Cape man charged with attempted rape bound over for arraignment

A 16-year-old girl and her mother were called to the stand Thursday in a Cape Girardeau County courtroom to testify against a 51-year-old Cape Girardeau man who allegedly broke into their Minnesota Avenue home and allegedly attempted to rape the teenager.

At the conclusion of Craig Kizer's preliminary hearing, Associate Circuit Court Judge Gary A. Kamp found probable cause on all three felonies -- attempted forcible rape, burglary and armed criminal action -- and bound the cause over to another division of the court for arraignment.

Kizer was charged with the felonies in early June, for allegedly breaking into the Lisa and Scott Conrad home around 5 a.m. May 30.

The teenager testified that she woke up to a black man standing in her doorway. He proceeded to climb on top of her while she was still lying in bed.

"He had a knife and a pair of my mom's underwear. He tried to put it in my mouth," the victim told the judge.

She didn't scream for help, the victim told the judge, because she didn't know if her parents were home, but she did tell the man to get out of her home.

When questioned by the defense attorney, Mary Patricia Tucka, about the lighting in her room at the time of the alleged crime, the victim replied that she could see perfectly because "it was about to be daylight."

The victim continued to identify Kizer in the courtroom as the man in her room May 30.

When Lisa Conrad was asked to describe the morning of May 30 to the judge, she testified that after hearing faint voices coming from her daughter's room she went to see what was happening. When she saw a black man hovering over her daughter on her bed, Conrad said she went to get a pistol from her own bedroom.

After returning to her daughter's room and shouting at the man to leave, Conrad told the judge she recognized the man as Kizer, a contractor who had been working on their home for around four months.

"I couldn't believe I actually knew this person," she said.

Additional testimony described how Kizer allegedly entered the home, which Conrad said was through a window in the basement.

He did not have permission to enter the residence and go to her daughter's room, she added.

Kizer is scheduled to appear in court again at 9 a.m. July 6. He has no prior convictions in Missouri.

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