SAN DIEGO — Closing arguments wrapped up Tuesday in a Vista courtroom for a kidnapping and rape case that happened more than 24 years ago. Police said they identified a suspect decades later through DNA.
The victim, who was only referred to in court as Jane Doe, says it all started at a gas station on Grand Avenue in Escondido. She says it happened on February 17, 1999 around 8:30 pm.
The woman, who was 19 years old at the time, says a man approached her asking for directions. She agreed to show him the exact location by having him follow her car in his van.
“She was young, she was naive, she didn't have a cell phone and was all alone,” said Deputy District Attorney Claudia Plascencia.
When the woman got to an area near Valley Parkway and Fig Street, she says the man waved her into a parking lot - as if he was having some type of emergency. She says her that person then pulled her into his van and drove her to the end of a cul de sac.
“She kicked and she screamed, but her will was not strong enough to overcome the physical force that he used to pin her down and cover her mouth and tell her don't make me strangle you,” Plascencia said in her closing argument.
She also said the woman was raped multiple times and then released with the suspect taking off. Despite the attacker's DNA being recovered, police didn't know who did it. But in 2020, a cold case team re-examined the DNA and investigators say it linked them to 66-year-old Mark Hunter.
“Jane Doe was kidnapped, and raped, orally copulated and sodomized against her will and then man that did it is sitting in this courtroom - Mark Hunter,” Plascencia said pointing in Hunter’s direction.
Hunter, who lived in Hemet at the time of his arrest, faces 7 felony charges including kidnapping and 2 counts of rape.
“There are reasonable doubts throughout this,” said his attorney, Amanda Edmonson. In her closing argument, she called it a “he said, she said” case with evidence showing that even if her client did have sex with Jane Doe, it could have been consensual. “The suspect is not wearing gloves, suspect not wearing a mask, not wearing a condom, nothing like that to conceal himself.”
The jury began deliberations Tuesday afternoon and then went home for the day. Deliberations will resume Wednesday morning.
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