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Victims to become witnesses for each other

Circuit Judge Lynn Tepper finds "distinctive similarities" in the cases against Darin Salters.

By JAMAL THALJI
Published October 1, 2005

DADE CITY - The state won a potent new weapon to wield at trial against Darin Salters, who authorities say terrorized his Angus Valley neighbors.

The weapon: Darin Salters himself.

His alleged history of trying to get into neighbors' homes, that is, which the prosecution says shows the 36-year-old Wesley Chapel man has a pattern of targeting single, older women in his neighborhood.

"The state's position in the case is strengthened with being able to provide the testimony of these three victims," said Assistant State Attorney Stacey Sumner.

The victim in an alleged 2003 rape can now testify against Salters in a 2005 false imprisonment case, Circuit Judge Lynn Tepper ruled Friday, and the 2005 victim can give testimony at the trial for the 2003 attack.

A third neighbor also can testify against Salters.

"I won't say a chill ran up my spine," the judge said. "But it is clear to me that there are distinctive similarities in the way Mr. Salters approached these women."

Salters is accused of raping a 52-year-old woman at knifepoint in 2003. In February, on the eve of the scheduled start of the rape trial, he was charged with breaking into a 59-year-old woman's home, striking her, exposing himself and trapping her inside. That case has undergone three mistrials.

Neither woman has been identified by the Times because of the nature of the accusations.

The ruling was made Friday after a two-day evidentiary hearing that saw all three women testify.

The alleged rape victim testified that she first encountered Salters outside her home in the dark. He introduced himself as she headed to a night job.

Later, authorities say, she woke up at 1:25 a.m. on Aug. 27, 2003, to find Salters standing over her naked with a knife. Salters sexually assaulted her, authorities say, but was freed pending trial by an appellate court because of prosecutorial error.

The third woman, Edna Edmond, testified that Salters claimed her Woodsman Drive home was on fire in December 2004, and in January he pounded on her door claiming to be a policeman.

She wouldn't let him in either time, and neither case resulted in criminal charges.

The alleged victim in the 2005 case said she also had a previous run-in with Salters before he dragged her into her home on Feb. 16, for which he will face a fourth trial on charges of burglary, false imprisonment, battery, exposure of sexual organs and tampering with a witness. That case landed Salters back in jail.

The judge likened Salters' behavior to a "shark, bumping up against people to see if they'll fight."

Salters, shackled and wearing blue jail coveralls, was visibly agitated by the ruling and started mumbling. Assistant Public Defender Bob Focht waved a hand at his client to quiet him.

Focht argued that the 2003 and 2005 cases weren't similar at all, and that powerful details from the 2003 rape case would obsess the 2005 jury.

The judge also left the defense in a quandary. Tepper ruled the women can only testify about alleged sex acts in their own cases. In the other cases they can testify about Salters' attempts to get inside their homes and the alleged break-ins.

The 2003 charge involves a sexual battery for which he could get a life sentence. In the 2005 case Salters and the victim both ended up in the shower nude, which the defense said was consensual.

If the defense argues Salters knew the women, that any of the sex acts were consensual, the judge ruled, then the prosecution can rebut that by bringing back the victims to testify and challenge those claims. That would expose the jury on the 2005 case to the 2003 rape accusation, and the ury on the 2003 case would hear the 2005 victim testify about the shower incident.

And Focht can't appeal any of the judge's rulings until after the trials.

"The cards are in your hands," Tepper said. "It's up to the defense."

[Last modified October 1, 2005, 01:46:16]