Woman testifies she wanted to stab alleged rapist to ‘make him feel what I felt’

New to town, a now 28-year-old woman was visiting a house on Macon Avenue two years ago when she agreed to give a man a ride in exchange for gas money.

She’d never met Elonza Lee Collins before, but he knew others at the house off Napier Avenue.

Needing money, she agreed to give him a ride.

In the car, the 39-year-old Collins said he could “do a better job” performing sex acts than the woman’s fiancee, also a woman, she contends.

Though the language made her feel uncomfortable, the woman told jurors Wednesday that men had told her similar things before.

She said she responded to Collins: “Men are not for me.”

Minutes later, they arrived at a house in a neighborhood behind the Church’s Chicken on Pio Nono Avenue, where the woman alleges that Collins restrained her and performed sex acts on her against her will.

Testimony began Wednesday in the trial for Collins, who is charged with rape and aggravated sodomy.

Prosecutors say the woman was examined at a Macon hospital later, and testing found male DNA, including Collins’ DNA, on her body.

Collins’ lawyer, Andrew Jenkins, told jurors in his opening statement that the main issue in the case is whether the woman consented to the sex acts.

He asked jurors to find his client not guilty, urging them to consider the woman’s description of what happened.

‘I wanted to kill him’

After arriving at the house — which the woman said Collins told her was his uncle’s home — Collins’ uncle showed her household cleaning tasks she could do for extra money, she told jurors.

He walked her through the house, ending in his bedroom, and left her there alone with Collins, the woman testified.

She wept as she told jurors that Collins closed the door, pushed her on a bed, took off her baggy jean shorts and performed sex acts on her.

With loud music blaring in the background, the woman said she told Collins to stop, but she couldn’t get away from him.

At one point, the woman said Collins told her, “Let me get off of you before you think I’m trying to rape you.”

Then he got back in her car, and she drove them back to Macon Avenue.

Asked why she got in the car with her alleged attacker, the woman said she wanted to go back to the Macon Avenue house and get a knife to stab Collins to “make him feel what I felt.”

She said, “I wanted to kill him.”

After she arrived at the Macon Avenue house, the woman’s daughter ran up to her, stopping her from getting a knife, she said.

She was later taken to the hospital by ambulance.

‘I didn’t have sex with that woman’

Jurors watched a video of Collins’ statement to police in which he adamantly denied the allegations against him.

“I didn’t have sex with that woman,” he said as he sat handcuffed in a police interrogation room on June 2, 2015, a couple days after the alleged rape.

He said the woman agreed to give him a ride, and he gave her $5 in return.

Despite initially denying even touching the woman, he later admitted that they had kissed.

Collins maintained that the woman wanted to have oral sex and he said no.

“Rape a woman? I’ve got kids. I’ve got a daughter. I’ve got sisters,” he told Bibb County sheriff’s investigator Pam Williams. “I would never do anything like that.”

Testimony is set to continue Thursday.

This story was originally published June 28, 2017 at 1:52 PM with the headline "Woman testifies she wanted to stab alleged rapist to ‘make him feel what I felt’."