Victim testifies in 1962 rape

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SYCAMORE, Ill., April 10 (UPI) -- A woman who says she was raped 50 years ago as a 14-year-old girl testified in an Illinois courtroom Tuesday against the Seattle man she says was her attacker.

Jack D. McCullough, 72, whose fate will be decided by a judge after he waived his right to a jury, is charged with one count of rape and four counts of indecent liberties with a child.

Jeanne Tessier, McCullough's half-sister, testified he picked her up in a convertible and drove her to a house in an unfamiliar part of Sycamore where he raped her and offered her to two other men, the DeKalb, Ill., Daily Chronicle reported. The newspaper said Tessier has given her permission to have her name used.

"Did you feel pain?" State's Attorney Clay Campbell asked her.

"Yes," she replied.

She said she didn't see the faces of the other two men.

She said she recall how she made her way out of the house, but went home on her own, showered and went to sleep.

Under questioning by McCullough's attorney, Regina Harris, Tessier said she couldn't remember the date, but that it was a warm day when school was not in session.

The victim's sister and the victim of a 1982 case in which McCullough was convicted also took the stand, the newspaper said.

DeKalb County Judge Robbin Stuckert is hearing the case.

The prosecution was expected to call a total of five witnesses and Harris said she would call three or four. She did not say whether McCullough would testify.

The state attorney's office has argued Illinois' statute of limitations law should be put on hold for the current case because McCullough was not a resident of the state for long periods of time since 1957.

McCullough has also been charged with murder, kidnapping and abduction of 7-year-old Maria Ridulph, also of Sycamore, in 1957. He has plead not guilty to those charges and that trial has not yet been scheduled.