Suspect pleads guilty to rape; DNA use assists '02 case

A Greenville man faces at least 14 years in prison after pleading guilty in Pitt County Superior Court Thursday to a 2002 rape.

A DNA sample collected from a rape kit and matched to a sample in a national database of convicted criminals connected Charles Eugene Gardner, 46, 422 Pittman St., to the rape of a woman at knifepoint near J.H. Rose High School.

As part of a plea agreement with the Pitt County District Attorney's Office, Gardner pleaded to second-degree rape shortly before noon. He had faced first-degree rape and attempted common law robbery charges before the plea.

"I'm just sorry for what happened," Gardner said to Superior Court Judge Donald Jacobs.

His accuser, now in her mid-30s, did not look up from her spot across the courtroom. She hung her head, eyes closed with hands clutching a tissue over her face.

When addressed by Jacobs, the woman refused comment about the May 13 events four years earlier — notably shaken by her second sight of Gardner since his May 2006 arrest.

Prosecutor Kimberly Robb stated for the court the facts of the case.

The accuser told authorities she noticed a car following her on South Pitt Street as she walked to meet a friend in Hopkins Park about midnight that day in 2002. Gardner appeared from behind, putting his arm around her throat and a hand over her mouth, Robb said.

Gardner demanded money, but the woman told him she had none, she said.

"She offered a cigarette in hopes to pacify him," Robb said.

She told police the man pulled a knife on her and forced her to the side of a train car parked on the railroad tracks near Arlington Boulevard where he raped her.

"He kept telling her not to look at his face," Robb said.

The woman told police Gardner warned her not to tell anyone before departing from the area, Robb said.

The woman called 911 from a pay phone near Hopkins Park and a patrol officer with the Greenville Police Department met her and transported her to the hospital. The officer, now a detective, sat beside the woman — her arm around the accuser — as the victim wept and shook her head. The woman lifted her head only a few times during proceedings. However, her eyes remained fixed on Gardner as Jacobs sentenced him to a minimum of 14 years and a maximum of 17 years, seven months in the North Carolina Department of Correction.

Jacobs recommended Gardner, who has a prior conviction for rape, get psychological counseling.

The State Bureau of Investigation periodically checks DNA from unsolved criminal cases against a national database of convicted criminals to see if any matches turn up. Greenville police submitted the sample from the 2002 rape kit this year, arresting Gardner less than a year after his release from jail on a common law robbery conviction.