04:03 PM PST on Monday, February 16, 2004

By ABE ESTIMADA and TERESA BELL, kgw.com Staff

The murder trial for the rape and killing of a 14-year-old Portland girl commenced Monday morning with the prosecutor detailing genetic evidence he said linked the suspect to the attack, three sexual assaults in 1997 and another rape in April 2002.

Ladon Stephens is charged in the murder of Melissa Bittler on Dec. 13, 2001. He faces 31 counts of aggravated murder, rape, sodomy and kidnapping.

Melissa was found strangled in a neighbor's back yard in northeast Portland. Detectives believe Stephens dragged Melissa there before raping and strangling her.

Melissa Bittler was murdered in a neighbor's yard in December of 2001. (File photo)

Stephens also faces charges in the April 2002 sexual assault of his girlfriend's cousin and three sexual assaults of teenage Portland girls in 1997.

Multnomah County prosecutor Rod Underhill said Monday that investigators were able to match body fluids found inside Melissa to an unsolved 1997 rape case. After interviewing the victim in the 1997 rape, police were able to obtain a description of the suspect. Police used that description on posters and asked the community to help track down Melissa's assailant.

"The investigators had the genetic code of Melissa Bittler's attacker, but they did not know who was her attacker," Underhill said.

Prosecution compares details in past rape cases

In the three attacks in 1997, the victims gave similar descriptions of their assailant. They said he was an African-American man, about 6 feet tall, with a dark complexion. He also had a medium build.

In all three attacks, the assailant surprised his victims, who ranged in age from 13- to 15-years-old, from behind. He locked them in a strangle-hold with the inside of his elbow.

Multnomah County prosecutor Rod Underhill. (KGW Photo)

The three victims also told investigators that their assailant threatened to kill them if they tried to scream or run away. Once he was finished, the man would cover his victims' heads with their coats or clothes and order them to count to 100 while he fled, Underhill said.

Stephens kept a journal

LaDon Stephens at his trial. (KGW Photo)

"The defendant acknowledged these were his entries, his journals," Underhill said.

In the journal, Stephens described himself as an unhappy man who lacked control in his life. It said he chose female children as his victims because he didn't think they would report the attacks.

"I also made the decision that these individuals would be the perfect target," Stephens wrote. "For example, young females, perfect prey."

Perhaps the most chilling entry was one in which Stephens wrote, "At the time, seeing my victims afraid was enough to satisfy me. But what about next time?"

Investigators also found a December newspaper article describing the search for Melissa's killer and his possible links to several 1997 attacks in the trunk. In the article was a sketch of the subject -- an African-American male with a shaved head.

"The defendant's sketch was in his trunk," Underhill said.

More evidence

Underhill said Stephens left even more genetic evidence during an alleged, early morning attack of his girlfriend's cousin on April 28, 2002 in her Parkrose area apartment -- the day before he was arrested.

Investigators found the victim's blood on Stephens' silver shorts, along with body fluids left behind by Stephens. The clothes were stashed away in Stephens' parents' house's crawl space and unused room before detectives found them.

The victim in the April 28, 2002 attack also told police that she bit Stephens on the "webbing" of his hand. Stephens beat the victim so badly after being bit, he thought he had killed her. Physicians examining the victim said it was one of the most severe beatings ever inflicted on a rape victim that they had seen.

The victim told police she pretended to be dead. While she lay there in her apartment, Stephens raped her again, Underhill said.

When police questioned Stephens after his arrest, they found a bite mark on his hand and other scratches on his body.

Stephens accused of trying to cover up evidence

Investigators had said Stephens routinely shaved all body hair, including his underarm and pubic hair, to avoid leaving evidence at crime scenes.

When detectives questioned Stephens, he appeared aggravated. At one point, he was biting his lip so hard, he was drawing blood, Underhill said.

Finally, when a detective challenged Stephens to say he didn't kill Bittler, Stephens began to tremble.

"He stared for a number of seconds, not at the detective, but in space and did not answer that question," Underhill said.

All the alleged crimes occurred while Stephens was on parole for the 1989 attempted kidnappings of young Portland girls.

At the end of his opening statements Monday, Underhill held up a picture of Bittler to the jury.

"The DNA examples of all these cases was without flaw," Underhill said.

"You will hear from the experts. This evidence should lead to your finding, at the conclusion of this evidence, that this defendant killed, murdered and sexually attacked this 14-year-old girl," he said.

Suspect's brother expected to testify

Later in the trial, prosecutors plan to bring in Stephens' brother, who in early March 2002 met with the defendant and his mother at their parents' home.

Back in March, a distraught Stephens, who was asked by a county worker to submit an oral genetic swab, admitted to his brother and mother that he killed "somebody," Underhill said.

"It was a messed up situation," Underhill said, quoting Stephens' statement to his brother and mother.

He also called his child's mother to say he was leaving town for a while because he had "done something terrible," Underhill said. His girlfriend also told police that on the morning of Melissa's death, Stephens left earlier than usual, about 6:45 a.m., to get to work.

Investigators believe Melissa was killed sometime between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. on Dec. 13.

The defense chose to waive opening statements Monday and the trial continues with testimony on the stand.

(AP also contributed to this article.)