As victim tells him what he took from her, West 7th stranger rapist sentenced to 55 years
As he watched pornography at his grandmother’s house, Caylon Washington masturbated, as he often did to soothe disappointments, failures or other stress. On this night, it was insufficient.
He got up and began to hunt.
The 24-year-old was in search of women who were pretty. He headed to West 7th, a Fort Worth district of bars that teems with college students.
After driving around the district for a few hours looking for someone to rape, Washington found an 18-year-old woman walking to her car in an alley-like area of parking stalls near a Foch Street bar, Texas Republic, that had been her last stop.
She had been with a friend and an acquaintance for a night of bar hopping late on a Sunday and an early Monday in June 2022.
Once the woman was inside the car, Washington approached and knocked on the window. The woman thought she had dropped something.
She rolled down the window about half way.
“It was a man,” she testified this week at Washington’s trial to determine his punishment on six counts of aggravated sexual assault. Washington last week pleaded guilty to the counts, and a jury in the 371st District Court in Tarrant County began on Tuesday to hear evidence and argument to assess punishment.
After about an hour of deliberation, the jury on Wednesday unanimously decided on a prison term of 55 years. Washington will become eligible for parole when he has served 27 1/2 years.
The jury was asked to select a number of years between five to 99, or life.
The state had sought life. Defense attorneys John Brender and Lindsay Truly requested a term of between five and 10 years to be served on probation, a sentence for which the defendant was eligible because he has no prior felony convictions.
Judge Ryan Hill presided at the trial.
As Washington began to talk with the victim, he told her he thought she was pretty and that perhaps they could be friends.
She explained to Washington she had a boyfriend, though she did not.
“Let me at least get your Instagram,” Washington said.
Rather than taking out a cellphone to note her social media handle, Washington withdrew a handgun he pointed to the left side of her head.
The woman thought the man was attempting to rob her. She offered her car and a $100 bill.
“He said he didn’t want my money. He wanted my [genitalia],” the woman testified.
He held the gun, which had a laser beam attachment, in his right hand. With his left, he reached in and opened the car door.
Washington tried to pull the woman from the car by her legs.
“He said I was not the one making the decisions here,” she testified.
In various locations inside her Mercedes-Benz, Washington forced her to engage in six distinct sexual acts. The vehicle was, he said, a “rich white-girl car.”
“He said if I ever wanted to see my family again to pretend that I was enjoying it,” the victim, who is now 20, said.
“And did you end up pretending?” prosecutor Darren De La Cruz asked.
“Yes,” the victim replied.
When he was done, Washington apologized for scaring the woman. He could never really hurt someone, he said. He was a lover, not a fighter.
As the woman drove him toward a bank, Washington jumped out of her car.
De La Cruz prosecuted the case with Tarrant County Assistant Criminal District Attorney Stephanie Simpson.
The suspect, as so many are, was identified by a network of city-operated Flock surveillance cameras and vehicle license plate readers. The vehicle information led Fort Worth police to a house in which Washington lived.
He was stopped on a traffic violation and arrested in connection with outstanding traffic offense warrants before he was arrested in the aggravated sexual assault case.
In Washington’s bedroom, police found a handgun under his mattress.
In his closing argument, Brender asked the jury to consider that the defendant confessed immediately and asked for help when he was confronted by an adult sex crimes detective.
Washington was honest about his crime and was neither a serial rapist nor the Hannibal Lecter that the state had “turn[ed] him into,” Brender argued.
Washington did not minimize what he did, Brender argued. Washington understands he would benefit from sex offender treatment, Brender said, and had not violated the conditions of his bond.
The defense called a clinical psychologist who evaluated Washington and testified on his opinion that the defendant would likely do well under sex offender treatment because of his honesty and engagement since his arrest in therapy for matters unrelated to sex.
Washington’s girlfriend, who also testified as a defense witness, said he is capable of redemption.
“He is my protector,” she testified. “He makes me feel safe.”
Washington elected not to testify.
Jurors heard from the defendant in video and audio recordings of his interviews with Fort Worth Police Department Sgt. Andrew Owen, who investigated the case when he was a sex crimes detective.
After about 40 minutes of inauthentic, casual conversation in an interview room, Washington confessed.
“Is there anything else we should know about?” Owen asked.
The suspect did not add anything at the time, but in a second interview acknowledged that in January 2022 he picked up in his vehicle a woman who was walking on University Drive in Fort Worth. The woman testified that during the ride, the driver, who she identified as Washington from the witness stand, insisted she perform oral sex. The woman got out of the vehicle and later, while both were on foot, he “put something to” her body before she evaded him a second time, she testified.
After the presiding juror announced the verdict, the June 2022 victim read a statement to her assailant. He had made her afraid of the world, she said.
He was, the woman said, a truly sick person.
This story was originally published January 24, 2024 at 3:29 PM.
