A jury found a Crown Point, Indiana, man not guilty of a 2014 Bloomington rape Wednesday after more than three hours of deliberation and two days of trial.
Jordan Kelly, 24, was accused of raping a woman behind a shed at a 2014 Halloween weekend party in Bloomington.
As the verdict was announced, Kelly’s mother quietly exclaimed “Yes!” in the audience and punched her hand in the air.
A total of nine witnesses testified during the trial. The alleged victim testified Tuesday, and was not at Wednesday’s proceedings. Kelly did not testify.
The weekend after Halloween 2014, both Kelly and the alleged victim were visiting friends at IU. At the time, Kelly was a student at IU-Purdue University Indianapolis and the woman attended Bellarmine University.
They met at a costume party at a house near campus. One way the woman identified Kelly was that he wearing a blue police officer costume at the party. She was dressed as a black cat.
The detective testified that the hosts of the party said there were three or four men in police costumes that night, although none of the other witnesses could corroborate that.
Kelly and the woman were both drinking at the party. On the defense attorney’s scale of one to 10, one being sober and 10 being alcohol poisoning, the woman said she thinks she was at about a 7 or 8.
She thought Kelly was cute and they kissed, the woman said. She said in court Kelly led her outside near a shed in the yard later in the night and proceeded to grope and rape her.
She said she kept saying “no” and trying to push him away, but eventually he was on top of her and covered her mouth. He kept telling her “it’s OK,” she said.
When prosecutor Joshua Radicke asked the woman if she saw the man who allegedly raped her in the courtroom, she pointed at Kelly, holding back tears.
Throughout the trial, Kelly appeared calm and composed.
She said Kelly left her outside that night, and she yelled for her friends until they found her and took her back to the dorms. She told them she was raped and they took her to the hospital, she said.
Samples from the woman’s exam and a swab of Kelly’s DNA taken by a detective were sent to the Indiana State Police forensics lab in Indianapolis. Kelly’s DNA was found on swabs from the alleged victim’s upper lip, but a mixture of at least four different men’s DNA was found on a sample from her neck.
There was not enough male DNA found from any other samples, including from her genitalia, to be tested.
Defense attorney Dylan Vigh argued that there was not enough credible evidence to corroborate the alleged victim’s testimony, and that her testimony and others included inconsistencies.
Radicke said some inconsistencies should not necessarily discredit an entire testimony of a night four years ago when people were drinking alcohol.
People misspeak sometimes, but the most important facts of the case have remained the same, he said. He argued that medical records and photos from the exam corroborate the alleged victim’s testimony, even if other witness testimony did not.
Photos from the exam and photos the woman took a few days after showed bruises and scratches on her legs and bite marks on her upper lip. According to medical records, she had a small cut inside her vagina.
The nurse testified that the woman had a tampon in when she came for the exam that was pushed so far up it had to be removed with medical tools. It’s unlikely this happened from normal body movements, the nurse said.
Vigh emphasized to the jury that they must find Kelly guilty of forceful rape beyond a reasonable doubt to convict him.
“If you believe Jordan probably did it, you have to return a verdict of not guilty. If you believe he likely did it, you have to return a verdict of not guilty,” Vigh said.
After Judge Marc Kellams read the not guilty verdict, he turned to Kelly and said, “You, sir, are a very fortunate young man. Take advantage of this.”
Walking out of the courtroom, the woman’s father said he was disappointed but not surprised by the verdict. He said he was going to wait until he got home to Fishers, Indiana, to tell his wife and daughter the verdict.
He didn’t want to tell them over the phone.
