RALEIGH -- Steven Randolph, a former N.C. Central University basketball player, started getting a weird feeling about Robert Lee Adams Reaves several months before the former pastor was accused of murder -- and the athlete got a gun from his cousin to protect himself.
Randolph took the stand Thursday in the first-degree murder trial of Reaves, the man accused of killing Latrese Curtis, an N.C. Central University student found fatally stabbed 19 months ago on the edge of Interstate 540.
Testifying in Wake County Superior Court, Randolph described his two sexual encounters with Curtis -- once in the fall of 2007, weeks after the two met at NCCU, and a second time on Jan. 29, 2008, the night before the victim's bloodied and lifeless body was discovered under the I-540 Rolesville exit sign in northern Wake County.
Randolph told jurors that Curtis, a married woman, told him she was separated from her husband when they met. The two talked about her marriage and his relationship with another woman he described as his girlfriend.
Prosecutors say Randolph's relationship with Curtis sparked a jealous rage in Reaves.
Reaves, the former pastor at Cedar International Fellowship in Durham, a congregation of half a dozen people, made sexual advances toward Randolph shortly after the two started sharing a house together, according to testimony on Thursday.
Hours after Randolph had his first sexual encounter with Curtis, Reaves asked him about his sexual habits and preferences and raised the possibility of his working for an escort service, according to testimony.
Reaves knew Randolph needed work. The two had discussed a possibility of Randolph doing an internship with a research company, although that never occurred.
"He asked me if I was a freak, as far as sexually," Randolph testified Thursday.
Randolph testified that in the fall of 2007 he did not immediately recognize the pastor's proposals as sexual advances toward him. But Randolph said once he realized Reaves' intentions, he told the pastor he was not homosexual or bisexual.
That encounter made Randolph so uneasy, he testified, that he not only left the house immediately to seek refuge with friends, he also got a gun from his cousin to keep in his bedroom.
Randolph told of an unusual string of events in the ensuing months: His girlfriend received phone calls from unidentified young men, threatening to end Randolph's aspirations of becoming a professional basketball player; his tires were slashed; and weeks later his girlfriend's tires were slashed outside her home.
Prosecutors contend that Reaves slashed the tires, again in a jealous rage.
As all this went on, according to testimony Thursday, Randolph and Curtis spent a lot of time together at NCCU and at Durham restaurants between classes.
On Jan. 29, Randolph said, Curtis came to the home he shared with Reaves in the early evening. After a sexual liaison, Randolph said, he and Curtis parted ways about 10 p.m. It was after that, prosecutors contend, that Reaves followed Curtis, forced her to the side of the road, stabbed her to death and left her body along the edge of I-540.
After his liaison with Curtis on Jan. 29, Randolph said, he went to his girlfriend's home in Durham to hang out with her and four or five other friends.
At 1:30 a.m., Randolph said, he went home.
Although defense lawyers did not lay out their case in opening statements, in their questioning they seem to be trying to piece together an argument that law officers got the wrong suspect.
