Jury clears Iowa man accused of raping wife with Alzheimer’s
An Iowa jury Wednesday found Henry Rayhons not guilty of charges that he sexually abused his wife, an Alzheimer’s patient, by having sex with her in a nursing home after staff members told him she was cognitively unable to give consent.
In the highly unusual case, Mr. Rayhons, 78, a farmer and former Republican state legislator who by all accounts had a mutually loving relationship with his wife, faced a felony charge that could have resulted in up to 10 years in prison.
The case ignited intense national discussion of an issue that will gain importance as more Americans age: whether and when people with dementia are capable of indicating if they desire intimacy.
Mr. Rayhons testified that his wife, Donna Rayhons, continued to desire and even initiate sexual contact. But he said that on the night in question, May 23, 2014, he and she had just kissed and held hands after he drew a curtain around her bed in a shared room.
“We did not do any of that stuff that day,” Henry Rayhons testified, according to local media reports. “We just didn’t.”
But he said that, occasionally, “Donna and I would ‘play.’ She would reach in my pants and fondle me sometimes.”
He told the prosecutor, “I always assumed that if somebody asks for something, they have the capacity” to consent.
Donna Rayhons, 78, died in August 2014. Her husband was arrested soon after her funeral, and he decided not to run for re-election.
After the verdict, Mr. Rayhons was tearful and told reporters, “The truth finally came out.”
The couple, both widowed, met while singing in their church choir and married in 2007. They were mutually devoted, according to testimony at the trial: Henry Rayhons learned beekeeping because it was his wife’s hobby, and she accompanied him to the Statehouse when the Legislature was in session.
The case appeared to reflect tension between Henry Rayhons and two of his wife’s adult daughters, who decided to place her in the nursing home, Concord Care Center. One daughter was Donna Rayhons’ health proxy and later successfully petitioned to become her legal guardian.
The nursing home told Henry Rayhons that he could take his wife to church Sunday but to otherwise limit outings.
There was no suggestion by prosecutors that Donna Rayhons had resisted any intimacy, and nursing home staff members testified that she was always happy to see her husband.
The only witness was an 86-year-old roommate, Polly Schoneman, who was on the other side of the curtain and who agitatedly told nursing home staff members that she had heard noises that made her uncomfortable. Ms. Schoneman testified that she was not certain the noises had been sexual.
Donna Rayhons was taken to a hospital and examined for sexual assault. The so-called rape kit, which the state processed months later, did not identify any signs of injury or proof of intercourse.
Stains on Donna Rayhons’ bedding matched her husband’s sperm, but a crime lab technician testified that the age of the stains could not be determined.