A mother and daughter recounted their ordeal Tuesday during a Nov. 13, 2021, Hammond home invasion.
Valentine Torrez, 49, of Hammond is on trial this week. He is charged with two counts of rape, one count of child molesting, armed robbery, two counts of criminal confinement and one count of unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon, court records show.
Prosecutors later alleged that story was a ruse. When DNA results from both victims’ sexual assault kits came back linked to Torrez, he was charged in April 2022. Prosecutors allege he sexually assaulted the woman and fondled the daughter. The mother told defense lawyer Kerry Connor on the stand Tuesday that she said earlier in the case that there might have been a third man in the home, because she thought she heard Torrez struggling with someone in the kitchen. When Deputy Prosecutor Arturo Balcazar later asked if she heard any other voices beside Torrez, initially, and one other man, she said no.
As part of his plea deal, Whittenburg originally told prosecutors he assaulted the woman, then watched Torrez rape her. However, according to a recent court filing, Whittenburg stopped cooperating when he refused to give a deposition on March 22. He is not testifying at trial.Clad in French braids, the girl, now 14, said in a soft-spoken voice that she was sleeping on the living room sofa and woke up as the second man went inside the home.
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