New charges filed against suspected serial sex offender
BY NICOLE MARSHALL AND BILL BRAUN World Staff Writers
Thursday, July 06, 2006
8/27/08 at 4:16 AM
Tulsa County prosecutors filed six more felony counts Wednesday against a suspected serial sex offender, including charges that he molested and kidnapped a 2-year-old girl nine months ago.
The new charges also accuse Gary Lee Graham Jr. of molesting and kidnapping an 11-year-old girl in Tulsa in 2002 and of a 2005 burglary in Jenks.
In total, Graham now faces 41 felony counts plus a misdemeanor "Peeping Tom" allegation.
At the conclusion of a preliminary hearing last week, District Judge Gordon McAllister ordered Graham to face trial on 35 felonies, including counts of rape, forcible sodomy, attempted rape, lewd molestation, rape by instrumentation, kidnapping, attempted kidnapping, sexual battery, first-degree burglary and possession of child pornography.
In two days of testimony in May, McAllister heard from 30 witnesses, including seven who prosecutors allege are Graham's victims.
In two other assaults in which he is charged, the child victims did not take the witness stand, but their mothers did.
Among the counts added Wednesday, Graham, 36, is charged with kidnapping and molesting a 2-year-old girl, who investigators say is the youngest victim in the series of assaults in which Graham is accused.
In that case, the girl was abducted Oct. 1 through an unlocked bedroom window of an apartment in the 400 block of South Mingo Road.
The intruder sexually assaulted her and then put her back in her room and left through the front door, police said.
Officers were called about 4 a.m. after the toddler's mother found her in her room, crying, wet and covered with grass.
Graham also was charged Wednesday with first-degree burglary in that matter.
In another new filing, Graham is charged with kidnapping and molesting a girl -- then 11 years old -- on Sept. 16, 2002, at her family's apartment in the 7700 block of South Victor Avenue.
That girl was sleeping in a bedroom with her grandmother and younger sibling when a man broke into the apartment and kidnapped her, police reported.
The man covered her mouth to keep her from screaming and took her to a nearby field. He then ripped off her clothing and sexually assaulted her, said Police Sgt. Gary Stansill.
"The victim was screaming during the entire attack, and her grandmother was awakened by the screams and rushed outside," Stansill said.
The man ran off when he saw the grandmother.
Also among the counts added Wednesday is a charge alleging that Graham committed first-degree burglary at an apartment in Jenks in April 2005.
In that matter, a 9-year-old girl told police that she awakened shortly before 3 a.m. to find a stocky stranger standing over her bed, records show.
He held his hand to her mouth, and she saw that a knife was attached to his waistband. The girl bit his gloved hand and screamed, and he fled through a door, records show.
A screen had been pried off a window at the apartment, and the window was slightly raised, reports show.
Graham is charged solely with burglary -- and not with any sex offense -- in the Jenks matter, which marked the first charge against him in this investigation alleging criminal conduct outside of Tulsa.
The new charges were filed after additional DNA testing was completed.
Assistant District Attorney Brandon Whitworth said Graham is expected to be brought before a Tulsa County judge Thursday so a preliminary hearing can be scheduled on the six new felony counts.
Defense attorney Kevin Adams said Graham still maintains that he is innocent.
Adams said much of the case hinges on DNA evidence and that he likely will ask for court-approved funding so the defense can have independent DNA testing conducted.
He said he likely will object to any effort to try all the counts jointly before a single jury.
Graham has been in the Tulsa Jail since Feb. 20.
Nicole Marshall 581-8459
nicole.marshall@tulsaworld.com
Bill Braun 581-8455
bill.braun@tulsaworld.com
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