A northeast Ohio woman who was strangled and brutally raped by accused murderer Christopher Whitaker said Friday he should have never been let out of prison following his conviction in her case.
I spoke w/ woman who was strangled & raped in '05 by man accused of killing #AliannaDeFreeze. More on @WEWS at 11: https://t.co/UuxnpndC3z pic.twitter.com/Jxz73i3jUP
— Derick Waller News 5 (@derickwallerTV) February 4, 2017
Whitaker is now charged with aggravated murder in the death of 14-year-old Cleveland teen Alianna DeFreeze, but in 2005, he was charged with attempted aggravated murder after stabbing a woman in the neck with scissors and strangling her to the point of unconsciousness at her home in Bedford Heights.
Whitaker then raped the woman and left her unconscious sometime in the early morning hours of April 8, 2005. By 2:50 a.m. the victim had regained consciousness and called 911.
Whitaker’s attempted murder charge was eventually pled down and as a result, he served just four years in prison.
“A person can go out and sell drugs and get more time than they gave him. And now look what he done came back and did,” Whitaker’s 2005 victim said. “It’s like my life didn’t matter to them.”
Cleveland Rape Crisis Center President Sondra Miller said less than two percent of rapists ever spend a day in jail and said often victims feel re-victimized by the justice system.
“Most rapes are never reported,” Miller said. "And then on top of that, those that are reported are sometimes not investigated and then some don’t make it past the grand jury hearing and even those that go to trial end in a not guilty verdict.”
Now, Whitaker’s 2005 victim said he should get the death penalty.
“He took a kid’s life and, to me, when you take a kids life,” she said, “A life for a life.”
