Jurors found a Gary man guilty Thursday in a tourist kidnapping from the Michael Jackson Childhood Home last summer.
Oasia Barnes, 69, of Gary, was accused of forcing a New York father and his daughter, 16, on Aug. 9 by gunpoint from the popular tourist attraction, taking them near an abandoned home, separating the girl and forcing her to perform a sex act in an overgrown field.
He later fondled her behind a home on the 2200 block of Washington Street, records allege, before a police officer later found them there with a third man.
Barnes was charged with 17 felonies, ranging from Level 1 felony rape to sexual battery. The jury, after brief deliberations, found him guilty on all counts.
Prosecutors added gun, habitual offender and repeat sexual offender enhancements last month, which add more prison time. The jury found him guilty on the gun and repeat sexual offender enhancements.
Barnes faces over 300 years when sentenced in June.
Records show Barnes is a convicted serial rapist, dating back to the 1970s and was released from a 1985 Gary rape sentence in March 2024.
In closing arguments Thursday, Deputy Prosecutor Tara Villarreal said security footage showed Barnes was tailing another woman at the Jackson house that day — looking for a target to possibly take them to an abandoned home.
It’s “the perfect place to go rape somebody,” she later said.
The father and daughter’s testimony was “consistent,” she told jurors.
The father said he gave Barnes about $200; later police found him with $169 after he gave another man money for a food run for him and the girl.
At trial, prosecutors presented various 911 calls, video clips — showing Barnes at the Jackson home — license plate reader pings and bodycam footage. A DNA swab from the teen’s breast was linked to Barnes.
It painted a conclusive picture, she argued.
He knew the area and took her through an abandoned home while trying not to get caught. Barnes had a “head start” over the girl’s father, who had already been separated and ran to a nearby block, knocked on a door and had the woman call 911.
Defense lawyer Robert Varga said there were too many holes for jurors to fill “in the blanks.”
The evidence didn’t all “add up” and jurors were left with “nonsense,” he said.
He argued neither the dad nor the daughter mentioned Barnes’ prominent facial scarring.
However, in testimony Tuesday, the girl did say her attacker had scars.
Varga argued DNA taken elsewhere from the girl was not conclusive and they held hands, explaining the DNA hit on her breast.
“There’s nothing there,” he said.
The money meant nothing, it could have been Barnes’ or the third man’s, Varga said.
The father told police the gun had a silver slide, but the gun recovered from him was all black. Barnes’ DNA was not found in the rental car.
It wasn’t an insignificant detail, he argued.
At the Jackson home, prosecutors only had 13 clips recorded in a five-hour period, Villarreal said, which may explain why the interaction with Barnes wasn’t caught on camera.
Casing the neighborhood, a detective couldn’t pull video from some of those homes.
Some of those home video doorbells were “for show, probably,” she said. “Technology isn’t perfect.”
She also discounted the theory on the DNA, saying it didn’t get in there by secondhand touch; DNA doesn’t go through clothes and proved direct contact with the girl.
mcolias@post-trib.com
