DNA test, sought to prove innocence, confirms guilt

A Mississippi man who pleaded guilty in 1992 to kidnapping and raping a Cape Girardeau woman, and who 10 years later demanded a DNA test to prove his innocence, will continue to serve his life sentence. Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle said that the DNA test sought by Rubin Weeks only confirmed his guilt.

The testing conducted by Paternity Testing Corp. in Columbia, Mo., concluded, "Excluding an identical twin, Rubin Weeks is the source of the DNA observed in the Q1 male fraction to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty," according to Swingle.

"There was never any question what the result would be," Swingle said. "This was the strongest rape case I ever prosecuted. The defendant's motion for a DNA test was a pack of lies from beginning to end. It was not only frivolous, but full of outright lies."

According to court records, on Oct. 13, 1991, Rubin Weeks checked into a local motel using an assumed name.

A 21-year-old newlywed who worked at the motel left at midnight when her shift was over, and began to drive home. Weeks followed her from the motel and flashed his lights at her to get her to stop near the intersection of Highway 72 and County Road 350 at Millersville. The woman told police at the time that she stopped, but kept her doors locked, and rolled her window down just a few inches. Weeks approached her and told her that something was wrong with the rear of her car, but she had trouble hearing him so she rolled the window down a little more.

Taken at knife point

At that point, Weeks thrust a butcher knife through the window and slashed her hands. He also managed to get the door open, and took her at knife point to his vehicle. He drove her to a gravel road in Bollinger County where he raped and sodomized her in a field.

The woman later told police that Weeks threatened to kill her. She said that she was determined to leave evidence that would identify him, so she made sure blood from her wounded hands got on the seat of his car.

After he assaulted her, Weeks stood over her with a belt in his hand, convincing the woman that he intended to strangle her to death with it. She begged him not to kill her. Instead, he duct taped her wrists, knees and ankles together, put duct tape over her mouth, and left her in the field.

She was able to free herself and get help from a nearby farmhouse.

Weeks also stole the woman's purse which contained some jewelry and her husband's payroll check, which Weeks cashed in Sikeston a few hours later.

Because the abduction occurred in Cape Girardeau County and the rape happened in Bollinger County, investigators from both counties worked together to find Weeks. Investigating in Cape Girardeau County was Lt. John Jordan, who is now the sheriff. He teamed with David James, now a lieutenant with the sheriff's department, and Dan Mesey, who was then sheriff of Bollinger County. They tracked the suspect to Mississippi where they showed some employees of a trucking company where Weeks once worked the composite sketch drawn from the woman's description. The employees identified the man in the sketch as Weeks.

ID'd from photograph

A check into Weeks' criminal record revealed a prior arrest for forgery. Mississippi police gave Mesey and Jordan a photograph of Weeks which was then shown to the victim and the clerk who cashed the woman's husband's paycheck for Weeks. Both identified him.

Weeks was arrested several days later and confessed.

In January 1992, Weeks pleaded innocent in Cape Girardeau County court to kidnaping, forcible sodomy, second-degree assault, first-degree robbery and armed criminal action.

He was also charged with forcible sodomy, forcible rape and armed criminal action in Bollinger County. Later the two jurisdictions agreed to consolidate the cases and offered to drop the other charges against Weeks if he would plead guilty to kidnapping and rape. Weeks is diabetic and claims to have heart problems, and the prosecutors at the time did not believe he would live long in prison.

On Feb. 11, Weeks asked then Circuit Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr., for the death penalty on the rape charge. Missouri law does not allow for that. Three days later he pleaded guilty and asked Limbaugh to send him to the penitentiary as soon as possible. Limbaugh sentenced him to 30 years for kidnapping and life for rape. The two sentences are running concurrently.

In discussion with rape victim about the plea offer in 1992, Swingle said Tuesday, "we decided to agree to the concurrent sentences. Part of our reasoning was that the defendant had a reduced life expectancy due to medical problems. Frankly, I feel somewhat cheated that he has lived so long in prison."

In 2002, a decade after his guilty plea, Weeks petitioned for a DNA test. Circuit Judge William L. Syler denied the motion, stating that "files and records in the case conclusively show" that Weeks was not entitled to the test. Syler further said that the evidence against Weeks was overwhelming, and even without the DNA results, Weeks had pleaded guilty and admitted his guilt under oath.

Weeks appealed and the Missouri Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed Syler's ruling April 15, 2003. But on Aug. 27, the Missouri Supreme Court disagreed and on a 4-2 ruling ordered the DNA test. Limbaugh, by that time a member of the Supreme Court, did not participate in the decision.

Tuesday afternoon, the results confirmed that Weeks' DNA was found on the victim's body. Swingle noted that five of the nine judges at the appellate and Supreme Court level did not believe Weeks should have gotten the test at all.

"I agree with the five who felt that we shouldn't even have wasted the lab's time with a 13-year-old case where the evidence was overwhelming and the defendant had pled guilty," he said. "At some point a case has to be over."

lredeffer@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 160