Danville man found guilty of rape

A circuit court judge found a Danville man guilty of raping a teenager after she blacked out from drinking liquor that the defendant bought for her.

John Bennett Matherly, 27, was also found guilty of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He waived his right to a jury, and Judge Joseph Milam Jr. heard the case Tuesday in Danville Circuit Court. Matherly pleaded not guilty to both counts.

The victim testified Tuesday that she went to Matherly’s house with a friend Jan. 16. They hung out in the living room then went to Shoe Carnival. Matherly bought liquor from a nearby ABC store while they were in the shoe store.

The Danville Register & Bee does not identify victims of rape.

The victim and her friend began drinking when they got back to the house. She testified that she had between 10 and 15 shots of liquor in about 20 minutes before she blacked out. 

“I remember waking up, throwing up, not having my pants on, blacking out, then waking up again,” she said.

The next day, using the bathroom hurt, she said.The victim and her family called police, and the victim saw a forensic scientist in Lynchburg.

“They looked me over with a black light,” the victim said. “(They) checked my insides. I was flushed out with vinegar, taken pictures of.”

The nurse also took swabs samples from the victim, which matched a DNA sample taken from Matherly, according to a certificate of analysis from the Virginia Department of Forensic Science.

Denials, despite evidence

Police who testified Tuesday said Matherly denied buying the teenagers alcohol and having any physical contact with the victim Jan. 19, the date investigators first took a statement from Matherly.

Michael Newman, a senior assistant commonwealth’s attorney for Danville, showed an April 24 videotaped interview between Detective W.C. Shively and Matherly. The defendant signed a waiver of his rights that day and had not yet been charged with rape, though Shively would be presenting the case to a grand jury the following Monday.

The detective showed Matherly a folder that had about 79 pages of documents.

“Based on what I got in this folder, I know a lot,” Shively said during the interview.

Shively said that he had a surveillance video, which was also shown during Tuesday’s trial, of Matherly buying liquor on Jan. 16. Matherly resisted at first, but eventually said he bought the alcohol.

Shively asked Matherly who had sex with whom that day in January. The defendant said he didn’t have sex with anyone.

“I’ve got something that tends to say otherwise,” Shively said of the certificate of analysis, which he showed Matherly.

“Something’s gone wrong then,” Matherly responded.

“Why would your DNA come from that girl?” Shively asked.

“My DNA should have been nowhere near that girl,” Matherly said.

The defendant denied having sex with the victim throughout the videotaped interview. A grand jury indicted Matherly the following Monday. Police didn’t find Matherly until authorities arrested him in Michigan. He was extradited back to Virginia for the two charges.

Matherly denied that he had sex with the victim until his trial Tuesday, when he told the court that he had sex with her in the home’s living room before she drank any of the liquor.

He lied to police because he was scared, Matherly said.

Matherly testified that he went to Michigan after his sister asked him to. But his sister testified that she had been asking him since January to make the trip. Matherly left for Michigan in May, he said.

Guilty on both counts

After hearing the evidence and testimony, Judge Milam found Matherly guilty of rape and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Milam said the prosecution had established that Matherly bought the liquor and provided it to the minors.

Speaking about the rape charge, the judge said he found the victim’s testimony credible.

“She is clear,” Milam said. “The only intercourse would have taken place at a time when she could not even remember what happened.”

Milam found the defendant’s testimony the least credible of the witnesses because of his previous denials and actions.

The judge also said the defendant’s nephew, a juvenile, established a timeframe for the rape during his testimony Tuesday. The juvenile, pleaded no contest to rape in the Danville Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court. His charge came from an incident on the same night with the same victim.

The nephew testified Tuesday that he left the victim in his room when she had gotten sick after he had sex with her. He did not know where the victim or Matherly were for a period of time after that.

“He certainly established that timeline as a possibility,” Milam said.

The judge ordered a pre-sentence report and a psychiatric evaluation for Matherly, who will be sentenced Jan. 5.