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Highlands Today

Second Cemetery Rape Trial To Start

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By Gary Pinnell | Highlands Today

Published: June 14, 2008

SEBRING — In May 2007, after explicit trial testimony, an all-white, all-female jury of six found Julius Jamall "Gussy" Nixon, 21, of Sebring, guilty in the 2005 kidnapping and sexual assault of a teenaged couple.

On Monday, another jury is to be selected to try Oral Alexander "Dread" Williams, 21, 2010 Colmar Ave., of the same crime. Williams was scheduled to be tried in July 2007, but continuances were granted.

The Lake Placid woman and her Avon Park boyfriend were then 18. According to a May 5, 2005 sheriff's report by Det. John Barcinas, both victims were sitting in her vehicle on Orange Blossom Boulevard when two masked men approached. One was armed with what appeared to be a machine gun.

Their identification cards were taken, and the victims were forced to drive the suspects to the DeSoto City cemetery, at the west end of Shelton Street. In court, they accused the two men of repeatedly assaulting her while holding a knife to her throat.

When State Attorney John Kromholz asked why the victim didn't report the assault right away, her voice cracked: "They knew where I lived. They knew where my grandparents lived."

During the kidnapping, the female victim testified, one man called the second man "Dread," and police used that nickname to identify Williams, who had been arrested previously on unrelated charges.

According to Tonya Johnson, a friend of Nixon's for 12 years, he came to her house the morning after the assault, woke her and her mother, Donna Campbell, and showed her cell phone pictures of the assault. Nixon was found guilty of nine counts of armed sexual battery, armed kidnapping and aggravated assault. Two counts were dismissed.

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