Ex-boyfriend named in local rape charge

A first-degree rape charge has been filed by Pawhuska police alleging that a local woman was forcibly taken from her home and sexually abused while being held captive by an ex-boyfriend for 12 hours last weekend.

In an affidavit accompanying the filing, police reported that two male visitors at the house failed to assist the woman when the ex-boyfriend invaded the residence and began brutally attacking her in their presence.

A 27-year-old Pawhuska man, Christopher Beatty Harris, was arrested in the rape case Tuesday. Additional felony counts leveled against him are for kidnapping, first-degree burglary and domestic assault/battery by strangulation.

Police said the woman arrived at the local station Saturday afternoon and told officers she had escaped less than an hour earlier from her ex-boyfriend’s apartment. She told them the ex-boyfriend entered her home without permission early that morning and “began punching her in the face, choking her and kicking her.”

The woman said the attacker “then took her into her living room and threw her to the ground (sic) and began kicking her in the side.” She told police she asked her male guests “to help her, but neither intervened,” the affidavit states.

The police said the woman told them her ex-boyfriend later stated: “Well, your neighbors have probably heard you screaming so we can’t stay here.” She said he then took her outside, forced her into his vehicle and drove to his residence. After arriving at his apartment, she said the man had non-consensual sex with her and then refused to give her back her clothes and cellular phone, according to the affidavit.

Several hours later, as her captor was leaving the apartment, she said he told her “that she better not leave and better be there when he got back,” the document states. The woman told police she located her clothing and telephone after the man left and subsequently summoned assistance. A friend took her to her home to get shoes and then transported her to the police station, said the affidavit.

Police said an officer took the woman to a sexual assault nurse examiner in Bartlesville. According to the affidavit, the nurse performing the tests told him the victim “had so much swelling and bruising … that she could not fully complete the exam.” The officer said the nurse also said the woman was taken for x-rays “to see if anything was broken in her pelvic region,” the police document said.

The examination form submitted by the nurse showed the woman had “bruising and swelling on her jaw as well as bruising on her ear, neck, lips, toes, knees, breasts, wrists, forearms and her vaginal region,” police stated in the affidavit. Officers added that the woman told them the bruises on her neck resulted from her being choked by the assailant during attacks at her house and his apartment.

Later, based on information obtained during the hospital examination, a search warrant was executed by police at the suspect’s apartment, according to the affidavit. Officers said they recovered bedding that appeared to be bloodstained, it added.

Police said they also found a partially-smoked marijuana cigarette “in plain view” at the apartment, said the affidavit, which led to the addition of a drug-possession count on the charge.

Harris, a Pawhuska resident, is being held on a $200,000 bond. His next court appearance is scheduled for May 16.