Alleged Teen Rapist: 'Divine Inspiration' Stopped Me

NH detective says Owen Labrie told her 'he had a moment of self-restraint'
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 26, 2015 7:46 AM CDT
Alleged Teen Rapist: 'Divine Inspiration' Stopped Me
Owen Labrie leaves a Merrimack County Superior Court room for a lunch break after his classmates testified Monday in Concord, NH.   (AP Photo/Jim Cole, Pool)

The rape trial of former prep-school student Owen Labrie continued in New Hampshire yesterday, and a Concord police detective took the stand to testify about her interactions with the 19-year-old when she questioned him about the alleged May 2014 assault on a 15-year-old freshman, the AP reports. "He was arrogant," Det. Julie Curtin said, and he insisted that "after he put the condom on [during the alleged incident] it was a sobering moment and that he had a moment of self-restraint and [stopped] … he called it a moment of divine inspiration," WMUR reports. Labrie's defense, meanwhile, maintains that detectives tried to separate Labrie from his parents during questioning—an assertion Curtin admits to doing "to get his side of the story," as the AP puts it.

In other news from the trial, a state forensic expert testified yesterday that sperm was found on the alleged victim's underwear, but she couldn't determine conclusively that it was Labrie's, the Concord Monitor reports. She could determine Labrie's DNA was found in other places, but she says that was from skin cells and could have ended up there from sweat, saliva, or even just touching. On Monday, two of Labrie's friends testified that he had told them he had sex with the alleged victim, with one of them noting Labrie had confessed to harboring a "crush" on the girl and thought she was a virgin, NBC News reports. Labrie, who NBC says planned to become a minister, is expected to testify on his own behalf today, per the Guardian. (Labrie detailed St. Paul's sexual-conquest culture.)

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