LONGVIEW — A man convicted last year of attempted rape, kidnapping and assault in a horrific Woodland-area case will seek a new trial at a hearing next month before the state Court of Appeals.
Donald Howard McElfish, who is serving eight years to life in prison, filed for a new trial earlier this year after the victim in the 2012 crime recanted key testimony.
“I am now willing to testify in the courts of law, under oath, that they have convicted an innocent man,” the victim wrote in a statement submitted in McElfish’s motion for a new trial. “Donald was a victim of Brandt Lyle Jensen just as much as I was. Donald saved my life and I hope he can forgive me …and I hope they set him free as quickly as possible.”
According to court documents, Jensen was intoxicated and threatening roommates with a gun at McElfish’s rural Woodland home. He brought the victim into McElfish’s room, where Jensen duct-taped her to a chair and threatened to rape her. When Jensen left the room, McElfish told the victim to run and helped her get away, the victim wrote in her new statement.
As she fled naked into the woods, McElfish had grabbed at her wrist — perhaps trying to help get duct tape off, the victim wrote.
McElfish had been accused of touching the victim sexually during her struggle to get free. A Cowlitz County jury convicted McElfish, then 63, of kidnapping, attempted rape and sexually motivated assault.
The convictions found that McElfish participated in the Oct. 5, 2012, kidnapping and assault of the woman, an Ariel-area resident. The woman, then 43, testified that Jensen told her she had to have sex with McElfish and two others to pay off an alleged debt. She was able to break free when left alone with McElfish, and she ran naked through the woods and a riverbed before breaking into a house and finding a place to hide.
“It was like a horror movie from hell,” she testified during the trial.
Prior to the trial, authorities arrested the victim to ensure her participation in the trial. The woman spent one night in jail before testifying.
Jensen, of Portland, who was convicted of second-degree kidnapping and second-degree assault, was sentenced to five years in prison. He testified at McElfish’s trial.
McElfish’s appeal will be heard in front of the Court of Appeals in Tacoma on Sept. 17.
