News

Rape trial under way in Superior Court

David B. Pressley sits with his defense team in Henderson County Superior Court. Pictured from left to right are attorney Beth Stang, Investigator Michael Dean, Pressley and attorney Will Sullivan.

By Amy McCraw, Published: November 15, 2023

A Henderson County jury heard from a young woman and her father on Tuesday during the first day of testimony in the case of a twice convicted sexual offender accused of breaking into the family’s home before choking and raping her.

The woman, who is now 20 years old, had just turned 18 when the incident occurred late at night on Jan. 6, 2022, Donna Rainwater, a special prosecutor from the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys, told the jury during opening statements in the trial of 56-year-old David B. Pressley of Fletcher.
In a calm, quiet voice, the woman told jurors that she and her father came back to the mobile home they share after working her regular shift at the Howard's Gap Road Ingles and dining out later that day in 2022. Pressley was lingering outside their home.
Pressley, who was acquainted with the alleged victim and her father, told them he had been injured in a motorcycle accident but did not appear injured, the woman testified.
After visiting for a time, Pressley left with the woman’s father when he went to work at the grocery store around 10 p.m. that night, the father and daughter testified.
The woman testified Pressley later woke her up knocking on the door of the home. They spoke briefly when she opened the door.
He said, ‘Hey, I left some stuff on your couch. I turned to see what he was talking about,” she testified. “I don’t remember anything after that.”
The woman’s father testified he dropped Pressley off down the road from his home on his way to work that night.
He spoke to his daughter over the telephone around 12:30 a.m. on Jan. 7 before his manager told him at some point later that he had a call on the grocery store’s business phone. When he tried to answer, no one was on the call, the father testified.
His boss at the store came to him a short time after that to tell him someone had called again and said that he had a “family emergency.”
The father, who at one point sat sobbing on the witness stand with his head in his hands, said he then returned home after he could not reach his daughter on her cell phone. He described his daughter as appearing “zombified” when he got home.
“She was in a daze,” he said.
His daughter also told him she could not find her phone or her bank card. She told him Pressley had returned to the home that night.
“She came up and wrapped around me. She clung to me, apologizing to me,” he told the jury.
The father testified he later noticed markings on her throat and scratches and bruises on her body.
During her testimony, the woman said she remembered her father coming home and being upset because he could not reach her on the phone. She said she felt anxious.
“I just felt like something happened,” she said.
After feeling sore in her vaginal area, she said she used the bathroom noticed blood.
“I said, ‘I feel like I’ve been attacked,” she said she told her father.
The woman pointed to Pressley when Rainwater asked if she saw him in the courtroom on Tuesday.
During his testimony, the father also identified Pressley.
The woman’s father called 911 at about 2:21 a.m. on Jan 7 to report what happened to his daughter.
In the call, which was played for the jury, the father said his daughter appeared assaulted and he thought also raped. He named Pressley as a suspect.
Prosecutors also admitted photographs into evidence showing the woman’s injuries including a broken pinky toe, scratches to her face and ankle and bruising on her back. The photographs also showed a red area on her neck.
Other witnesses for the state on Tuesday included sheriff’s deputies and paramedics who responded to the incident and a nurse at Pardee Hospital who examined the woman and collected DNA evidence for testing.
Under cross examination by Chief Public Defender Beth Stang the 911 operator who handled the call confirmed that the father could not remember the exact address of the home but that the woman could be heard in the background giving the address. Stang also asked the woman under cross examination about whether she clarified the address for her father. She answered that she did.
Stang asked the father about whether he received the phone call at Ingles at 1:19 a.m. and whether he arrived home at 1:56 a.m. on Jan 7. He said he could not remember the exact times.
During her opening statement, Stang said Pressley arrived at the home after the woman’s father left around 9:45 p.m. and left around 1:15 a.m. She said that was a long time for the woman not to remember what happened.
“They have a big hole in their case,” she said.
She also asked the jury to keep an open mind about the case.
In her opening statement, Rainwater told the jury Pressley brutally attacked a woman who had only turned 18 years old about two months before the incident.
“She suffered physical injuries and emotional injuries. As a result, she won’t be able to tell you what happened. There’s a lot she doesn’t remember,” Rainwater said. “The testimony is going to be difficult for some of these witnesses and it is going to be difficult for you.”
Superior Court Judge George Bell of Mecklenburg County is presiding over the case in Henderson County Superior Court.
Pressley is charged in indictments with first-degree forcible rape, first-degree forcible sexual offense, first-degree burglary and larceny after breaking and entering in the case.
Another indictment also charges Pressley with being a violent habitual felon. The indictment lists Pressley’s 1995 conviction of second-degree sexual offense in an incident that occurred in Henderson County in 1993 and his conviction for second-degree rape in 2002 in an incident that occurred in the county earlier that year.
Court records show that Pressley was convicted of second-degree rape in the 1993 case and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was convicted of second-degree rape and sentenced to 11 to 14 years in prison in the 2002 case.
During a morning break in court on Tuesday, Pressley appeared to argue with his attorneys. He later addressed the judge during a break in the afternoon. Pressley told Bell he was unhappy with his attorneys’ questions during their cross examination of witnesses.
“I just want to know what the process is. My life is on the line. The cards are stacked against me,” he told the judge. “I’m not real happy with this defense. I feel like I’m being sold down the river.”
Bell told Pressley he could have more time to confer with his attorneys before they begin to cross examine witnesses to allow for him to participate more in his defense.
The state’s case is expected to continue on Wednesday.