Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Victim tearfully describes brutal rape

RENO, Nev. - Sobbing uncontrollably and asking for her mother to join her on the stand, a 20-year-old college student testified Wednesday about an agonizing two hours of rape and sodomy in the back of a van headed west on Interstate-80.

"He kept telling me, 'This will make you feel good,' he kept kissing me and trying to bite me, too," she said. "I was really upset. It was terrible."

The woman took the stand immediately after attorneys gave their opening statements in the trial of James Daveggio, 38.

Police contend the kidnapping and rape in September 1997 took part during a crime spree that allegedly included a murder in California.

Making no reference to the murder, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ron Rachow described in graphic detail the attack that began as the woman walked a short distance to her home from Morrison College in Reno.

As she described being grabbed by her backpack and thrown into a van, the woman was overcome with wracking sobs. The judge granted the request to let her mother sit with her on the witness stand.

Despite her ordeal, Rachow said the victim painstakingly observed her kidnapper, the woman driving the van and the interior of the cluttered van itself, right down to the crucifix hanging from the rear-view mirror.

"Once you've heard the evidence, you're going to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt," Rachow told the U.S. District Court jury.

But Daveggio's attorney, Michael Kennedy, said it was the woman's very detailed descriptions that would put her story in doubt.

While she said her abductor had a high-pitched voice, Kennedy said Daveggio's nickname is "Froggy" because of his raspy, low voice.

And she said he had no scars or tattoos, while Daveggio sports tattoos on both arms and his chest.

"At the end of this case when you consider the evidence, the man who did this ... is not Mr. Daveggio," he told the jurors.

Daveggio, wearing a green and blue plaid shirt, sat quietly at the defense table, watching and listening intently.

He and his girlfriend, Michelle Michaud, were arrested in December 1997, slightly more than a month after the rape. A composite picture developed by the victim and Reno police led investigators to the couple in Stateline.

Michaud has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing following her testimony against Daveggio - testimony Kennedy said would be the words of a "convincing, compulsive liar."

The couple were indicted in November by an Alameda County, Calif., grand jury in the strangling of Vanessa Lei Samson, 22, who was snatched off a Pleasanton street on Dec. 2, 1997. Her body was found two days later off Highway 88 in Alpine County.

Michaud and Daveggio were arrested the day after the Pleasanton abduction. Police said Michaud's green 1994 Dodge Caravan had been revamped into a "murder and abduction chamber," with restraints to shackle victims to the floor.

The victim testified on Wednesday that Michaud showed no concern about that was going on in the back of the van as she drove, but voiced some interest when the young woman made up a story about having a nine-month-old son.

She said Daveggio and Michaud discussed what to do with her as they drove west into California and finally decided to dump her in an unpaved, unlighted cul-de-sac just off I-80. She managed to flag down a car on the freeway and get to a phone to call the Placer County sheriff's department.

As she crawled from the van, she testified, Michaud told her, "Be careful about walking alone. Next time, you might not be so lucky. We let you go."

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