Woman, 89, Describes Assault by Intruder

Testifying from her wheelchair, an 89-year-old Ojai woman Thursday described being beaten and sexually assaulted in her home this summer, during a preliminary hearing for an unemployed construction worker suspected of attacking her and two other elderly women.

Peter A. Stocks, the 38-year-old suspect, sat intently listening to the testimony, his long blond hair tied back in a pony tail.

In the hearing before Judge Thomas Hutchins, prosecutors are attempting to link Stocks to the Ojai assault and two other attacks in an east Ventura mobile home park in an effort to hold him over for trial.

In each case, an attacker stalked the victims, waited until the early morning hours to enter their homes through unlocked doors and grabbed the women while they were lying in bed.

Detectives testified that Stocks admitted to the two mobile home attacks in Ventura, at one point telling authorities that he attacked a 76-year-old woman because “he . . . needed some loving.” Detectives have said that Stocks did not admit to the Ojai attack.

Before detectives testified Thursday, public defender Susan Olson told Hutchins that Stocks had not been properly notified of his rights before being questioned and that his statements might be inadmissible in court.

In the attack on the 89-year-old Ojai victim, prosecutors say, Stocks entered the woman’s home before dawn, beat her about the head, tied her up and sexually assaulted her.

“He had to subjugate me with beating,” the woman said under questioning by Deputy Dist. Atty. Patricia Kelliher. “He was pounding my head against the headboard.”

She pleaded with the attacker, “I will give you money. I will write you a check,” she said. But “he didn’t want money,” she added.

The woman could not recall all of the details of the attack because her head was slammed against a bed board until she “saw stars” and then lost consciousness.

She said she only saw her attacker’s hands and could not identify him.

During the attack, the woman’s wrists were bound behind her back with a telephone cord, and she was left tied up for more than 12 hours before a neighbor heard her calls for help. She was hospitalized for 12 days after the attack and one hand is still partially numb.

Three detectives working on the case testified that they used information gleaned from interviews with the women to link the crimes to Stocks.

During the assaults at the east Ventura mobile home park, the attacker told his victims that he grew up in Ojai, that his father had died of cancer, that he had worked on the island of St. Croix for a time, and that he was living in his truck.

In one instance, the attacker identified himself to one of his victims as “Pete,” said Ventura Police Detective Glen Young.

“He talked to her throughout the morning,” Young testified Thursday. “He told her to be calm and that he wouldn’t hurt her.”

The man allegedly crawled into bed with the woman and “cuddled her,” the detective said. Then he forced her to undress and fondled her. When he left he reportedly told her he “had a good time,” Young testified.

In the other Ventura attack, Stocks allegedly used keys left in a side door to enter a 70-year-old woman’s mobile home. Detectives said Stocks ripped the phone out of the wall, yanked the woman out of her bed and dragged her to a bathroom, where he undressed and fondled her.

At least 18 detectives from the Ventura police and Ventura County sheriff’s departments spent weeks gathering information on the suspect before Stocks was taken into custody at an Ojai market Aug. 31.

Police say Stocks said he attacked the women in the mobile home park because he was lonely, said Ventura Detective Greg Irvine.

“We advised him of his rights,” Irvine said. “He was very talkative, he was sobbing, and said he was sorry.”

Stocks has never before been convicted of a sex-related crime, but in 1977 he was arrested on suspicion of burglary, according to police.