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Family members living in the house testify in rape trial
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The brother, cousin and aunt of the 12-year-old girl accusing her stepgrandfather, Rick Benchea, of raping her repeatedly over four years testified in Benchea’s trial Tuesday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.
All of them knew Benchea as if he were their biological father or grandfather because he’d been in their lives so long, but his strict style of discipline matched the description the girl gave of him. They all lived with Benchea, 62, during the time period of the purported rapes.
“He would treat us really bad,” the girl’s 14-year-old cousin testified. “If we didn’t do something right, he would hit us,” he said.
He and the victim’s brother, also 14, spent a lot of time together during the years they lived with Benchea and his wife on Belvedere Avenue Southeast until last summer.
It was common for Benchea to send them out to play, but it was less common for him to send the girl out to play, he said, adding that there were times when the two of them were alone in his bedroom.
He also had strict rules regarding the children’s bedtime and would have disciplined them harshly if any of them would have gotten out of bed at night, the girl’s brother testified. The boy said he and his cousin “would usually get beat” if they didn’t follow Benchea’s rules.
Benchea didn’t work, but his wife did, so he was alone with the girl a lot in the afternoons, her brother said.
The boys and the victim’s aunt, April Fellows, all testified that the girl didn’t tell them she was being sexually abused.
But Fellows, whose mother married Benchea when she was 5, had lived at the Benchea home for about two years until last fall. She shared a bedroom with her niece, who had frequent nightmares, she said.
Benchea stayed up until about 3 or 4 a.m., while his wife went to bed about 9 or 10 p.m., Fellows said. The girl testified Monday that many of the rapes occurred late at night after he woke her up.
Gabe Wildman, assistant Trumbull County prosecutor, played an hourlong videotape of the interviews done with Benchea by Det. John Greaver and Lt. Jeff Cole of the Warren Police Department after the girl made the allegations last summer.
When Greaver asked Benchea if he sexually assaulted the girl, Benchea said, “No. That’s my angel. That’s my baby.” He continued to maintain his innocence throughout the interview.
Greaver was among the police officials who went to Benchea’s house the day the allegations were made and used a search warrant to recover a sex toy from a safe in Benchea’s bedroom that the girl said Benchea had used on her.
Wildman said in opening statements the device has the DNA of Benchea and the girl on it.
Benchea told Greaver he thinks it’s “real unlikely” that anyone but him knew that the device was in the safe because he kept the key to the safe with him most of the time.
The trial resumes this morning. Benchea is charged with 12 counts of rape. Each carries a possible life prison sentence.