Courant.com
MIDDLETOWN
Rapist Gets 12-Year Term
Court Hears Details Of Woman's Two-Hour Ordeal
By ALAINE GRIFFIN
Courant Staff Writer
December 4, 2007

MIDDLETOWN, Connecticut—

After repeatedly raping the mother of a classmate two years ago, D'Arcy Franklin took a blindfold off his victim and used a cigarette lighter to illuminate his face in the dark bedroom.

"Look at me," Franklin told the woman. "Look at me."

Moments after he fled her home, the woman ran to her daughter's room and searched a dresser for the East Hampton High School 2005 yearbook. Inside the book, she looked for someone named "Franklin" with a boyish face and black cropped hair. The rapist had divulged part of his name during the assault and said he knew her daughter.

When the woman found the class photo, she called her boyfriend, who persuaded her to call police in spite of the rapist's threats to kill her if she told.

Franklin, now 19, briefly apologized for the attack Monday in Superior Court, where Judge Robert F. McWeeny sentenced him to 12 years in prison as part of a plea deal. Franklin had confessed to police after his arrest.

Assistant State's Attorney Maureen Platt stressed the victim's courage in retelling the details of the July 27, 2005, rape. Most of the recollections of that night came from a statement the victim wrote that Platt read on Monday.

Franklin broke into the home by climbing up to a second-floor deck. He found the woman sleeping alone in her bedroom. Her daughter was not home. "I thank God she wasn't home that night," the woman wrote.

Platt said Franklin threatened the woman with a gun and blindfolded her with her nightgown before raping her for about two hours. At one point, when Franklin asked for lubricant, the woman said, she thought using an ointment containing menthol would burn the man's skin and he would stop the attack.

Instead, Franklin, who prosecutors said had been drinking prior to the rapes, was not immediately bothered by the ointment — but it caused intense pain for the victim.

When the raping stopped, the woman was unsure of her fate, so she talked to her attacker "and tried to reason with him," Platt said.

That's when the woman learned he was a 17-year-old classmate of her daughter headed into his junior year at the high school.

Before leaving, Franklin asked the woman if he could return the following day to have sex with her.

"This is one of the worst sexual assaults I have ever dealt with and I have dealt with literally hundreds of them," Platt said. "Not only did she fear for her life, this woman endured two hours of the utmost terror."

Franklin's public defender, James S. McKay, said Franklin became an alcoholic after a troubled childhood. Franklin, who is not a U.S. citizen, left the tribal nation in Canada where he was born after he was adopted as a boy into a "dysfunctional family." Because of current immigration holds, Franklin will probably serve all 12 years in prison and be deported after his release, McKay said.

At the end of Monday's hearing, Platt, in an unusual move, spoke again about the victim, who was sitting in the gallery.

Platt said she wished she could turn to her, but feared doing so would reveal her identity. About a half-dozen supporters attended the hearing with the victim.

"I want to thank the victim for coming forward," Platt said. "She showed tremendous strength."

Contact Alaine Griffin at agriffin@courant.com.
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