July 24, 2002
When a 20-year-old Chantilly woman saw a crowd of baseball-bat-wielding intruders beating a friend of hers, she screamed at them to stop. Instead, they turned their wrath on her, and one of them struck her on the head, causing severe injuries.
"I don't remember being hit — I remember being shoved," said the woman."I didn't know I was hit in the head until I felt the blood."
The incident occurred in Herndon's Franklin Farm community, in the early morning hours of June 29. The Connection is not revealing the woman's name because she's a victim. But following an investigation, on July 9, Fairfax County police arrested and charged the man they believe is responsible.
He is Michael Lynn Ray, 19, of Little River Turnpike in Annandale. Charged with aggravated malicious wounding, if convicted he could receive as much as 20 years to life in prison.
The other victim is a 21-year-old male student at the University of Maryland. He and the woman are friends of Franklin Farm's Rick Loughery — at whose home the incident took place. A 1999 Chantilly High graduate, he's both upset and furious about what happened to his friends at the hands of strangers.
Now a junior at the University of Maryland, on June 28, Loughery had a group of 15-20 friends, ages 20-21, over for a get-together. Then, shortly after midnight, he said, "A younger group of kids showed up, looking to party." There were about five people, ages 17-20, and one girl who knew someone at Loughery's party had invited the others.
"They walked into a bedroom, without making contact with anyone," said Loughery. "We asked them to leave. It turned into a shoving match, and they left, very belligerently." He said one person apologized, and he figured that was that.
BUT SHORTLY before 4 a.m. — when just a handful of people were left at Loughery's home and he and his guests were cleaning up — trouble arrived. "I looked out the front door and saw an entourage of several cars coming down the street with their headlights on," he said. "People piled out of the cars — about 20 guys and some girls — and most of the guys had baseball bats. They started approaching the house, and I called 911."
Loughery said his two friends went outside onto the driveway and told the intruders to leave, but both were overpowered. The girl, he said, is 5 foot 2, and his male friend is about 5 foot 8. "They told [her] they'd leave when they were ready," said Loughery. "Then they attacked [the male victim] and mercilessly beat him to a bloody pulp with a baseball bat."
He said the group started kicking his friend while he was still down. When the girl tried to stop them, said Loughery, "One guy hit her on the side of the head with a crowbar and said, 'That's what you get, you [expletive]!' Then they fled in their cars. We were concerned that [the male victim] was dead, because he was unconscious, and [the female victim's] hair was soaked with blood."
"I didn't see who hit me," she said, adding that she believes friends of the person who struck her later identified him to police. "I was angry because they looked like they were gonna kill [the male victim]. They were surrounding him. I just knew I had to try to stop it. They were hitting him, and I was screaming at them to leave, saying, 'Go away, go away.'"
LOUGHERY SAID 911 was called again and, this time, an ambulance was requested. "It was shocking," he said. "I'd never seen anything like it."
The Chantilly woman estimated that some 20-25 people had arrived in five or six cars. "None of us knew these guys, at all," she said. She was in the hospital until the following Wednesday — four days after the attack, and the male victim was released from the hospital after a day; doctors said he'd suffered a mild concussion.
The woman sustained a bruise on her brain and internal bleeding — and her problems could well be long-term. That's why her alleged assailant was charged with aggravated malicious wounding.
"I'm still on Percoset for the pain, I have headaches all the time and I see sparkles and dots," she said. "I had a CAT scan last Wednesday [July 17], and the doctors said I still had swelling and bleeding. I'm going to be a senior at JMU, and the doctors don't know if I can take classes next semester because I have problems focusing when I read. It really hurts, and I'll have a headache for a long time afterward. They said it could take up to a year to heal."
Although police say the investigation is still open, Loughery is disappointed that no one has been charged with the assault on the other victim and that the others involved are still at large. As for Ray, he's being held without bond in the Adult Detention Center and has a Sept. 3 court date.