A motion hearing was scheduled for Dec. 6 for a Mississippi man charged with raping and attacking a woman with a hammer while in Elkhorn working for the carnival company at the Walworth County Fair.
Terrence D. Leflore, 24, of Jackson, Miss., pleaded not guilty Sept. 21 in Walworth County Circuit Court to six felony offenses and one misdemeanor offense that carry total maximum penalties of nearly 308 years in prison. The charges are attempted first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree sexual assault, aggravated battery and first-degree reckless injury, all with the use of a dangerous weapon; first-degree sexual assault causing great bodily harm; armed robbery; and obstructing an officer. He is charged with all of the offenses as a repeater, which adds at least two years but no more than 6 years in prison for each conviction.
According to the criminal complaint, the aunt of a 21-year-old woman went to a parking lot on Lincoln Street where the woman parks her car while she works after the niece did not return home from work at the usual time Aug. 28 – the day before the county fair began. When the aunt arrived in the parking lot, she saw a thin black man in his early 20s running away from her niece’s car and found her niece bloodied, partially clothed and unresponsive, according to the complaint.
When police arrived, the woman was sitting in the backseat of her car but was unresponsive, and her face was badly swollen and covered with blood, according to the complaint. She was wearing no pants, socks or shoes and her shirt was covered in blood and vomit, the complaint states. The woman was taken by ambulance to multiple hospitals for emergency medical treatment.
Police found blood spattered on the door and back seat of the car, blood inside the trunk, which was open, and vomit on the back seat, according to the complaint.
The next day, police searched the area in the daylight and found a hammer with hairs stuck to it in some brush and the victim’s cell phone in the parking lot. A manager for the midway carnival rides at the fair said the crew has about 50 hammers similar to the one that was found, according to the complaint.
On Aug. 31, the victim had regained consciousness but was not able to speak. She had a skull fracture and underwent surgery to remove a large portion of her skull to relieve pressure on her brain, according to the complaint. She also had injuries consistent with sexual assault, the complaint states.
On Sept. 3, the woman was able to speak and told police a man said hi to her when she was walking to her car after work at about 9 p.m. Aug. 28. She ignored him, and, when he said hi again, she began running to her car and thought the man was chasing her, according to the complaint. The woman said she got into her car, and the next thing she remembers is waking up in the hospital, according to the complaint.
On Sept. 3, police spoke to Leflore, who initially denied being in the area of the attack but eventually admitted to committing the attack. He said he did not plan to kill the woman but wanted to take money from her and go inside the business where she worked, according to the complaint. He said when the woman came out of the business, he followed her to her car and hit her with the hammer to get her to drop her purse, according to the complaint.
Leflore said he took the woman’s clothes off because he wanted to make it look like a rape. He said he used the handle of the hammer to sexually assault the woman, according to the complaint.
Leflore was convicted of burglary in Mississippi in 2015.
