Carnival Worker’s Rape Trial Under Way Girl Testifies Attack Began Outside Store; Defendant Claims Sex Was Consensual

Testimony began Tuesday in the trial of a Spokane carnival worker accused of kidnapping and repeatedly raping a 13-year-old girl.

Terry L. Purcell is charged with four counts of first-degree rape.

The girl said Purcell ambushed her outside a convenience store and forced her into various sex acts.

He is also accused of raping her with a baseball bat in his Spokane Interstate Fairgrounds trailer, where she was bound with rope and gagged with a tennis ball in her mouth.

Purcell, 31, admits to having sex with the girl but maintains it was consensual, said public defender Steve Reich.

When Deputy Prosecutor Mary Ann Brady asked the teenage witness to describe what happened, she started crying. She didn’t look at Purcell, except to identify him.

The girl testified that Purcell grabbed her by the hair outside the Qwik Stop at Sprague and Vista the night of March 15. He forced her behind a building, told her to undress and raped her.

Purcell then put a T-shirt over her head, the girl said, and made her walk. Police believe she was taken to Purcell’s trailer.

Fairgrounds security guards spotted the girl walking with Purcell about 12:30 a.m. on March 16.

Suspicious, the guards stopped Purcell and the girl and called authorities.

Security guard Richard Deneke said the girl was “hysterical,” saying, ‘I wanna go home; I want my Dad.”’

After sheriff’s deputies put her in a patrol car, Deneke said she curled into a fetal position. Deneke said he tried to comfort her, and she told him Purcell raped her and threatened to kill her if she talked about it.

Brady asked Deneke how the case affected him.

“I guess I’m displaying it now,” he said, eyes watering and voice wavering. “I have two daughters at home.”

Deputy James Gladden said Purcell denied having sex with the girl - before being asked.

He later changed his story, Gladden said, telling deputies, “I was so drunk, I don’t remember.”

Brady said the girl doesn’t know when the attack happened.

But Pete Marcott, a clerk at the Qwik Stop, testified that he saw them together about 2 a.m. on March 15.

Marcott said Purcell was friendly and ordered a “sandwich.” Then the girl came into the store and said she needed to call her parents, the clerk said.

“This guy, he like totally changed and zeroed in on her,” Marcott said.

Marcott said the girl left the store and Purcell followed, calling, “Hey! Are you all right?”

Purcell said he became concerned and started to call police. “But I got swamped by customers. I think it was my beer rush.”

The girl was staying at a friend’s house that night, Brady said, but she left when the friend’s mother showed up drunk. She was trying to call her parents to come pick her up, but couldn’t get through, the prosecutor said.

Purcell allegedly told Deputy Gladden he was returning from a night out at the Blue Dolphin tavern when he entered the convenience store.

Purcell was one of about 20 Rainier Shows carnival workers who lived at the fairgrounds. They were evicted by county officials after the rape arrest.

, DataTimes