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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Trial Starts In Case Of Man Accused Of Kidnap, Rape Spokane Man Accused Of Tying Woman To Tree In Valley

A jury will spend much of the next week listening to a Stevens County woman’s nightmare.

After testimony ends, the jury will decide if Brian R. Anderson, 28, kidnapped, raped and robbed the woman last Aug. 14, then left her tied to a tree in the Spokane Valley.

Anderson, an unemployed Spokane resident with an acknowledged drug problem, will say the woman agreed to have sex with him.

He’ll testify in Spokane County Superior Court that he stole her pickup truck after tying the woman to a tree with duct tape and wire.

“There was sex between the two, but not by force,” defense attorney John Hunt Whaley said in his opening statement Tuesday.

Deputy Prosecutor Ed Hay said the 49-year-old woman was threatened at knifepoint, brutally raped by Anderson, then driven to a remote wooded area. There, he gagged and tied her to a tree, the prosecutor said.

In addition to robbery, rape and kidnapping, Anderson is on trial for firstdegree malicious mischief - for allegedly causing more than $1,500 damage to the victim’s truck - and indecent liberties.

Hay told jurors the exhausted woman finished working two shifts as a North Side sales clerk around midnight.

Instead of driving 50 miles to her home, she parked behind the Albertsons supermarket near Hastings Road and U.S. Highway 395.

She locked both doors and went to sleep. Two or three hours later, she woke and stepped outside “for a stretch,” Hay said.

When she returned to the truck, she apparently failed to lock the doors, Hay said.

About 6 a.m., she told police that she was confronted by Anderson, who told her he worked at a nearby bakery and wanted to see her driver’s license.

When she refused, he pushed his way into the truck. He produced a knife and said he planned to take her money, Hay told the jury.

She told police Anderson took her checkbook and she ran from the truck. She said he caught her and threatened, “I’ll kill you if you call attention to me again.”

He drove the victim to a remote gravel pit in Mead and raped her, according to Hay. Then he drove her, blindfolded, to the wooded area in the Valley.

Hours later, after freeing her hands and legs, she called police from a nearby house, Hay said.

Anderson’s account has the two meeting after midnight, not far from where she works. The two agreed to have sex, but then started to argue, Whaley said.

According to Whaley, Anderson became angry “when she refused to give him her truck.” He tied her to the tree and took it, Whaley said.

Anderson and 17-year-old Stephanie Icard were arrested a day after the attack using the victim’s credit card to check into the Ranch Motel. Icard and another woman, Zoe Montez, face separate charges for using stolen credit cards.

At the time of the alleged rape-kidnapping, Anderson was awaiting trial for car theft. He was arrested last May but released from jail in June after posting $5,000 bond, records show.

, DataTimes