The trial began Tuesday for the DeKalb County man accused of being behind a string of sexual assaults that terrorized a community in the fall of 2011.
Between October and November of 2011, prosecutors say Gary Wendale Mincey followed five women home from various locations in DeKalb County, threatened their lives, robbed them, then sexually assaulted them.
“Our county was scared,” said assistant DeKalb County district attorney Patricia Jackson, during her opening statement. She is chief of the DeKalb DA’s domestic violence unit. “Females in our county were scared. But there was one person who knew everything. When he was going to attack, who he was going to attack and how he was going to attack. And that was this man right here … Gary Wendale Mincey.”
Mincey’s attorneys, however, insisted in their response that prosecutors and police got it wrong.
“You’ll see from the inconsistencies in this case, that my client has been wrongfully accused,” public defender Jamie Schickler told the jury. “The evidence will show you that the State has the wrong man.”
Mincey, 36, is charged with aggravated sodomy and robbery by force, along with multiple counts of rape, aggravated sexual battery, aggravated assault, and armed robbery.
For six weeks, media reports were filled with descriptions of – and police were on alert for – a masked black man in all black clothes with black gloves, sneaking up on women and forcing them to have sex with him.
He is accused of following a pattern, using a gun, a knife or a Taser to threaten victims before robbing them, then ultimately making a sexual attack.
“’Make a sound and I’ll kill you,’” Jackson told the court that Mincey repeated to his victims, each time dumping the contents of their purses onto the ground to hunt for money or jewelry. “But you’ll find … that’s not enough. Because that’s not what he came for.”
Two victims were attacked after they left the Publix supermarket on Flakes Mill in south DeKalb County.
A third woman, he allegedly followed home from the Stone Mountain night club near the McDonald’s restaurant where he worked, and two other women prosecutors say he identified at a lounge on Glenwood Avenue in Decatur.
His first victim, Jackson said, refused, even as her life was threatened, to submit to Mincey’s alleged ultimate goal.
Two subsequent victims were raped, and investigators collected rape kits used to gather DNA that could be sent off to the GBI crime lab.
But there were no matches in the state’s sexual predator database, Jackson told jurors.
“There is no suspect that this DNA can be matched with,” she said.
Schickler even questioned the validity of the use of DNA evidence.
“You will learn that the science of DNA is always evolving and science is always subject to human error,” she said. “What you will hear about in this case is statistics, not certainties. What you will hear about DNA in this case will not be able to tell you who did this.”
But Jackson said police began to find breaks in the case. Before, the unknown suspect had been careful not to let even his escape vehicle be seen.
A fourth victim, Jackson said, Mincey was physically unable to rape.
“Mr. Mincey was having problems that day,” Jackson said. “He couldn’t get an erection.”
When the victim’s daughter came outside to look for her mother, Jackson said Mincey was spooked, and failed to cover his getaway. The victim described seeing a dark red SUV.
Prosecutors said Mincey got inside the home of his fifth and final victim on Nov. 29, 2011. After raping the woman in her bedroom, Jackson said he forced her to shower, while he collected personal items … her laptop, her GPS device, her camera, and her pink and black cell phone in a pillow case.
When she emerged from the shower, her attacker was gone, prosecutors told the jury.
The next day, police investigators called the phone to determine it was active, then used the signal to track down the suspect. There, Jackson said, police found Mincey getting into a dark red SUV.
“They followed him and blue-lighted him,” Jackson said. “He sped up and led police on a chase.”
When the man tried to flee on foot, police saw him dumping items from a pillow case, authorities said.
Police finally caught him and were able to confirm the things he dropped as he ran belonged to the final victim, Jackson said. She said investigators took DNA samples and matched them to specimens from two prior rapes.
Shickler pointed out that the victims’ physical descriptions of their attacker were all over the map, however.
“You’ll hear that none of the five women in this case ever identified Mr. Mincey, even when his picture was put in a lineup in front of the women,” Shickler said.“The height descriptions range from 5-foot-7 to 6-foot-1. That’s a six-inch range.
“One woman said her attacker was a big man. Another said he was thinner. One woman said he was in his mid-20’s. Another said he was in his 40’s. One woman said he had a shiny metal grill. Another said he had the exact opposite. A third said he had shiny white teeth.”
Jackson even acknowledged that amid the frenzy over the serial rapist, another man was arrested, and eventually released when the attacks continued.
“When we got the case we said, ‘let’s make sure,” Jackson said, walking from the jury stand toward Mincey. “So we swabbed (the arrestee for a DNA sample). It didn’t match any from the victims, leaving us with one defendant. One suspect who fits every description everybody gave. This man right here.”
Jackson also told the jury that Mincey’s mother found more stolen items in his room after his arrest, and reported them to police. Victims were able to identify their belongings, prosecutors said.
“The information she gave us was golden,” Jackson said.
Still, Shickler asked the jury to see a different story than the one prosecutors put forth.
“Hearing the holes in the state’s case will help guide you to the right conclusion that Mr. Mincey did not commit these crimes,” she said. “Gary Mincey did not attack these women.”
The trial continues.
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