The Indiana Court of Appeals upheld a Gary man’s conviction Tuesday in connection with a 1984 Hobart home invasion and rape.
Joel Williams, 58, signed a plea deal in June 2023 for Class B felony rape.
Judge Natalie Bokota sentenced him in January to six years in prison and four on probation. According to Indiana law in the 1980s, Williams would serve 50% with good behavior.
He was 17 at the time. Sources said he was the only man charged. Williams was linked to the case in 2019 after a DNA hit.
In a 3-0 decision, Judge Nancy H. Vaidik wrote that Williams’ sentence was appropriate.
He faced a 10-year maximum sentence and had spent almost all of his adult life in prison for various crimes. However, she did note his efforts to rehabilitate himself later.
Allegations in the 1980s included murder, rape, and armed robbery, Vaidik wrote.
Williams argued if the case was prosecuted at the time, his sentence would have been folded into a 45-year term in 1985 during that period for a string of robberies.
That was “sheer speculation,” Vaidik wrote in the 8-page opinion.
On March 20, 1984, three men, including Williams, forced their way into a home in the 2000 block of East 39th Avenue at gunpoint and raped and forced the victims inside to perform sexual acts, a probable cause affidavit states. The men “ransacked the house” and stole items, including a white 1975 Plymouth Roadrunner, according to the affidavit.
At sentencing, Deputy Prosecutor Infinity Westberg said the victim was then 17 whose DNA evidence linked to Williams. Decades later, she had paid a huge psychological toll. It was very difficult for her to participate in the court case. She declined to testify or write a statement.
The woman said she hoped Williams “drops dead,” Westberg said.
The other rape victims in 1984 were another girl, 14, and a woman, 36. It was its own “life sentence.” One victim had since died.
Defense lawyer Mike Woods said then that Williams was in a lineup in 1984, but the victim wasn’t sure enough to identify him.
A rape kit was in the lab for three years before Hobart Police picked it up. It sat on a shelf for three decades, until county rape kits were reexamined after a grant. Saying the county prosecutor’s office had no role in the delay was “simply not fair,” Woods said. “They had every opportunity to pursue this investigation.”
Westberg said science had to advance to prove the case.
“How can I (defend) the actions of a 17-year-old in 1984? I can’t,” Williams said in court.
He said he had made strides to turn his life around since 2017, as an ex-convict, including steady employment since then. He was under the impression from lawyers that old cases were settled.
He hoped his plea would be “closure” so he wouldn’t have to “uproot my life again.”
Bokota noted Williams had eight felony convictions. The rape and home invasion was “horrifying” and left the victims living with “trauma,” “dysfunction” and “fear.”
Of the three men in the case, one was dead and another was never identified.
mcolias@post-trib.com