Jury Quickly Finds Montco Man Charged With Raping 6-Year-Old Guilty
HATFIELD, Pa. (CBS) - It took less than an hour for a Montgomery County jury to find a 29-year-old guilty of climbing through a window of a Hatfield apartment in the middle of the night, crawling into bed with a six-year-old girl and raping her.
Oscar Herrera was found guilty of rape of child, burglary, and sexual assault.
"I think the jury dealt with some very difficult subject matter during the entirety of this case," says prosecutor Stew Ryan.
Including testimony from the victim, now seven years old, describing what happened that night:
"All the way through today, she did an excellent job in maintaining her composure and showing a maturity that is well beyond her years" Ryan says.
On November 9th last year, the victim's eleven-year-old brother woke up to the bunk bed he shares with his sister shaking. He heard a male voice coming from her bed and went to get his parents. He called 9-1-1 while his father restrained the man, later identified as Herrera.
A medical exam of the girl showed evidence of rape, and Herrera's DNA was found on her body.
Ryan says the guilty verdict is a step in the healing of this family:
"They have smartly been on the road to helping their daughter recover from this since day one though there is certainly a long road ahead in that regard."
Prosecutors say Herrera is from Mexico and it appears was in the country illegally.
