Victim Quizzed by Her Accused Rapist in Court : Trial: Billy Ray Waldon, also accused of three murders in a crime rampage, is acting as his own attorney. His questioning of the rape victim did little to help his case.

In unusual and often tearful testimony, a woman who says she was raped at gunpoint in 1985 spent more than an hour Wednesday being questioned in court by the man she says attacked her: accused murderer Billy Ray Waldon.

The woman, an elementary school teacher, testified that a man surprised her one night after she stepped out of the shower in her Pacific Beach apartment. She said the man who raped her wore a ski mask, but that she was still able to identify him.

“The instant he came out, and I looked in his eyes, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind,” she said when asked if her assailant was in court. She then pointed across the courtroom at the defense table where Waldon sat.

Waldon, 39, who is accused of three murders and a string of 21 other crimes in 1985 and 1986, is acting as his own defense attorney in the capital case. Waldon, who calls himself by a Cherokee name, Nvwtohiyada Idehesdi Sequoyah, has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

In four weeks of testimony, Waldon had never been called upon to question the purported victims of his alleged crimes face to face--until Wednesday.

Two women testified, both of whom had been robbed, one who said Waldon raped her.

Particularly when Waldon asked the questions, the standing-room-only courtroom grew silent, as the 30 people in the audience watched the accused directly confronting his accusers.

The first witness was Nancy Ross, a Del Mar woman who said a man in a ski mask stole her purse at gunpoint on Dec. 15, 1985. She described her wordless confrontation with the gunman that night outside her garage, but said she could not identify him because his body was covered by the mask, tight-fitting black gloves and other clothing.

She said the gunman held his small, black gun about a foot from her face so that she was “almost looking down the barrel.” He then yanked her purse from her and fled.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Mike Carpenter has told the jury he will present evidence to show that Ross’ driver’s license was later found in Waldon’s car.

Ross testified from memory that she was “frozen” during the experience and “absolutely shocked.” During cross-examination, however, Ross got a chance to relive the moment when Waldon asked her permission to have the bailiff point a small gun at her for her to describe.

Ross granted Waldon’s request, but outside the courtroom she said the experience was “slightly upsetting. . . . I’m glad it’s over. It’s been a long time.”

The most dramatic--and, said some in the audience, excruciating--testimony came from the rape victim, who was repeatedly asked to describe the sexual assault. She said she arrived home from a second job at a boutique and immediately took a shower. Wrapped in a towel, she reached to open the bathroom door when it flew open.

The masked man at the door, who held a baseball bat, took the woman to her bed, showed her a small gun and told her he wouldn’t hurt her if she did as she was told, the woman testified. He then ransacked her apartment, raped her and forced her to kiss him and touch him, she said.

After the rape was over, the woman testified, the attacker told her that, if she ever told police, “he would hunt me down, put a bullet in my head, and kill me.”

Waldon began his cross-examination by asking whether the woman had been drinking or taking any other substances that might have “impaired” her judgment. Soon after she said no, he began asking her to describe the rape in intricate detail.

During more than an hour of questioning, for example, Waldon asked the woman more than a dozen questions about how the rapist had ordered her to kiss him. Already, the woman had identified Waldon as her attacker, but he referred to the rapist in the third person as “the man” or “the person.”

“Did his tongue at any time touch the back of your throat?” Waldon asked. “Did it feel like he had his whole tongue inside your mouth or just a tiny bit of it?” The woman, crying, said she didn’t know.

“How long was his tongue inside your mouth?” he continued. When she said she couldn’t remember, he continued: “Was the tongue just laying there, or was it moving? . . . Is it reasonable to conclude his tongue penetrated more than an inch?”

A bailiff then handed the woman a box of tissues.

In a telephone interview afterward from his jail cell, Waldon said, “I’m sure that offended the hell out of the jury.” But he said his questions were relevant.

“I was born with a tongue abnormality. As a result, I have never been able to stick my tongue out of my mouth. So it couldn’t have been me who raped her,” he said.

He said that, when combined with earlier testimony from a woman who placed him at the scene of a double murder, Wednesday’s testimony made him look guilty.

“One gets the feeling they’re going to convict me for sure. I assure you I’m definitely innocent, even if it does appear I’m not,” he said, adding that he believes the rape victim’s testimony contradicts other statements she made just months after she was attacked. “It’s looking horrible. It’s obvious that (the rape victim) has committed perjury, and I guess I’ll be the victim of it.”

Outside the hearing of the jury, Carpenter, the prosecutor, stated for the record Wednesday that he believes Waldon has changed his appearance this week, shaving off his mustache and parting his hair differently.

The judge said Waldon’s hair looked the same to him. But the absence of the full mustache was undeniable.

“Here we are with live witnesses who came in contact with him, and this is the time he seeks to change his appearance,” Carpenter said outside the courtroom. “It speaks for itself.”

But Waldon said he is not attempting to confuse the witnesses.

“The police interviews with (the rape victim) make it clear she was raped by a person who did not have a mustache. If I had showed up with a mustache, you would have said I was trying to change my appearance. You get me coming and going,” he said in the interview.

He added: “Everybody and their dog has been telling me that the average juror hates people with mustaches. They like clean-cut people. So I bowed to the pressure.”