Past victims testify in felon's trial over 1980 killings in Ventura, Kern counties
Megan DiskinTestifying in the Ventura County trial of a man accused of murder, three women on Wednesday shared accounts that included being raped, robbed and kidnapped at knifepoint by the defendant.
Their testimony came in the second week of Wilson Chouest’s trial in the 1980 stabbing deaths of the two women, one of whom was pregnant with a 20-week-old male fetus at the time she was killed. The three witnesses were the last in the prosecution’s case against the 66-year-old Louisiana native.
The body of the pregnant woman was found partially nude in the upper parking lot of Westlake High School in Thousand Oaks on July 18, 1980. Three days earlier, a woman had been found dead in a Kern County almond orchard. After almost 38 years, the women’s names and loved ones are unknown, with attorneys referring to them as Ventura County Jane Doe and Kern County Jane Doe.
Chouest faces three counts of murder and prosecutors allege he committed the crimes during the commission of rape and robbery. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and could face three sentences of life without the possibility of parole if convicted.
But the defendant is no stranger to prison and has already spent the past few decades of his life behind bars. He is serving a life sentence for crimes committed in August and September 1980 in Tulare County and served time for 1977 crimes in Los Angeles County.
All three victims who testified Wednesday, and whom The Star has chosen not to identify, faced Chouest during court proceedings and identified him as the same man they said terrorized them.
Although the 1977 victim did not remember this on Wednesday, she told police in the initial report that Chouest shared with her that he raped other girls and he liked it.
Most of Wednesday’s testimony came from the victims, but the mother of Patrick Scott Bell, who took the stand Tuesday, also testified. The son previously said Chouest allegedly confessed to him in July 1980 about killing a woman and said he and his brothers vacuumed up the blood from the defendant’s vehicle.
The mother, Carolyn Bell, testified Wednesday that later when she went to use the vacuum, her sons reacted strongly to it, telling her it was full of blood they cleaned up from when Chouest hit a deer.
During cross-examination from Chouest’s attorney, Chief Deputy Public Defender Andre Nintcheff, the mother said despite hearing Chouest was arrested in 1980, she never told law enforcement about the vacuum incident until authorities questioned her about the homicides in 2013.
Later when Nintcheff cross-examined Chouest’s prior victims, he generally asked each of them about their state of mind while being bound, whether they tried to escape and the circumstances surrounding the robbery.
When Barrick, the prosecutor, asked the victim in the September 1980 crime to explain what happened that night, she told jurors about being kidnapped at knifepoint as she returned to her car from a night class at College of the Sequoias in Visalia. She said Chouest made her give him the $10 she had in her purse then bound her hands behind her back with tape and demanded she perform sex acts on him. They drove around Tulare County, but he eventually parked in a remote area near a cornfield and forced himself on her, she said.
“I remember thinking, ‘They’re going to find my body in this cornfield tomorrow,’” she told jurors.
She testified that the sexual assault in the car was brief and she told Chouest afterward that her husband would worry if she didn’t get home soon. He then drove her back to Visalia, apologized and then let her go, she said.
The victim told jurors she thought the apology was “weird.”
Senior Deputy District Attorney John Barrick has argued that part of what points to Chouest as the killer in the 1980 killings is his criminal history as a “known rapist,” which he contends is further proved by the DNA evidence from semen and other biological material found on the victims’ bodies and clothing.
Meanwhile, Nintcheff argues that the DNA does not put the defendant at the scene where the bodies were found and the prosecution’s evidence surrounding the rape allegations is circumstantial.
The August 1980 victim also said she was approached at knifepoint by Chouest while leaving a night class at the Visalia community college. She testified she refused to get into her car when Chouest told her to do it. Then he demanded her purse but she didn’t give it to him, she said, instead giving him the $30 or so she had in her wallet. A couple was walking nearby, so the defendant fled, the September 1980 victim said.
But in giving him the cash, she unknowingly gave Chouest a layaway slip with her name, phone number and address on it, she testified. She said she remembers getting a phone call at her parents’ home the next day. The voice was familiar, it was male, and from what he said about taking her money, she thought it was Chouest.
In the 1977 Los Angeles County case, the victim told jurors she accepted Chouest’s offer for a ride up to Topanga Canyon on Oct. 12. But when she got into his car, she noticed the handles that open the passenger door and window were missing, she said.
Chouest took a plea agreement with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office in which the rape allegation was dropped, but he pleaded guilty to robbery and kidnapping. Still, on Wednesday, she told jurors that Chouest exposed himself to her in the car and said he wanted her to perform a sex act on him.
“I wanted to get out of the car, and I couldn’t,” the 1977 victim said.
He bound her hands with tape behind her back and with her promise of compliance, she talked him into throwing the knife out of the car window, she said.
The 1977 victim testified she thought she had a better shot of living if he got rid of the weapon.
When they stopped driving, she found herself on a remote hillside and he forced her onto a blanket, she said. She kept trying to talk him out of whatever he planned on doing but found herself face-down in the dirt being kicked in the head then strangled, according to her testimony.
The woman said she passed out and when she awoke, it was dark outside and she was naked from the waist down. Her purse was also gone.
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