https://www.facebook.com/donald.v.watkins/posts/10213873429492052
In The Span Of 59 Minutes, Megan Rondini's Life Changed Forever
By Donald V. Watkins
©Copyrighted and Published (via Facebook) on August 15, 2017
©Copyrighted and Published (via Facebook) on August 15, 2017
It was the 2014 Iron Bowl weekend in Tuscaloosa. Megan Rondini and her 18-year-old friend were hanging out at Innisfree Irish Pub on University Boulevard in Tuscaloosa. The mood in the Pub was festive. After all, the Alabama-Auburn football game was being played that Saturday.
Terry Jackson "Sweet T" Bunn, Jr., was also in Innisfree having a good time. He spotted Megan's young friend and made a move on her. The photograph below captures this moment.
Sweet T was in the mood for action that night. He was 15 years older than this young woman. Megan quickly sized up the situation and intervened on her friend's behalf. Like most sexual predators, Sweet T simply moved on to his next prey.
Megan did not know Sweet T and he did not know her. She did, however, know this type of man.
Megan and Sweet T would not see each other again until the night of July 1, 2015. That night, Megan was hanging out with a group of friends at Innisfree. Sweet T was also there, but not with her group.
Megan only knew Sweet T by his nickname. She remembered him from the Thanksgiving encounter. Sweet T did not know Megan's name, her status as a University of Alabama honors student, or anything else about her.
The 59 Minutes that Changed Megan Rondini's Life
Megan left Innisfree at 12:05 a.m. Fifty-nine minutes later (at 1:04 a.m.), Megan was desperately pleading with her friends for immediate help as she described to them how she was trapped behind the locked doors of Sweet T's second floor bedroom. He was asleep when her pleas for help were made.
By 1:19 a.m., Megan had decided to climb out of Sweet T's bedroom window and jump to the ground. By 1:40 a.m., Megan was frantically and repeatedly pleading for help. Using the location feature in her phone, Megan was able to give her friends the address to Sweet T's house. They, in turn, were desperately trying to reach her.
By 1:55 a.m., Megan thought she would "die" in Sweet T's bedroom. Megan's friends assured here that they were on their way to Sweet T's house to rescue her. They arrived to pick her up at 2:13 a.m.
Megan was driven straight to DCH Regional Medical Center in Tuscaloosa. Once there, hospital personnel performed a rape kit examination in the emergency room and took a urine sample for forensic testing by law enforcement officials.
Sheriff's investigators arrived at DCH to interview Megan at 5 a.m. Megan told investigators (and her friends) that Sweet T had raped her. Megan remembered him as the "old man" she had met at Thanksgiving.
Investigators located Sweet T at his home and started an interview with him at 5:45 a.m. that morning. He immediately denied that Megan had been to his house and then stonewalled investigators on answering any further questions.
The investigators then left Sweet T's residence. They returned to interview him at 8:37 a.m. The crime scene was left attended and unsecured during this two-hour period. Sweet T, a designated crime "suspect", and Barksdale, a material witness and Sweet T's close friend, were left to themselves inside the residence during this period.
The 59-Minute Timeline Makes Sweet T's Claim of "Consensual" Sex Highly Improbable
After conferring with his lawyer, Sweet T resumed his police interview and stated that he: (a) picked up Megan outside of Innisfree after midnight; (b) drove to Megan's apartment, engaged in small talk with her, and had drinks there; (c) then drove with friend Jason Barksdale and Megan to his house in the county; (d) had unprotected, "consensual sex" with a "outgoing, "friendly", and "flirtatious" Megan, without ejaculating; and (e) fell asleep until he was awaken by investigator Josh Hastings at 5:45 a.m.
Only 59 minutes elapsed from the time Megan left Innisfree at 12:05 a.m. until the time she texted her friends for urgent help at 1:04 a.m. Both sides agree that Sweet T had unprotected sex with Megan at his house during this period. Megan says it was "rape". Sweet T says it was "consensual".
According to Megan, she was not impaired when she left the Pub. Yet, Megan had no memory of going to her apartment with Sweet T and Barksdale. When she returned to her apartment later that morning, there were three drink glasses sitting on her kitchen counter. During his police "interrogation", Sweet T was very evasive when answering questions about whether Megan had been drinking.
Megan's behavior and memory lapses during the 59 minutes she was with Sweet T was consistent with the behavior of a victim who had been unobtrusively administered a "date rape" drug. Yet, investigators never questioned Sweet T about drugging Megan. Furthermore, investigators never questioned Sweet T about any prior reported rape incidents under similar circumstances in which he was designated as the accused rape suspect.
Fifth-nine minutes after she left Innisfree, Megan was frantically pleading with friends to come rescue her from Sweet T's house. The sexual encounter that Sweet T labeled as "consensual" was over, and he was asleep. Megan immediately reported to her friends, hospital personnel, investigators, and family members that she had been "raped".
Megan gave hospital personnel a urine sample for the purpose of confirming the absence or presence of a "date rape" drug in her system. Law enforcement officials never tested her urine sample.
With the help of Tuscaloosa County Sheriff Ron Abernathy, his criminal investigators, and former District Attorney Lyn Head, Sweet T was able to escape criminal justice in Megan's rape case.
Megan Rondini eventually committed suicide by hanging herself. She died on February 26, 2016 -- the same day Sweet T got arrested for his second DUI offense.
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