Man gets 50-year term for rape and near-fatal beating

[The Streets Don't Love You Back]

Man gets 50-year term for rape and near-fatal beating

04/27/2010

EDWARDSVILLE — Calling Keith Recklein "a danger to society," a judge sentenced him Monday to 50 years in prison for luring a stranger to a park, then raping and beating her and leaving her for dead.

CRIME STATS

Get the breaking news from our St. Louis Crime Beat blog

See stats around St. Louis and the nation in our searchable database.

Associate Judge Kyle Napp ordered two consecutive 25-year terms for Recklein, 31, of Granite City, for aggravated criminal sexual assault, and a concurrent five-year term for aggravated battery.

The penalty was harsher than the consecutive 20-year terms sought by Madison County prosecutors.

Napp found Recklein guilty of the crimes in a bench trial in October. She recalled the testimony of a park worker who said he saw what he first thought was a pile of garbage but then realized it was a person.

"That, in fact, was how she was treated" by Recklein, the judge said. She said the evidence against him was overwhelming.

He must serve at least 85 percent of each of the 25-year sentences — more than 42 years in prison.

Recklein has maintained that he is innocent, and made no statement to the judge before sentencing in court in Edwardsville. His attorney, Charles Stegmeyer, said Recklein has a wife and children, and asked the judge for leniency.

In the trial, prosecutors presented evidence that Recklein telephoned the woman, a stranger, after midnight on May 1, 2008, and lured her to Horseshoe Lake State Park near Granite City with a claim that a friend of hers was there and needed help. The call was made on her friend's cell phone. Park workers found the woman, then 20, of Lebanon, unconscious with critical head injuries, the next morning.

She testified at the sentencing hearing that the crime caused memory loss, made her paranoid and damaged her trust of other people, something she had previously considered a strength. She said she was left with physical and psychological scars that may never heal. She said she missed a month of work, had thousands of dollars in medical bills and is under psychological care.

The woman said she remembered meeting a man at the park but said she lost consciousness when he put her in a head lock, and did not remember the beating or sexual assault. She awoke later in a hospital, suffering from a facial fracture, fractured ribs and a brain injury. She said she feared for a time that she was pregnant with her attacker's child.

"I was outraged and I still am," she said.

Assistant State's Attorney Chris Hoell called the woman "a truly innocent victim" who will never be the same.

Police had no suspect in the case for several months, but then reinterviewed people who had been at a bar in Caseyville with the victim's friend when he passed out and was taken home. The man later noticed that his cell phone was missing. Recklein was one of the people at the bar, and an expert witness said DNA found on the victim's panties was likely from Recklein.think