5 North Carolina Teens Accused of Raping Retarded Woman--on Tape : Crime: Video begins with one youth proclaiming, ‘We’re going to take you through a night of hell!’ Then they identify themselves one by one for the camera.

The lunchtime regulars at the T-Town Barbecue usually talk about what fish are biting at Lake Norman or who’s getting ready to head to the beach, so they’re hesitant to switch to such a disturbing topic.

Some are reluctant to talk to an outsider about the five local youths charged with raping a 19-year-old mentally retarded woman over two nights last winter.

Most find it inconceivable that such a crime could occur in their conservative manufacturing town of 1,500, where doors sometimes are left unlocked and residents enjoy evening strolls downtown.

“This is a very moral community where something like this is totally out of place,” said the Rev. Robert Goode, pastor of Troutman Baptist Church. “That’s why it’s so distressing for the average citizen that any girl could be treated like this, and that the boys would feel like this kind of conduct would be condoned.”

“It kind of shocked me that this would happen so close to home,” Barbara Knox said as she washed clothes at a downtown Laundromat. “It’s always been such a quiet little town.”

Since an Iredell County grand jury indicted the five teen-agers in May, some in Troutman, about 40 miles north of Charlotte, think all the national attention the case has attracted is unwarranted.

“These are children,” said a local shop owner who declined to give his name. “That’s the whole thing. If this involved adults, it would be different.”

Police Chief Wayne Mills usually spends much of his time chasing reports of teen-age mischief and missing dogs. He can’t recall the town’s last murder, and the last rape case he investigated occurred in 1985.

Then, he saw the videotape authorities say was made that second winter night.

It begins, Mills said, with a young man proclaiming: “We’re going to take you through a night of hell!” Next, it focuses on the faces of five teen-agers, who identify themselves by names such as Billy Bob and Big Jon.

As the camera rolls, the teen-agers take turns sexually assaulting the woman, Mills said, with some of the youths raping her and some penetrating her with a candle and a plastic pipe.

As he watched the tape, Mills said he was reminded of the case in Glen Ridge, N.J., in which several teens recently were convicted of raping a 17-year-old retarded woman with a baseball bat and other objects.

The New Jersey incident captured national attention and raised complex issues about the rights of mentally retarded adults. Mills knew the case he was investigating had the potential to do the same.

“If she was able to consent to this and did it of her own free will, then I feel sorry for the boys,” Mills said. “But if she is retarded, they ought to hang them high.”

The five youths were arraigned last Tuesday on charges they raped the woman the nights of Dec. 31, 1992, and Jan. 1, 1993. All pleaded not guilty. If convicted, they each could be sentenced to hundreds of years in prison.

Mills said a friend of the woman’s heard her discussing the incident and notified police. The woman--who a local psychologist says has an IQ of 70 and the social skills of a 5-year-old--told police several teens had invited her to go to the movies on New Year’s Eve. Instead, they took her to an apartment, where she performed oral sex on some of them and had intercourse with others, Mills said.

At a probable cause hearing in early May, she testified that one of the teens inserted a broom handle into her vagina.

“I thought if I did that, I would get to go home and it would be all over,” the woman said.

The next night, she was with the same group at another house, she said. That night, they had a video camera, Mills said.

“They asked her to take her clothes off and she said no,” he said. “Then they convinced her to do it.”

“All these boys are scared,” said attorney Mike Lassiter, who represents Lucas Reid, a 16-year-old South Iredell High student from Statesville who was a candidate for Governor’s School, an elite summer program for gifted students.

“They obviously know what they did was wrong, maybe not criminal, but wrong. It’s not something they are proud of or boastful about,” Lassiter said. “The only way to defend this case is if we can prove . . . it was not readily apparent to my client she was mentally defective, if indeed she was.”

Also charged is Michael Brad Hardy, 18, a South Iredell High student from Statesville who pleaded guilty in March, 1992, in a separate case to aggravated assault on a handicapped person. He was given a five-year sentence, which was suspended, and placed on supervised probation for five years.

The other three defendants are Justin Baggarley, 18, of Troutman; Jonathan Horn, 18, also of Troutman, and Darren Beaver, 18, of Cleveland, whose father is a 17-year veteran of the Iredell County Sheriff’s Department.

Dist. Atty. H. W. Zimmerman Jr. refused to discuss the case, as did school officials and some of the defense attorneys. The victim’s family could not be reached for comment.

But T. C. Homesley, Beaver’s attorney, questioned whether the teen-agers fully understand the charges against them.

“I don’t know if the boys realize the seriousness of these offenses,” Homesley said.

Earlier this year in the New Jersey case, three youths were sentenced to up to 15 years in youth detention for rape, and a fourth received probation and community service. Jurors concluded that the victim was mentally defective and that the young men she considered friends should have known that. They also determined that force or coercion was used during the attack.

An investigator in Troutman who did not want his name used said coercion was obvious in the local case, even though the woman testified she was never threatened.

“Once you see the tape,” he said, “there’s no doubt she was not mentally capable.”

“It looked like they were just having fun,” Chief Mills said. “They were cutting up.”