Crime & Safety

Testimony Begins in Trial of Man Charged with Raping Women in Ross, Hopewell

The assaults took place at two different Ross Township apartment complexes, and the home of a Hopewell Township woman.

Testimony began Tuesday in the trial of Arthur Lamont Henderson, who is charged with raping and robbing women in Ross and Hopewell townships a year ago.

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.

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“I kept telling him don't do this to me. Please don't do 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 Trib reported. She choked up when describing how Henderson raped her twice and barely winced when Henderson cross-examined her.

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

The other charges against Henderson stem from two 2012 attacks on Ross Township women—one reported Saturday, Jan. 7, at the Woodhawk Club Apartments complex on Johnanna Drive and the other Monday, Jan. 9, at the Cascades Apartment complex off Cemetery Lane.

In both cases, women in their mid-20s were attacked early in the morning after returning from walking their dogs, police said. 

Allegheny County Common Pleas President Judge Donna Jo McDaniel is hearing the case.

Henderson, 39 of the North Side, is representing himself, but has two attorneys assisting him on legal questions.

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