Post case goes to Benton County jury

File Photo/NWA Democrat-Gazette/JASON IVESTER Benton County Sheriff’s Office deputies accompany Brian Post (center), 48, of Springdale, as he is led Friday into the Benton County Courthouse in Bentonville. Post is charged with attempted capital murder, five counts of rape and first-degree battery.
File Photo/NWA Democrat-Gazette/JASON IVESTER Benton County Sheriff’s Office deputies accompany Brian Post (center), 48, of Springdale, as he is led Friday into the Benton County Courthouse in Bentonville. Post is charged with attempted capital murder, five counts of rape and first-degree battery.

BENTONVILLE -- Two people with different stories. A woman claims Brian Post raped and tortured her. He denies ever harming her in any way.

A jury of eight women and four men will decide which one to believe. Jurors deliberated for an hour Tuesday afternoon before Benton County Circuit Judge Robin Green sent them home. The jury will resume deliberations this morning.

About The Case

Brian Post could be sentenced to 10 to 40 years or life if found guilty of attempted capital murder or any of the rape counts. He could be sentenced to five to 20 years in prison if convicted of first-degree battery.

Source: Staff Report

Post, 48, of Springdale is charged with attempted capital murder, five counts of rape and first-degree battery. He pleaded not guilty to the charges. He is being held in the Benton County Jail on a $1 million bond.

The woman was found lying partially clothed in a pool of blood with severe injuries to her leg May 19, 2015, according to the probable cause affidavit. The lower part of her right buttock and the back of her leg appeared to have been cut off almost down to the back of the knee.

The woman said she believes she was drugged and woke up with Post standing over her in her home. She told jurors Post dragged her in the bedroom and repeatedly raped her. She also testified Post cut off a portion of her buttock and leg.

"He took it off in pieces," she said. "I watched him put put the pieces in a cooler."

Post took the stand and denied he raped and mutilated the woman.

Post's attorneys presented evidence his cellphone wasn't using a cellular tower near the woman's home.

Carrie Dobbs, deputy prosecutor, told jurors the woman's story is believable and supported by the evidence.

Kevin Lammers, one of Post's attorneys, told jurors Post is innocent, and what happened to the woman occurred after 10:50 a.m. May 18. The woman said she went home, drank a sports drink and later awakened to find Post standing over her May 15.

The evidence shows there was normal cellphone use the following two days and the woman talked with her mother and landlord on the morning of May 18, Lammers said.

Lammers said Post urged detectives to get the surveillance video from the hotel where he was staying. "He knows it's going to show him going into his room at 9:10 p.m. (May 18) and not coming out 'til the next morning," Lammers said.

Lammers reminded jurors of a neighbor's testimony stating he didn't see Post's vehicle at the woman's home during the early morning hours of May 18.

Lammers told jurors Post has no criminal history and isn't a criminal mastermind.

"This is just a normal plumber from Springdale going on with his daily life," Lammers said.

Stuart Cearley, chief deputy prosecutor, painted a different situation is in his closing remarks.

"This was the sadistic, violent and intentional act of someone," Cearley said.

The only question for jurors to decide is "whether the man sitting over there" committed the sadistic and violent acts against the woman, Cearley said.

Cearley played jurors a short portion of Post's interview with the Benton County Sheriff's Office where he admitted having sex with the woman four or five times when she wasn't capable of giving consent.

"Is Brian Post the man who committed this horrible act?" Cearley said. "We know it's not the dogs. We know it's not suicide."

The woman, while drifting in and out of consciousness during the attack, told authorities she heard Post say he would blame her death on her dogs, according to the probable cause affidavit.

NW News on 03/01/2017

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