WEATHERFORD, Texas (AP) — A Texas man said he kidnapped his former neighbor then sexually assaulted her on a homemade lift for cleaning hogs, according to his audiotaped confession to investigators that was played at his trial Thursday.
Jeffrey Allan Maxwell was initially vague about how the woman got to his home in Corsicana, about 50 miles south of Dallas, and said they had consensual sex during what he said was a four-day stay. But gradually he acknowledged that he'd held her captive and caused the severe bruises that investigators saw on the woman when she was rescued last March.
She ran outside when authorities went to Maxwell's house to question him about her disappearance after her house burned down. She had been missing for 12 days.
Maxwell is heard admitting that he abducted the woman from her home about 100 miles away, handcuffed her and pulled out a gun when she briefly escaped, then forced her into his vehicle. After arriving at his house, he hoisted her in the air on a device for skinning animals and sexually assaulted her, he told the investigator.
Then Maxwell is asked if the woman agreed to sex after being assaulted on the device in his garage. "I didn't ask her. I had her gagged," Maxwell is heard telling the investigator.
The 59-year-old is charged with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault. If convicted, he would face up to life in prison.
When asked why he told authorities he was alone when they arrived at his house, he answered: "Because you caught me by surprise. She'd been there 10 days and I wasn't expecting you. Like I said, I got myself into something I couldn't figure out how to get out of."
On the recording, Maxwell repeatedly denied torching the woman's house. But he said that during the kidnapping, he wiped down the house to remove his fingerprints and took her telephone.
Maxwell said he regretted abducting the woman.
Tony Bradford, the Texas Rangers investigator in charge of the case, did most of the talking during the interview. Maxwell, who has a nasal, gravelly voice, was hard to understand at times on the recording.
The woman has testified that Maxwell hit her with a rolling pin and handcuffed her as he abducted her March 1 from her rural home outside Weatherford, about 70 miles west of Dallas. She said that he kept her in handcuffs and her legs chained to a bed, and even locked her in a box when he once ran an errand. She told jurors that she bled profusely after one of the sexually assault.
The Associated Press generally does not identify alleged victims of sexual assault.
Prosecutors and Bradford demonstrated for jurors how the woman's wrists may have been attached to the skinning device, a thin metal strip with hooks attached that hangs by a chain from the ceiling.
Investigators have testified that they found whips, chains, sex toys, the animal-skinning device, blood-stained sheets and guns in Maxwell's house.
Earlier Thursday, defense attorneys said they never had a chance to question the woman before the trial and she never gave a written account of the alleged incident.
During cross-examination, she said no law enforcement agencies ever asked her to provide a written statement after she was rescued. The woman said she jotted down some questions before meeting with prosecutors, but nothing to help refresh her memory. She said she had to write some details about her ordeal on some applications for a crime victims' compensation fund.
The judge then granted defense attorney Richard Alley's request for the woman to turn over her notes and for prosecutors to retrieve the applications. Afterward, the judge said some of the woman's notes would be available to the defense, but Alley said he had no more questions for the woman.
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