Editor’s note: This story contains material that might be disturbing to some readers.Opening statements were made Thursday in the retrial of a man suspected of raping and killing his former girlfriend at a Durango motel in June 2007.
Harold Nakai, 43, is charged with criminally negligent homicide and sexually assaulting a victim who was physically helpless. He was found guilty in 2008, but an appeals court granted him a new trial, saying some of the statements he made to police should have been suppressed at trial.
Prosecutors said Thursday the case is about sexual violence and disregard for human life.
About 3 p.m. June 6, 2007, Nakai and two other men – Derrick Nelson Begaye and Carlton Lee Yazzie – visited the home of Nicole Leigh Redhorse on County Road 203 in the Animas Valley. Once there, they drank alcohol to the point that Redhorse was falling-over drunk, said Janet Drake, senior assistant attorney general for Colorado.
At 4:45 p.m., the three men and Redhorse drove to the Spanish Trails Inn & Suites, 3141 Main Ave., in Durango. Redhorse was so intoxicated that she couldn’t put on her own shoes, Drake said, so the men gave her slippers and helped her to Room 525, where she never left.
The men ran across the street to buy more alcohol, including the kind of vodka that Redhorse was drinking, Drake said.
Later, at about 10:30 p.m., Nakai and Begaye went downtown to drink. Redhorse was too intoxicated to join them, so she stayed in the room with Yazzie.
When the two men returned, a fight broke out between Begaye and Yazzie, and Yazzie left.
A hotel worker responded to the commotion and went inside the room to make sure everything was OK, Drake said. She asked to talk to Redhorse, who appeared to be sleeping on a bed. Nakai lifted her up and tried to rouse her, Drake said.
“I’m OK, who are you? I’m OK,” Redhorse reportedly mumbled, and the motel worker left.
In interviews with police, Nakai admitted to having anal and vaginal sex with Redhorse later that night. She started bleeding profusely, so he put her in the shower. Blood clots were so profuse that it clogged the bathtub drain, Drake said in recapping Nakai’s description to police.
He left her in the shower for 1½ hours before helping her onto the floor, where he left her, she said. In the meantime, he removed the bed sheets and flipped the mattress and went to sleep.
A medical examiner said Redhorse died about 2 or 2:30 a.m.
Nakai and Begaye woke about 4:30 a.m. to find Redhorse cold to the touch with a stiff jaw. They dragged her to the shower and ran cold water for about a half hour to try to revive her, Drake said.
At about 5 a.m., Nakai called 911 to report Redhorse was dead. A coroner ruled she bled to death as a result of blunt force trauma to her vagina.
While it is unknown who or what caused her injuries, prosecutors will argue that Nakai had sex with Redhorse while she was physically incapable of consenting, made her injuries worse and didn’t get her help.
Durango public defender Amy Smith said Nakai didn’t know about Redhorse’s injuries and didn’t cause them. They had a consensual relationship that involved a lot of drinking and having sex, sometimes with other people in the room. Nakai believed Redhorse had given nonverbal indicators that she wanted to have sex with him, Smith said.
When she started bleeding during sex, he didn’t know what had happened, Smith said. Nakai stayed with her in the shower while she cried, and he fell asleep with her on the floor, unaware that she was dying, she said.
Redhorse was a chronic alcoholic who drank all day, Smith said. Jurors will hear from an expert who will testify that people who drink at high volumes are able to function with higher blood-alcohol levels than people who don’t drink excessively.
Yazzie fled the motel during the night and remained missing the next day, she said. When police caught up with him, they found bloody pants, women’s underwear and a bloody hammer handle, which police failed to collect as evidence.
Defense lawyers also are expected to point a finger at Rayford Tan, an acquaintance of Redhorse’s who may have been seen that evening at the Spanish Trails Inn. There is evidence that shows Tan’s DNA on a pair of panties that belonged to Redhorse found in Room 525 at the motel, according to court records.
“Mr. Nakai is not the one who hurt Ms. Redhorse,” Smith said.
While it is a tragic case, Smith asked jurors not to let that get in the way of Nakai’s innocence.
Seven women and seven men, including two alternates, are on the jury. District Judge Jeffrey Wilson is overseeing the trial, which is expected to last 2½ weeks.
