The Miami Times

All-White Jury Acquit Negro Of Rape Of White Woman

NORFOLK Va (ANP) Although a white woman said on the stand in Princess Anne County Court last week that she was positive Ruffan Junice Selby, described as a "big burly Negro," was her assailant on the night of June 6, Selby was acquitted of the rape charge as the courtroom packed with spectators applauded. It took an all-white male jury only 13 minutes to reach a decision.

When the court opened the trial Selby was under charge of assaulting 40-year-old Mrs. Carmela Cravodi after brutally slaying her companion, Chief Quartermaster Dean L. Kirkdrier, a navy man early on the morning of June 6. The couple had spent the evening at the Chiefs club at the Naval Base and had turned down a dirt road known as Johnson road. The woman said when the murder was first reported that they were looking for some coffee. At the trial last week she claimed that they stopped on the road to smoke a cigarette.

The white woman told the jury she was positive that her attacker was Selby, a 25-year-old Norfolk truck driver. Since Selby was acquitted of the rape charge, Commonwealth's Atty Paul W. Uhlkiss said he planned to nol pros murder and robbery indictment against the defendant. He explained: "I just don't see how I can put boy through the expense of having to defend any more charges. The rape case was definitely the best I had against him." He said, however, that he would leave the robbery and murder charges against Selby on the Princess Anne Circuit court docket "just in case new evidence should come to my attention."

Selby was arrested on June 20. Some weeks later he was released under bond, and was brought to trial last week. Bond was first set at $15,000, but later it was reduced to $12,500.

Mrs. Cravodi testified that she was certain the attack occurred during the bright moonlight between 12:30 and 12:45 a.m. But this testimony was attacked by the defense which placed a weatherman on the stand to show by his record that the moon did not rise until 1:02 a.m. and a school teacher who placed Selby about a mile from the assault scene at 12:45 a.m.

The jury, all male, returned the verdict just 13 minutes after retiring from the courtroom. It was greeted with applause. Friends and members of the family clustered around Selby who greeted the victory with calmness and complete composure.

Though the woman at one time failed to identify Selby as her assailant, later she told the jury in court that she remembered him positively by saying "I remember him across his eyes."

The car with the dead body of the navy man and the semi-conscious woman in it was discovered by three sailors riding horseback through the woods near Wilder's Drive-in Theater after 9 a.m. the morning of June 6.

The Norfolk Branch of the NAACP headed by Jerry O. Gilham, raised money for Selby's defense. Victor J. Ashe, and J. Hugo Madison of Norfolk and James O. Overton of Portsmouth were defense lawyers. Judge Floyd B. Kellam presided at the trial.