Victim and friend testify about 2001 rape

"Hurry!" can be heard in the background of a 911 call to New Brighton police at 3:21 a.m. on June 10, 2001.

When officer Burt Emerson, who had been on the force only eight months, arrived about two minutes later he found a woman running up the on-ramp at County Road D West and Interstate 35W. She was naked from the waist down and, despite the heavy rain, was covered in blood from head wounds.

Emerson testified Thursday in Ramsey County District Court on the opening day of the rape and kidnapping trial of Trinidad Perez-Carrino, 32, of Minneapolis.

It wasn't until after an incident in 2008, when authorities took a DNA sample from Perez-Carrino, that a match was found to semen samples taken from the victim of the 2001 rape.

The victim, now 31, testified that she and a friend headed to Minneapolis' Warehouse District that night to have a few drinks and go dancing.

They spent several hours at the Lone Tree Bar & Grill, then walked about a half block to Brothers Bar. The woman's friend met a man on the dance floor and, at closing time, he offered them a ride home, the woman testified.

They accepted. The friend lay down in the back seat of his car, the woman sat in the front seat. But instead of taking them home, the man kept driving, the victim said.

The friend testified that she got away and ran onto the overpass to flag down a passing motorist. The woman testified that she was thrown facedown into the mud. The man tore off her skirt and underwear and raped her.

How did she feel at that point? prosecutor Juan Hoyos asked.

"Scared, terrified, afraid I was going to die," the woman replied.

The woman said she saw flashing white lights in the distance and the man fled.

"I remember crawling up a hill," she said. "I don't recall much after that."

Dr. Marny Benjamin, an emergency medicine physician, testified that the woman had several severe head lacerations and bruising on her inner thighs and private parts.

Defense attorney Patricia Hughes told a different story in her opening statement: She said her client was trying to be a good Samaritan when he offered the women a ride home; the three sat in his car drinking shots of tequila.

After the woman's friend passed out in the back seat, Perez-Carrino and the woman in the front seat became affectionate and had consensual sex, Hughes said.

Perez-Carrino pulled off the road and fell asleep. When he awoke, the women were gone, she said.

"What happened to them after they left the car, Mr. Perez-Carrino does not know," Hughes said. "What he does know is that he did not rape or kidnap these women.

Testimony in the case could conclude today.