"Man" arranges for wife rape through Craigslist

(Original Post 6-3-09)

According to the Kannapolis Police, a 25 year old man used Craigslist to find a man willing to rape the poster's wife. The incident, which occured with the victim's two kids sleeping in the home, happened at 2:45 AM on May 31. The attacker, armed with a knife, raped the victim at knifepoint. The kids, aged 3 and 4, in the home were found unharmed, and the woman was taken to a local hospital for an exam.

Kannapolis Police Chief James “Woody” Chavis said about the attack, “When the victim woke up and she saw a male standing at the foot of the bed holding a knife.”

"[The 'husband'] solicited him to enter his house and sexually assault his wife," Chavis also said. "It's very unusual, and I've been in law enforcement a long time."

Police grew suspicious when discrepancies in the victim's and the husband's stories appeared during questioning. The lack of forced entry also raised suspicions, confirmed after the police found the husband's Craigslist ads seeking someone "to have sex with his wife using some type of scare tactic.”

Another clue that pointed to the husband was that the "man" did nothing to stop the attack.

Because the posting was done without the victim's knowledge, let alone consent, the husband was charged with a count of rape, 2 counts of 1st degree sex offense, and a count a attempted 1st degree sex offense.

Craigslist has come under fire in recent months. In April, Philip Markoff was accused of killing a New York City woman who offered masseuse services through the Web site. Police have also accused the 22-year-old in the armed robbery of another woman. Police said both women had advertised erotic services on Craigslist.

The company has promised to eliminate the category and replace it with a new “adult services” section, where ads will be screened before they are posted.

The man who actually had sex with the victim may not have been aware that the woman had not consented, which is necessary to prove rape.

(Update 6-11-09) Kannapolis police have released a court document detailing more about the crime commited when the "husband" allegedly asked a man to rape his wife at gunpoint.

According to the court document, the wife and her husband were in bed and confronted at about 2 a.m. by a six-foot-tall assailant wielding a knife. He demanded $3,000. The wife said she only had a few hundred dollars.

“… the suspect said that was not enough and that he would get the money from her one way or the other,” the investigating officer wrote in the affidavit. “(The victim) stated that she was afraid for her children who were in another room directly across from her room.”

At the hospital, the victim described the events to the investigator.

“She also stated that her husband's sexual fantasy is having sex with her and another male,” the investigator wrote in the affidavit. “She said that she has checked her husband's e-mail in the past and found e-mail communication where he was requesting someone to please her.”

The husband was convicted last year of indecent exposure in Chesterfield County, Va., according to court documents. He was accused by police of exposing himself twice to a woman delivering pizza to his hotel room.

The Kannapolis home was also the site of a daycare, however, since the sex offense ws a misdemeanor, the husband was not required to stay away from children. Lt. Ken Jackson of the Kannapolis police said that only 1 child was attending the daycare, and the child was off the premises at the time of the attack.

The most shocking part of this, in my opinion, was that the husband told his wife to take a shower (destroying DNA evidence) and not to call police. The wife, after the intruder set down his knife, “was able to get the knife and throw it off the opposite side of the bed near her husband.” Her aim was a bit off, I suspect.

(Update 6-13-09) Kannapolis police arrested the remaining suspect in the case yesterday. 39 year old Rodney Liverman, of Norwood, NC, is being held on $250,000 bond on charges of 1st degree rape.

Note - In all stories, the husband's name has been withheld in order to protect the victim, but in this case, the information already released by the officials in this case is enough to identify the victim. It doesn't just take releasing names for people to figure out more info in cases like this.