Two hours after holding a dying friend outside a Georgetown mansion, a young woman faced his alleged killers again, giving police the identification they needed to make an arrest, D.C. police said.
The woman, who is not identified because she is a victim and witness, and Alan Senitt, a 27-year-old British activist, had returned to her home at about 2 a.m. July 9 when they were confronted by three men in the driveway, Detective Douglas Carlson said at a preliminary hearing Wednesday.
One man pointed a gun to her head and groped her; the other two held Senitt in a headlock, Carlson said.
As she let go of her purse, she heard Senitt yell, “I’ve been cut.”
Senitt slumped to the ground and the men fled. She ran to Senitt and held his head.
That’s when she saw that his throat had been slashed and he was bleeding profusely, Carlson said.
Two hours later, she would see the alleged assailants again. Credit card and phone records obtained from previous robberies led police to the apartments at 2705 Robinson Place SE, where they found the two men who fit the description outside the apartments.
Police stopped the men, and drove Senitt’s female companion there to identify them. From the unmarked squad car, she looked at the suspects in what Carlson called a “show-up.”
One of the suspects, Jeffrey Rice, approached the car yelling, “She can’t identify me!”
At first, she couldn’t identify the man who groped her because he wasn’t wearing a shirt during the show-up. After he put a shirt on, police drove her back, and she identified Kristopher Piper as the man who groped her.
Police said they found the woman’s pink cell phone and Senitt’s business-card holder inside Rice’s pants.
After questioning, each man admitted to the robbery, but each said the other man killed Senitt, detectives said.
The alleged getaway driver, Olivia Miles, and a 15-year-old male turned themselves in later that day.
Piper, Miles and the juvenile told police that before the robbery Rice said he “was going to cut somebody,” Carlson said.
All four suspects are being held in jail until they go to trial.
