THE ordeals of four women — including a St Catherine mother whose two daughters were abducted, robbed and raped on the way home from church by convicted serial rapist Everton Bennett while she was held at bay and forced to watch — are cases even a seasoned sexual offence investigator is struggling to overcome.

“I am a trained CISOCA investigator, so we specialise in investigating sexual offences. I can’t tell you that I will ever be able to say it’s the norm treating with these cases, because every case is different in its own way, but just the trauma. This one was particularly troubling for me because I dealt with that one…these are terrible matters, really touching,” the investigator told the Jamaica Observer on Wednesday.

Bennett, who was the main aggressor in the matter, on Tuesday pleaded guilty in the Gun Court to a 17-count indictment charging him with multiple counts of rape, forcible abduction, robbery with aggravation, and illegal possession of firearm in relation to those two young women and another two females. He is to be sentenced on December 15. Prosecutors are hoping that the convict, who pleaded guilty under a plea agreement, will be sentenced to not less than 21 years at hard labour.

In the allegations outlined by the prosecution, which was represented by Hodine Williams, Bennett rented a 2012 grey Toyota Axio motor car on February 3, 2021, initially for three days, and then extended the arrangement on four other occasions up to February 15, 2021. The attacks on the women were carried out over that period.

Although investigations were launched for each incident, during the court process the Crown applied for them to be joined as one case.

In what was the second of three incidents, investigators say the mother and her two daughters were walking home from church sometime after 9:00 pm in February 2021 when they were held up by men travelling in a silver car. The women, who were ordered into the car at gunpoint, were robbed of their cellular phones and cash and then driven into bushes where the criminals took turns at raping the daughters while ensuring that the mother, who they kept imprisoned in the car, watched. She was spared from that assault.

Investigators say the women were eventually released sometime after 11:00 pm close to where they had been initially abducted and assisted to a police station by a motorist.

Bennett, when arrested and cautioned in relation to this matter, reportedly said to the investigating officer, “One more, Miss…after mi nah come out ya now,” supposedly referring to the mounting charges he was facing.

Bennett was also convicted for another incident the day before involving a security guard who had been on her way to work. In that encounter the woman was ordered into the car by two of the three men, one of whom was armed. She was robbed and then raped by Bennett, who enquired if she was a virgin and whether she had heard of recent murders in the area.

In another attack, two days later, a student, who was on her way to school, was kidnapped and robbed of her phone and cash by the men travelling in the same vehicle. After driving to a lonely road, Bennett, despite being told by the other men that the young woman had said her menses were close, raped her.

The police, however, believe that Bennett and the other two men — whom they are yet to collar — had sexually violated more than the four women over the period.

“The reports came in one behind the other; it was so many of them. We would have had other cases, but some complainants withdrew because of fear. It was actually a series of events, same description, same modus, but they came forward, made the report, were medically examined, but to deal with the trauma of the statements being recorded and all that they just did not show up. So, without that, we cannot prosecute [for those victims] because they indicated they didn’t want to follow through because they didn’t want to re-live [the ordeal] and for many other reasons,” the Observer was told.

Forensic evidence, in addition to the testimonies of the women, helped snag Bennett, who in August 2020 had reported his motor vehicle stolen and voluntarily gave a DNA sample to the police. After the forensics lab completed its analyses of samples related to the four women, Bennett was confirmed to be the source of the male DNA found in the semen obtained from the SAFE kit concerning the complainants.

He was subsequently charged. Had the matter gone to trial the Crown had planned on calling 19 witnesses. Bennett was represented by attorney Alexander Shaw.