The petite 15-year-old girl walked up and quietly sat at the witness stand in a Baltimore City Circuit courtroom.
Only a few feet away sat Charles Carroll ? the teacher accused of raping her on the floor of an East Baltimore private school.
Her head down, her voice almost inaudible, the girl told a jury Wednesday of how Carroll abused her.
“He picked me up,” said the girl, who was 13 at the time of alleged incident. “He placed the jacket on the floor and he put me on top of the jacket.”
Carroll then raped her, the girl testified.
“I was very sad, depressed,” the girl said. “I was ashamed … and I didn?t want to live anymore.”
According to police charging documents, Carroll also abused two other girls between December 2004 and April 2005.
The girl previously testified that Carroll fondled and groped her on numerous occasions, sometimes consensually, before eventually raping her on the classroom floor.
Christina Phillips Holtsclaw, principal of Community Initiatives Academy, publicly defended Carroll after his 2005 rape indictment, saying he deserved a “second chance,” and never told parents about Carroll?s 1995 second-degree murder conviction.
Carroll?s attorney, Edward Smith, said he was an excellent teacher.
“They interviewed him,” Smith said. “They listened to him. They decided he would make a fine teacher. They thought the world of Charles Carroll.”
He also argued that the girl?s testimony was not to be believed and pointed out several inconsistencies in her statements.
“You were supposed to tell the truth then, weren?t you?” Smith asked her at one point, drawing an angry reaction from one of the girl?s supporters in the audience.
“She?s telling the truth now, man!” shouted a man who was then escorted from the courtroom by a sheriff?s deputy.
