added.

Regusters, 21, who did not testify, stared at O'Brien throughout the prosecutor's closing - slouched in her chair, head propped up in her left hand, playing with a pen in her right.

Harrison's unusual argument was his only way to reconcile the most incriminating evidence against Regusters - her DNA on a black T-shirt the victim wore when she was found.

Prosecutors allege that Regusters is the woman disguised in Muslim garb seen on a Bryant School surveillance video taking the girl from school on Jan. 14, 2013. Furthermore, the victim was in an after-school program in a day-care center across from Bryant, and Regusters worked there at the time of the incident.

The girl testified that the woman, who called herself "Rashida," took her to a strange house, where she was blindfolded, kept naked under a bed, and sexually assaulted by an unnamed man she never saw or heard.

Early the next morning, the girl said, a teenager named "China" - Regusters' childhood nickname - woke her, gave her a black T-shirt to wear, and abandoned her in the playground.

O'Brien argued that Regusters created the other personas to confuse the girl and mislead investigators.

"She was the monster under the bed," O'Brien said, pointing to Regusters.

Regusters, O'Brien said, "acted in a theater she made up. This was some complicated play of her own choosing."

Harrison argued that believing Regusters was the lone participant in "this diabolical plan" flew in the face of her lack of a criminal record and the FBI and state police sex-offender background checks she passed when hired by the day-care center.

Harrison told the jury Regusters had been "thrown under the bus" by relatives she lived with in the 6200 block of Walton Avenue - where the child's rape allegedly happened - so they would escape suspicion.

Then, addressing the DNA issue, Harrison asked, "How did her DNA get on [the child's] T-shirt? She helped her."

O'Brien immediately objected to the new defense theory.

But Harrison returned to his argument, telling the jury there were two Good Samaritans who rescued the child: the pedestrian who found her shivering at the park before dawn on Jan. 15, 2013, and called police - and Regusters.

"The other Good Samaritan was China," Harrison said, referring to his client by her childhood nickname. "Does the predator save the prey? Remember that."

The victim testified at trial that "China did not hurt me. China tried to rescue me."

O'Brien, however, told the jury that "China was not the good one who saved her. China was Rashida. China was the man. If he is now telling you she is China, Mr. Harrison is telling you she's guilty."

Common Pleas Court Judge Jeffrey P. Minehart will instruct the jury on Thursday about the relevant law and the jury of seven women and five men will start reviewing 111/2 days of testimony.