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HILLSBORO, Ore. (AP) - When a petite 24-year-old Beaverton woman got out of the shower wrapped in a towel and sat down on her bed putting lotion on her legs she realized a man was staring at her from her closet, wearing a lacy negligee with fishnet stockings, a miniskirt, a sheer white blouse and a long brown wig.
She stared back, screamed twice and ran to another room and called police. The man fled the ground-floor apartment without saying a word.
She saw him again about a year later in a Washington County courtroom. He had an explanation, and the jury bought it.
Prosecutor Gina Williamson Skinner told jurors the woman thought she would be raped.
For nine months she worried that the man might return. Then police told her they had a suspect, and had matched DNA found on a meth pipe the man dropped in her closet to a convicted felon.
In December, Beaverton police arrested Eric Triton Kincaid, 29, of Aloha.
He was charged with burglary, attempted sexual abuse and invasion of personal privacy.
Last week he told the jury his story.
He was high on methamphetamine, he said, and went to the Beaverton apartment complex where he had been invited for an intimate encounter with a woman he barely knew.
But when he saw the woman sitting on the bed he realized he was in the wrong apartment. He was as surprised as she was, he said.
Kincaid told jurors he isn't proud of his drug-induced behavior, but at the time he was having sex with a lot of people he didn't know.
Kincaid said he turned the doorknob of what he thought was the right apartment and it opened.
Kincaid said he heard the shower running and sat down on the bed, then decided to hide in the closet because he felt demons were after him.
Public defender Ethan Levi told jurors, "They looked at each other like a couple of scared rabbits. He was confused; she testified he looked confused."
But investigators couldn't find the friend Kincaid knew only as "Kate," Skinner noted.
"It's an odd case, it's not a case you see every day, it's a weird case," Levi told jurors. "But I don't want you to be scared by the facts. You have to make a decision about the specific intent in his mind."
After nearly six hours of deliberations on Friday, the jury found Kincaid not guilty of all charges.Associated Press
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