Oct. 30 – A jury of four men and eight women found a St. Thomas man guilty of kidnapping and raping a woman, then cutting her throat at her home on St. Thomas.
Found guilty on all 12 counts Friday evening, including attempted murder, rape and kidnapping, Michael Turbe, 20, could receive three life sentences in prison when Territorial Judge Ive Swan sentences him Dec. 15, Assistant Attorney General Ernest Basson said .
Turbe broke into his victim's home on Feb. 27, 2003, and hid in her bathroom until she came home for lunch. He then repeatedly raped her at knifepoint and demanded she call a colleague to bring cash to the house, prosecutors said.
When the friend dropped off $1,000 and left, Turbe twice cut his victim's throat, stabbed her at least 18 times and fled in her car with the money. The woman survived the incident and identified Turbe as her assailant. Police arrested him later that day.
Basson described Turbe's attack as one of the most brutal in the territory's history, second only to those of Jeffery Warner, who was sentenced to four life terms in 2002 for nine rapes and a murder. Warner preyed on children as they walked home from school, Basson said.
Charges of assaulting an 11-year-old had recently been dropped against Turbe, who then-Attorney General Iver Stridiron called "a sexual pervert that should have been put behind bars."
The incident sparked a massive outpouring of outrage on St. Thomas, where community leaders called for an end to an epidemic of rapes and assaults, especially by repeat offenders, of the women of the Virgin Islands.

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