Dating app allegedly used in gang rape
2 on trial in kidnapping, assault of 6 women in 2018
In the fall of 2018, five Milwaukee girls and young women told police disturbingly similar stories: Each said they got into a gray SUV with men they’d met over a dating app, were blindfolded, pulled into the back at gunpoint, taken to unknown locations and forced to have sex with several men.
“At that point, we believed we had a serial sexual assault gang on our hands,” Barbara Court, a Milwaukee police officer with the sensitive crimes unit, testified in a trial for two men charged with being part of that gang and kidnapping six young women between Oct. 22 and Nov. 11, 2018.
One victim had escaped half-naked to a neighbor’s house, so police had one target location. Another victim did her own social media sleuthing, working backward from the name “Kels” on an app called Tagged to figure out at least one of the possible perpetrators.
On Friday, a jury begins deliberating the case against Jerry Miller and Durrell Harris. Miller, 27, is charged with two counts of first-degree sexual assault, aided by others, and two counts of kidnapping, as party to a crime. Harris, 22, faces four counts of first-degree sexual assault, aided by others, one count of attempted first-degree sexual assault, six counts of kidnapping and one count of armed robbery.
A third man who had been charged with them, Davoncia McAfee, 22, pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree sexual assault, aided by others. He was sentenced to 34 years in prison and testified against Miller and Harris.
Over the nearly two-week trial, jurors also heard from victims, one of whom was 15 at the time of the attacks. Some admitted they had discussed prostitution on the dating app, but none said they agreed to what befell them. Some said they only were arranging to buy marijuana from the people they met over the app.
One victim, 18 at the time, said she
had agreed to buy pot from someone she only knew as Quan and he picked her up in the Dodge SUV. As they drove to a gas station because he didn’t have change for her purchase, she said, suddenly she felt a gun to her head and was pulled into the back seat.
The assailant put something like a stocking cap over her head and the SUV took numerous turns for several minutes.
“What were you feeling?” asked Assistant District Attorney Sara Schroeder.
“I didn’t really have a feeling,” the woman said. “I was terrified.”
She said they eventually stopped, she was led out and upstairs to an apartment where she was stripped and told, “Do your job,” as she was forced to perform oral sex on three men.
She said she kept crying and asking, “Why? What did I do?”
Eventually, they helped her dress and one of the men drove her, still blindfolded, until pushing her out about a block from her home.
The only defense offered in the trial was Harris’ own testimony. He admitted having sex with two of the girls, each time after McAfee had called him to come over to other places. One time, he said, he left after his girlfriend, whom he said he was helping recover from a gunshot wound, had fallen asleep.
He denied ever seeing two other victims. Regarding a fifth, from whom police recovered Harris’ DNA, he said, “I honestly don’t remember.” He also denied being part of any of the kidnappings.
Harris said at the times, he didn’t know the names of the women he had sex with but said they didn’t seem distressed and were agreeable to the acts.
Schroeder, the prosecutor, asked Harris if he got a good look at the girl who was 15. He said he saw her.
“But you decide to have sex with her, with no questions about who she is or how she got there?” she asked.
“That’s what I did,” he replied.