Rape Trial: Woman Testifies to Assault in Ross Apartment

One of three women Arthur Henderson is charged with raping in January 2012 testified Wednesday afternoon that she was assaulted in front of her 4-month-old baby, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported .

The woman said she had just returned to her townhouse in the Cascade Apartments after walking her dog around 9 a.m. on Jan. 9, 2012.

According to the newspaper, she entered a darkened bedroom and discovered her fiancé bound and gagged on the floor. She then noticed a dark figure in the corner of the room.

"I started screaming," she said. "I said, 'Please, don't do this.' He said, 'If you say anything, I'm going to go in that room and kill your fiancé.' "

ON Tuesday, a second victim testified a man wearing a black ski mask forced his way into her home in the Woodhawk Apartments as she was returning around 9 a.m. on Jan. 7, the Post-Gazette reported. 

"In his right hand, he had a pistol. He pushed it in, pointed it at my stomach, and I immediately backed up into my apartment," she testified.

At first, her attacker demanded money and told her to lock up the dogs. He ordered her to undress and raped her, the newpaper reported.

Henderson, 39, of the North Side, is representing himself at trial. He is cross-examining the witnesses, although Allegheny County President Judge Donna Jo McDaniel ordered that he remain seated while asking his questions.

He repeatedly asked both women if they had been scared, the Post-Gazette reported.

Among the first to testify was a Hopewell nurse, who told jurors she pleaded with Henderson not to rape her as he held a gun to her head early on the morning of Jan. 7, 2012.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported the woman testified with tears in her eyes.

“I kept telling him, 'Don't do this to me. Please don't to this to me,” she said. “I knew what my eyes were seeing, but my mind was not believing it.' ”

The woman, 50, was stoic when she took the stand and relayed to the jury what occurred, the Tribune-Review reported. She choked up when describing how Henderson raped her twice and barely winced when Henderson cross-examined her.

“This is the chair that I was raped on,” she told the jury, pointing at a photo.