Man convicted in bathtub slaying raped officer, prosecutors say
01/10/2003
FORT WORTH - Prosecutors said Thursday that a man convicted this week of the 1996 capital murder of a 22-year-old Arlington educator also raped a police officer at her Lancaster apartment two years later.
Dale Devon Scheanette, 29, faces death by injection or life in prison in the 1996 murder of Wendie Prescott, 22, at the Peartree Apartments in Arlington. She was found dead in her bathtub.
Jurors heard from two rape victims Thursday during the punishment phase of the trial, in addition to experts who testified that DNA links Mr. Scheanette to the attacks. He is accused of capital murder in the death of another Arlington woman and in three additional rapes.
The officer told jurors that she was in uniform at a gas station in 1995 or 1996 when Mr. Scheanette befriended her and said he lived in a nearby Lancaster apartment complex. She testified that the two spoke several times by phone over the next six months but never dated, because she "had a bad vibe."
Mr. Scheanette often referred to himself as a "jack of all trades" during their conversations, she testified.
In October 1998, as her attacker used her handcuffs to restrain her after he assaulted her, she asked him how he got into her apartment.
"He said he was a 'jack of all trades,' " the woman testified. "When I heard that, I thought, 'Was that him?' "
She later told authorities about the connection.
On Thursday, jurors heard from another woman who described a brutal rape at her Lancaster apartment in December 1998.
The woman testified that she fought back, which enraged her attacker enough that he kicked down her bedroom door. Her 2-year-old son pleaded with the man, "Let my mom go!" as he slapped the man's legs, she testified.
Prosecutors also presented evidence Thursday about the death of Christine Vu, 25, whose body was found three months before Ms. Prescott's death, also at the Peartree Apartments. Mr. Scheanette spent considerable time at the complex near the time of both killings, his estranged wife testified this week.
Witnesses also testified that he left fingerprints at both women's apartments.
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