In a shock revelation, Capital Eye has discovered that Karl Lawson, 35, ex-editor of the controversial magazine Hitz, and uncle to the missing schoolgirl Constance Lawson, 13, was a prime suspect in a case of sexual assault seven years ago in Arizona. The victim, Selina Lee, 33, best known for her role as bad girl Cheryl Storm in the soap Finchley Creek, spoke openly to Capital Eye about her horrendous ordeal.
Ms Lee had been in a relationship with the suspect for eight months when the ferocious attack occurred. On the night in question, she had asked Lawson to move out of her home. He left in a violent rage and, sometime later, an unnamed assailant entered the cabin they had been sharing and struck Ms Lee across her head with a baseball bat. She is a trained martial arts expert but the attack was so unexpected that she was unable to defend herself. She was dragged to the floor and savagely raped before being stabbed. She was unconscious and critical when Karl Lawson notified the emergency services. He claimed that her assailant was disturbed by his return and fled the scene of the crime.
Karl Lawson was questioned by the police and charged with rape and assault. Despite the fact that his semen was found inside the victim, and his skin under her nails, he was released from custody after three days due to lack of evidence. The file on the case is still open, according to a source in the Winding Falls Police Department.
Selina Lee suffered a nervous breakdown in the aftermath of the attack and spent a year in therapy. She is the wife of Jago Wells, scriptwriter of the soap, Finchley Creek, and lives with him in a gated community in Phoenix. She admits that her lifestyle in the suburbs differs widely from her bad-girl screen alter ego, Cheryl Storm, who is fearless in her pursuit of pleasure and revenge. Selina Lee locks doors and won’t go upstairs without switching on the burglar alarm. She jumps at sudden sounds and sleeps with the lights on.
No one else has ever been charged with her rape. Due to attacks of post-traumatic stress each time she relives her vicious assault, she was reluctant to comment on the reasons why her case remains unsolved.
A spokesperson at the Winding Falls police station also refused to comment but admitted that the case remains open.
A police photograph of an unconscious Selina, her face swollen and bruised, was positioned beside Karl’s mugshot, which had been taken at the police station in Winding Falls. Man Charged with Violent Sex Assault was the reproduced headline from the Winding Falls Echo. A grainy shot of the police station where he had been confined was also shown. Shivers ran under his skin when he looked at its grey bleakness. The headline used three days later announcing his release had not been included in Amanda Bowe’s latest scoop.
Justin had aged in six days. His eyes were sunken, bloodshot, red-rimmed. A shambles of a man who had argued with his daughter and slept that night on his anger. No sleep for him now. He hadn’t shaved since Monday. He liked a clean, close shave. Impossible these days with the tremble in his hand. Jenna came with him to Karl’s door. They stormed past the journalists, oblivious to cameras and shouted questions, and laid the print edition of Capital Eye on the kitchen table.
‘It’s a total distortion of the truth.’ Karl tried to fend off their fury. Excusing is losing… excusing is losing… even to his own ears, he sounded as guilty as hell.
‘Tell us about this distortion?’ Justin looked as if he was about to hurl himself at his brother. To take a razor and cut him open if it helped him to find his daughter. ‘How come you never told us you’d been arrested?’
‘It happened shortly before Mum died. I couldn’t talk about it when I came home for her funeral. And, then, Dad’s death so soon afterwards… I wanted to forget it ever happened. I’d been exonerated—’
‘Why were you exonerated?’
‘Because I was innocent. Do you understand? Innocent. Read between the lines. This is nothing but innuendo.’
‘Then let’s do away with innuendo,’ Jenna cried. ‘Did you assault that woman?’
Karl hardly recognised her. The fury of her gaze. A Valkyrie, storming into battle with retribution in her blood.
‘No. I did not.’
‘Why should we believe you?’
‘It wasn’t the police who exonerated me. It was Selina. Why don’t you ring her. She’ll tell you exactly what happened.’
‘But it did happen!’ Justin yelled. ‘And now our child is missing. Where is she? What have you done to her?’
Jenna tried to hold him back but he pulled free and lunged forward, slamming his fist into Karl’s chin. Karl didn’t try to defend himself. He was on his knees, shielding his head, when Jenna pushed between them.
‘Do you want the media to break down the door?’ she cried. ‘This isn’t going to bring us any closer to finding Constance.’ She sank to her knees beside Karl. ‘For Christ’s sake, help us… please help us. Just tell us where she is? Why are the police searching Cronin’s orchard?’
He stood and pressed his hands against the table. He tried to explain about the graffiti. It didn’t matter what he said, how he said it. They had made up their minds. No room for explanations. Suspicion had corroded the truth and made it shapeless. They left as abruptly as they came, their faces blank with hatred. They had crossed a bridge of lies and left him behind on the other side.
Nicole rang. No tears this time. ‘We’re not supposed to have secrets. Wasn’t that what we told each other when we first met? No secrets. And now I have to read a newspaper to find out about your past. How could you keep something so important from me?’
He wanted her in his arms. Then he could explain how the need to forget had been stronger than the need to share. Revealing secrets gave them life. They mutated and were transformed once they belonged to someone else and, so, he had stayed silent during those early months when they were together and he still carried the stench of the cell on him. He’d needed to eradicate it. A clean slate and a new beginning. But the longer the delay, the harder it became to confide in her, in anyone. Arizona was so far away. A scorched, red landscape, quivering in a heat haze of horror.