YOUNGSTOWN Testimony describes sex assault
Prosecutors said Anderson's DNA was found on the dead woman.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- An Austintown woman told jurors in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court that when she rebuffed Christopher Anderson's advances, he choked her and sexually assaulted her.
"I thought I was going to die," 24-year-old Donna Dripps said from the witness stand Friday.
Anderson, 36, of South Main Street, Austintown, is on trial in the May 2002 strangulation-murder of Amber Zurcher. Prosecutors say he killed the 22-year-old woman while apparently trying to sexually assault her after a party in her Compass West apartment.
They say Anderson's DNA was found on a bite wound on Zurcher's left breast and under her fingernails. A DNA expert from the Ohio Bureau of Identification and Investigation is expected to testify when the trial resumes Monday morning in the courtroom of Judge James C. Evans.
What woman said
Dripps testified that she was similarly assaulted by Anderson about three months before Zurcher's death. Dripps knew Anderson because he was friends with her brother, but she did not know Zurcher.
In the early hours of Feb. 16, 2002, Dripps and Anderson were at her brother's house on Rosemont Avenue. Her brother and his roommate also were there. The four had gone to the house after an evening of drinking at a nearby sports bar.
After a couple of hours, the two who lived in the house went to bed -- one upstairs and one downstairs -- leaving Anderson and Dripps alone in the living room.
Dripps said Anderson leaned forward to kiss her and she backed away. She said he picked her up, carried her into a downstairs bedroom and put her on the bed. When she tried to get up, he pushed her down, told her to be quiet and put his hand on her throat, choking her.
"I couldn't breathe. I couldn't make a sound," Dripps said. "At that point, I just stopped fighting and let him do what he wanted to do."
What happened
Dripps said Anderson loosened his hold on her throat, but he kept his hand there while using his other hand to lift her shirt and expose her breasts. At one point, she said he bit one of her breasts, leaving a deep, purple bruise.
She said he made no attempt to unfasten or remove her pants during the 20-minute assault, which ended only when Anderson passed out.
"It was weird," Dripps said. "He just rolled off of me and passed out."
She told assistant prosecutor Kelly Johns that she got up, ran out of the house and went home to her apartment, about a block away. Her boyfriend was there and called police, even though she asked him not to.
Dripps said she didn't want to make a police report because she didn't want to have to testify in court.
"I just figured that if I stayed away [from Anderson], it would go away," she said.
When defense attorney Ronald Yarwood asked why she didn't scream for help from her brother or the other man who lived at the house, Dripps said she was unable because of the choking. She said after Anderson loosened his grip, she was afraid he would hurt or kill her if she screamed.
bjackson@vindy.com