Campbell County jury acquits Altavista man of rape charge

RUSTBURG - A Campbell County jury acquitted an Altavista man of rape, abduction, and assault and battery Wednesday evening.

Larry Allen Headley Jr., 31, of Altavista had been accused of assaulting his 28-year-old girlfriend Oct. 26 and 27.

The seven-woman, five-man jury deliberated for two hours before returning three unanimous not-guilty verdicts.

“We hope nobody else’s family has to go through what we went through,“ said Doris Webb, Headley’s mother.

Headley’s accuser testified Wednesday that he beat her up and refused to let her leave her own apartment Oct. 26.

Although she was able to leave the next morning, when she came back, he was still there. That’s when he hit her again, forced her to have sex and wouldn’t let her leave, she testified.

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Sally Steel introduced photos taken at the hospital of the woman’s badly bruised body and Headley’s DNA recovered during a rape exam.

Headley told the jury his girlfriend had been abusing pills that day and flew into a drug-induced fury at the apartment. She hurt herself kicking and punching walls and even banged her head into the floor, he said.

After she passed out in a fit of convulsions, he said, he made her throw up, producing enough undigested pills to fill his hand.

Other bruises on her upper arms were caused when he held her in the house to stop her from driving in her drugged state, he said.

“She said she was going to go wreck her car and kill herself,“ Headley said.

He said she recently flipped her car while intoxicated and had been admitted to Virginia Baptist Hospital a month earlier for a drug overdose.

As for the sex, he testified the two had consensual sex Friday and Saturday mornings.

Although Headley was acquitted, he faces another felony cocaine possession charge and a misdemeanor mari-juana charge and remained jailed in Campbell County on Wednesday.