Woman Held in Shooting of Man She Says Raped Her

A Los Angeles woman, apparently frustrated over prosecutors’ refusal to file charges against a neighbor she accused of raping her, shot him eight times, seriously wounding him, Los Angeles police said Wednesday.

“She shot him once in the chest at point-blank range,” Detective John Bunch said. “As he went to the ground, she stood over him and fired seven more times. . . . Then she picked up a beer bottle and threw it at him.”

Bunch said Elizabeth Gooden, 26, then handed the empty gun to her brother, walked calmly across the street and stood there until police arrived at the Crenshaw District location about 10 minutes later. She was arrested and booked on suspicion of attempted murder.

Wilson Picquet, 38, a school bus driver, was reported in serious condition Wednesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he underwent surgery for multiple gunshot wounds.

Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Lucienne A. Coleman said the reason for not filing rape charges against Picquet was “real simple--we just felt there was insufficient evidence to charge the rape.”

“By and large, there was a lack of corroboration of some of the female’s statements,” said Coleman, an official in the district attorney’s sex crimes unit. “And subsequent investigation has shown that the female was less than truthful in some of the statements she made concerning her relationship with Mr. Picquet.

“There’s just not enough evidence to be able to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Detective John Campbell, who investigated the original rape complaint, said Gooden told investigators that she had accepted an invitation from Picquet--whom she had known for several months, but had never dated or been intimate with--to join him about 10 p.m. last Friday at his apartment in the building in the 3800 block of Coco Avenue, where they both live.

“She said they were drinking and socializing when he pulled her into the bedroom and raped her,” Campbell said.

Lt. Alan Kerstein, commander of the detective bureau of the Police Department’s Southwest Division, said Gooden told investigators that she continued to resist Picquet while he overpowered her and raped her. She reportedly told the district attorney’s office that Picquet did not threaten her with a weapon.

Kerstein and Campbell said Picquet told a conflicting story, saying that Gooden had dated him previously, had engaged in sex with him on previous occasions and had sex with him willingly on Friday night.

Coleman noted that while Gooden claimed that Picquet overpowered her, Gooden is the larger of the two, weighing about 200 pounds to Picquet’s 150. Moreover, the prosecutor said, Gooden claimed that before the rape, she had thrown him across the room.

Argued About Money

Police say that while both Picquet and Gooden agree that they argued during the Friday night visit about an outstanding $100 debt she owed him, Picquet contends that the woman filed the rape complaint because she was angry about the money, a contention that Gooden denies.

After the alleged rape, Gooden headed for the apartment of a friend, Monique Taylor, who said she had been with Gooden and Taylor early Friday night.

“She begged me not to leave her alone with him, but I told her I had to go to work the next morning,” Taylor said, explaining why she had left the pair about midnight.

Taylor said it was about 2 a.m. Saturday when she heard Gooden knock on her door.

“She said, ‘He raped me,’ ” Taylor recalled on Wednesday. “Her hair was a mess and her eyes were red and puffy.”

Taylor said she asked Gooden if she planned to file charges, and Gooden replied, “ ‘Most definitely. Nobody does this to me and gets away with it.’ ”

Taylor said Picquet and Gooden had never dated before, but other neighbors, including Andre Wells, described them as “boyfriend and girlfriend.”

Coleman said a number of mutual acquaintances “corroborated Mr. Picquet’s version that they were lovers, or had been intimate in the past.”

After leaving Taylor’s apartment, Gooden was examined at Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital in Inglewood, where doctors determined she had suffered minor bruises, but no vaginal trauma or other significant wounds, according to Coleman.

As a result of Gooden’s complaint, Picquet was arrested about 3 a.m. Saturday and booked on suspicion of rape. But in the days that followed, prosecutors rejected the Police Department’s request for formal charges, pointing out that rape, as defined legally, must involve force or fear.

Coleman said the decision not to prosecute was based on several factors, including Gooden’s lack of significant injuries, the fact that she outweighed Picquet by 50 pounds and her actions after the alleged rape. Rather than fleeing, Coleman said, Gooden remained in Picquet’s apartment to argue over money and whether she could smoke one of his cigarettes.

Two Viewpoints

Asked if the shooting might imply that the alleged rape did take place, Coleman replied:

“Obviously, that’s one way to look at it. The other way to look at it is (that) there’s something that goes deeper between this couple. . . . There just was something about this case that didn’t feel right.”

When Gooden was informed Tuesday by Deputy Dist. Atty. Eric Lavine that no charges would be filed and that Picquet was being released from County Jail, “she was very frustrated and unhappy over the case being rejected,” according to Kerstein.

Coleman said Gooden then asked Lavine what Picquet “would have to do to her for her to either shoot him or kill him.”

Officers say Gooden armed herself with a .38-caliber handgun and waited for Picquet at the gate to the building where they both lived.

‘You Raped Me’

Sheryl Simon, 32, who lives across the street, said she saw Picquet approach the building on foot about 10 p.m.

“I heard her holler, ‘You raped me!’ ” Simon said. “Then, as he walked toward her, she pulled a gun and shot him. He dropped a beer bottle and fell on the ground. Then she finished him off.”

Police said Gooden handed the empty handgun to her 31-year-old brother, LeRoy, and walked across the street to await the arrival of police.

LeRoy Gooden was arrested a short time later and he, too, was booked on suspicion of attempted murder. Detectives said the gun was not recovered.

According to statistics provided by the FBI last year, more than half of the 75,000 rapes reported in this country each year are so-called “acquaintance rapes,” meaning that the victim knew her assailant, often romantically.

‘Date Rapes’

Such rapes, often called “date rapes,” have become a familiar problem in recent years on college campuses across the nation. Officials at the Santa Monica Rape Treatment Center have said that reports of such rapes have increased significantly in recent years.

Mary Beth Roden, assistant director of the center, said Wednesday that it is hard to tell whether the increase is the result of better reportage, an increase in the number of crimes, or a combination of both.

On one hand, Roden said, is the widely held perception that society is increasingly violent. On the other, she said, “there is more awareness that date rape is a crime, even though it doesn’t fit the stereotype, where (the assailant) is a stranger.”

Times staff writer Eric Malnic contributed to this story.