Over days, Conaway accuser details basis of current attempted rape trial

The accuser in the continuing Clay Conaway attempted rape trial recalled the defendant’s body “sinking her” into his mattress as his thumbs pressed down on her neck. She told a jury she focused at a crack on the ceiling and felt if she closed her eyes, she would be dead.

"It was like fighting a wild animal," she said.  

Through tears, the woman told the jury Conaway pinned her to a bed, tried to reach into her pants and strangled her as she resisted in November 2017.

Her testimony spanned more than two days of trial time, most of it was a relentless cross-examination by one of Conaway's attorneys questioning her judgment in putting herself in such proximity to the defendant as well as the precision of her memories. The woman wept openly and said recounting her trauma was the "last place" she wanted to be.

The task weighed on her family as well. At one point, the question of whether her father was coaching her during breaks became an issue. In a bizarre episode, he was called to the witness stand outside the presence of the woman and jury and appeared to briefly lose consciousness as the judge pressed him, halting the inquiry Thursday.

Defense Attorney Diane Coffey's detail-focused cross-examination stretched into Friday.

The woman's testimony is the primary evidence of strangulation and attempted rape charges against Conaway, a former University of Delaware athlete separately charged with sex crimes by six women.

Conaway has pleaded not guilty to the charges. He was convicted of fourth-degree rape last year in the first of what could be six trials total. Like the first trial, the accuser in the current proceeding said she met Conaway online.

SENTENCED: Clay Conaway sentenced to 5 years in prison on rape conviction

She was a university undergraduate and told the jury Conaway's Tinder dating app profile was “wholesome,” featuring pictures of his family. They matched and their subsequent messages contained "nothing flirty," no "fireworks going back and forth" and no mention of sex, she said.

The same day, he invited her to Deer Park Tavern on Main Street in Newark for the Tuesday specials. She wasn't old enough to enter the bar, so he invited her to his place to “watch a movie, just chill.”

“I trusted him,” she said.

She said she had no intention of becoming physical with Conaway. 

She lived less than a five-minute walk from his Continental Avenue home, which a detective said was known as the "baseball house.” Conaway, as well as other men in the house, were wearing university baseball outfits, she recalled.

She said she was led directly upstairs to his room where they sat on sofas, talked about relationships, sports and music. She described herself as "very into music" so she asked him if there is an artist he particularly disliked.

"Without hesitation," she recalled. "He said every female country artist ever."

He got up to change the music and moved to the foot of the bed. He beckoned her to join, she said. The conversation had not touched on anything sexual, but he moved in for a brief kiss and she obliged, she told the jury.

She welcomed it, but when she pulled away things immediately changed, she told the jury.

"He legit grabbed me on the waist and threw me the length of the bed," she said as she began to sob.

She said the throw caused her to bang her head on his wooden headboard and Conaway continued trying to kiss her.

"I was not about it at all," she said.

He straddled her and pinned her arms down at first, she said. He tried to grope her under the shirt first, freeing an arm for her to fight back, she said. He tried grabbing her over the shirt and she fought back, she said.

"It was like he became a completely different person, like a switch went off in him," she said.

She told the jury he would not relent when she told him to stop.

"He was trying to take advantage of me," she told the jury. "He was trying to get pleasure out of something that I clearly didn’t want."

She said he tried to pull down her yoga pants and touch her. She said she was able to stop him. 

"I was fighting and fighting and I said, 'I didn’t come here to have sex with you,'" she told the jury. "That is when he strangled me."

She said Conaway wrapped his hands around her throat, constricting her breathing for seconds.

"I felt all the pressure. I felt all the strength," she said. "I could not even say or do anything."

She said he didn't say a word and his eyes were "blacked out and locked onto me" as if "he was mentally recording this moment."

She said she remembered staring at a crack in his ceiling, and felt that if she stayed focused on that, "I was still alive." She identified the now-painted over crack in a photograph of the room shown to the jury.

She told the jury she mustered a scream and Conaway relented. She estimated he was on top of her for five minutes.

"Oh, I thought all girls were into that," is what she said he told her. 

She reiterated that she did not come to his apartment for sex. She told the jury he replied saying, "Then what did you come here for? What the f--k is wrong with you?”

He texted someone and she was "escorted" out by two men she believed to be his teammates.

She said she struggled to process terror that still gripped her. She said her roommate pointed out the "red nail and thumbprints" she said were left on her neck.

She felt "dirty and disgusted."

"I sat in my shower and cried," she said.

The attack caused her to become isolated and paranoid, she said. 

"I thought he was going to come back to finish what he started," she said.

'I’m not feeling well right now'

The testimony, particularly the cross-examination, appeared to be wrenching for her and her family. 

Thursday began with defense attorneys playing a recording of her and her mother's initial statement to a Newark Police detective. She was made to recount detail after detail. 

When her recall to the jury didn't match her previous statement to police or her statement to prosecutors weeks before the trial, she was made to explain why. 

She was quizzed on both minutia and inconsistencies of her testimony and prior statements including the amount of makeup she wore, the different fibers that comprise sweatpants versus yoga pants, the walls in Conaway's room, exactly what the defendant and his housemates were wearing down to the color of the threads and the adjectives she used to describe the lighting in a room she briefly walked past. 

Coffey asked multiple questions regarding whether the woman had inquired if Conaway had roommates, whether any "alarm bells" went off as the then-stranger led her up the stairs to his room and whether her actions signaled that she wanted sex when she kissed Conaway.  

"It didn’t dawn on you that then he was trying to reel you in to have sex with you?" Coffey asked at one point. 

The woman said the situation seemed normal and that she didn't know she had "made a mistake" until Conaway overpowered her.

Later, she was made to explain why she met another man from Tinder, this time in public, less than a week later.

SEPARATE TRIALS: Why former UD pitcher Clay Conaway could face six trials

She left the courtroom for the hour-long lunch break Thursday in tears and in the embrace of her father, who had been watching the testimony. 

Court reconvened with the jury outside the room. The woman was then questioned by Judge Richard Stokes about her conversations with her parents, who are both attorneys, over the hourlong break.

Stokes asked if she remembered his commands to not speak to anyone, including her parents, about her testimony while she is still on the stand.

He told her he had received information that she was crying in the presence of her parents in an interview room right outside the courtroom during the break. She denied discussing the testimony and told the judge her parents were comforting her, not coaching her.

“It is hard being up here,” she told the judge. “The last place I want to be is here.”

She was then directed out of the courtroom and her father called to the stand. The judge asked him about the lunch break. 

Stokes noted that the man is an attorney so he can have his phone in the courthouse unlike the general public. Stokes asked if he had texted communication about the ongoing trial to anyone including his wife, who is expected to be a witness later in the trial.

Expected witnesses are kept sequestered from trial proceedings to avoid tainting their testimony.  

The man replied to the question, saying “I’m not feeling well right now." He then appeared to either faint or become disoriented. Court staff called for medical attention as he gradually rested his head on the witness stand.

The judge said out loud the questioning was over, and after a short spell, the man picked his head up and apologized.

TRIAL BEGINS: Attorney: Conaway accuser 'felt like she was going to die'

Stokes said he would not resume questioning him. The man walked back to the courtroom pew, sat down and muttered, “That wasn’t fun.” He was sent out of the courtroom after.

Joe Hurley, Conaway's other attorney, later told court staff: “It’s too bad they had the Oscars already." 

When the accuser returned to the stand, she was made to draw her view of Conaway's room on a tall easel placed in front of the jury. Coffey questioned her about everything she knew about the room, asking her multiple times to better define the walls and eventually start a new drawing altogether.

After multiple hours of cross-examination, Coffey's inquiry touched on the physical contact between the accuser and the defendant.

Coffey seized on her differing words as to whether Conaway tossed, threw or pushed her across the bed before straddling her. 

Coffey pressed for more and more detail. When the accuser gave the detail, she was questioned about why she had not gone into such level of detail in her prior statements.

She was questioned for not having told detectives Conaway touched her underwear when she described him trying to pull down and reach into her pants. 

"I just know he tried to pull my pants down," she said. 

The woman had described Conaway's thumbs pressed against the front of her throat. Coffey seized on a prior statement where she told a detective about how she "felt his thumbs, like, touching right behind my neck."

Pressed on the issue, she told the jury her prior statements were made under pressure. 

'The last thing I wanted to do' 

The woman said that for days, it was hard to swallow, hard to speak up, she had trouble sleeping and her neck hurt, she said.

Coffey asked her why she didn't call the police immediately after. She asked why the woman didn't photograph her neck or otherwise try to confront the situation. She said she was busy with her life and thought, incorrectly, she could move on.

"The last thing I wanted to do was talk about it more and approach it more," she said.

The following year, she reported Conaway to the university. They gave the information to police that were already investigating Conaway for other rape claims. 

Because the marks on her neck were not photographed and the police report was made several months after her interaction with Conaway, there is no physical evidence to corroborate her statements. 

In court, prosecutors have indicated that her roommate and mother heard about her attack shortly after they happened. They are expected to be called as witnesses to corroborate her story. 

The accusing witness's testimony is expected to conclude Monday. The focus of the trial will now turn to who can corroborate her retelling of events.

It is unclear if Conaway will take the stand to give his recollection. The trial may come down to whom the jury believes: her or him.

Contact Xerxes Wilson at (302) 324-2787 or xwilson@delawareonline.com. Follow @Ber_Xerxes on Twitter.