Woman recounts night of horror in Kildeer house

A woman who says she was raped in a Kildeer house in 2006 fought to maintain her composure Tuesday as she described the events in Lake County circuit court.

She cried frequently during her nearly daylong testimony, left the witness stand twice because she was upset and came close to shouting at a defense attorney during cross-examination.

Ryan Burke, 30, is charged with aggravated criminal sexual assault, criminal sexual assault and possession of the date rape drug GHB in the May 30, 2006 attack.

The woman, who was 19 at the time, testified before Associate Judge George Bridges that she and her then-boyfriend went to Burke's house in the 2100 block of Valley Drive after visiting a bar and a strip club.

She said several people were there when they arrived, and she had previously consumed two "strong" alcohol drinks but did not feel intoxicated.

Once there, she had a beer and two or three shots of an alcohol she could not identify, the last one or two shots served to her by Burke.

She said she smoked some marijuana outside the house, went back inside and has sketchy recollection of events thereafter because she periodically "blacked out" and cannot remember many details.

She does recall Burke waking her up in a closet in his house and him leading her to a bathroom next to his bedroom and placing her in his bed.

Some time later, the woman said, she awoke to find someone she believed was her boyfriend kissing the back of her neck and shoulder and attempting to have sex with her.

"But I rolled over and it was Ryan," she said before being excused from the stand to calm down.

When testimony resumed, the victim described Burke raping her and said she woke up sometime later to find him laying in the bed next to her.

She said she then left the house and went to a hospital where a rape examination confirmed she had sex, but no chemical analysis of her blood was performed.

Defense attorney Sam Amirante of Palatine essentially laid out Burke's defense in his cross-examination of the woman.

He accused the former dancer at a gentlemen's club of being highly intoxicated when she arrived at Burke's house and of dancing provocatively in the bar area of the house. He said she had sex with her boyfriend in one of the bathrooms of the house.

The woman admitted she had danced near the bar but insisted she was not drunk and did not have sex with her boyfriend at Burke's.

At one point, when she replied she had made the first reference to a specific sex act during her "recovery," Amirante asked her if she had been in rehabilitation for substance abuse.

"I am talking about the recovery of my soul, my recovery from what I have been through," she said, raising her voice. "I did not want to talk about what happened at first; I initially did not even want to press charges."

She testified she had consumed alcohol and marijuana before and since the attack, but has never had a reaction to the substances like she had that night.

Even without a chemical analysis, Lake County Assistant State's Attorney Bolling Haxall said he will present testimony in the trial showing the woman's reactions are consistent with those of someone who has been given GHB.

If convicted, Burke faces up to 30 years in prison.

Testimony is expected to continue today.