A Boone County jury is recommending life in prison for a former Columbia resident convicted of the gruesome 1984 abduction, rape and throat-slashing of a former Hickman student.
A jury convicted 61-year-old James Frederick Wilson in February on both counts: forcible rape and first degree assault: the jury recommends life in prison on each count. Boone County Circuit Judge Brouck Jacobs will sentence Wilson next Friday afternoon.
The female victim was abducted while walking to work near Providence and Wilkes in March 1984. 939 the Eagle News was in court when she testified in February. The victim testified that she was a 17-year-old Hickman student who was walking to her job at Naugles on an early-evening in March 1984. She testifies she was walking near Wilkes and Providence when a heavyset man began walking toward her, grabbed her from behind, put a knife in her side and forced her into his two-door green vehicle.
The victim testifies she was driven to northeast Columbia’s Wellington drive, and that the suspect raped her before slashing her throat in a creek area. The woman, who almost bled to death, survived the incident and spent about ten days at Columbia’s University Hospital.
