After hearing about a man’s previous acquittals on separate cases of attacking women, and the facts around yet another rape case against Darrell D. Oliver, a judge on Friday, Jan. 28 still denied his request for bond.
Oliver, 37, is charged with rape, kidnapping and burglary in an attack on a woman living with her children in a Deans Bridge Road apartment on Nov. 27.
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Oliver was released from the Richmond County jail following his third acquittal in 2019. His attorney then and now, Todd Mitchell, told the judge Friday that Oliver moved to Columbus, Ga., after he got out of jail, started working full time and got married.
The night of Nov. 27, according to security video at the victim’s apartment complex, a man is seen arriving at the apartment complex in a white sedan and walking to the building where the victim lived. The man crawled through a widow, and a short time later the same man is seen on the video climbing out of the widow, Assistant District Attorney Stetson Cromer said Friday.
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The victim said she didn’t know how or when an unknown man got into her home, but her assailant grabbed her by the hair and dragged her to the bed where she was raped, Cromer said. The victim’s daughter had seen the man in the apartment before he entered her mother’s bedroom. She called 911 and ran out of the apartment trying to find help. Before neighbors could get to the assailant, he left, Cromer said. A man wearing clothing matching what the victim’s description was seen by a witness getting into a white sedan and leaving the complex with the lights off, Cromer said.
Oliver posted on Facebook pictures of himself with a white sedan, his new vehicle, Cromer said, and he posted how the night of Nov. 27 he was in Augusta. Witnesses also place Oliver in town that night.
A palm print found at the window the assailant climbed through matched Oliver’s print, Cromer said.
DNA evidence collected in the case hasn’t been analyzed yet.
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Oliver was acquitted of rapes that occurred in 2014 and 2018 and an attempted rape that took place in 2017.
Oliver’s attorney stressed the acquittals were by three different juries. Mitchell said the description of the Nov. 27 assailant was vague, and didn’t include a description that included gold teeth, which Oliver said.
Chief Judge Daniel J. Craig said he wasn’t weighing the evidence in the case in reaching a decision. Craig said he was denying bond because Oliver posed potential dangers to the community of committing another crime and of flight.
Sandy Hodson is a staff reporter covering courts for The Augusta Press. Reach her at sandy@theaugustapress.com.Â
