SPOKANE, Wash. – Three men are facing several charges after allegedly picking up a 14-year-old runaway in the atrium of River Park Square and sexually assaulting her at their downtown Spokane apartment complex for days before she could escape.
According to court documents, the teen told investigators she ran away from home and took a bus to downtown Spokane. She said she was sitting on a bench inside the mall when she was approached by a man who introduced himself as Will.
She said he seemed high, and asked her how old she was. She told him she was 14, then he gave her “two ‘light beers’ and some tobacco” according to court documents, and she asked him if he had a place to stay.
The teen went with the “Will,” later identified as William Jackson, 42, back to his apartment at 240 W. Sprague Ave. She said two of his friends came over, identified later as Curtis Burgette, 55, and Harold Sherman, 59, with a pipe. The victim said the men called the substance in the pipe “shatter” which she recognized as meth.
She said, per court documents, they pressured her to smoke it, saying ‘take a hit, take a hit” and “shoving it in my face.”
She said after smoking the meth, she was “scared and frozen” and felt “tired, really weak” and “just couldn’t move” due to the drug use, according to court documents.
Burgette and Sherman left that first night, and the victim said Jackson raped her, according to court documents.
She said over the next few days, the three men “passed me around” between them, forcing her to “clean, cook and have sex with them,” according to court documents, while they continued to get her high.
She said she noticed bruises that looked like someone had injected her with drugs without her knowledge.
She said she was not allowed to leave or return to her family. Eventually, she was able to escape when all three men left to go to the food bank at the same time. She said she made it back to the mall and her parents picked her up and took her to the hospital for an assault kit.
All three men appeared in court on Thursday afternoon, charged with third degree rape of a child, first degree kidnapping and distribution of a controlled substance to a minor. Jackson initially refused to sit at the table in his first appearance in contempt of court.
All three men are being held on $250,000 bail each, according to the Spokane County Jail Inmate Roster.