3 boys recall being sexually abused by stranger in St. Louis Hills | News

The first boy told jurors he was attacked while riding his bike in an alley. The second said he was suffocated in Francis Park. And the third said he was pushed into a toilet stall while washing his hands in Francis Park.

The boys’ statements were part of the first day of trial against Osmani Haji Gul, who faces half a dozen charges in connection with the attacks.

All three boys took the stand Tuesday, starting with the boy who said he was grabbed from his bike and attacked. This incident was the last of the three incidents, but investigators learned about the other two after they attracted attention.

The boy, then 6, was shaking when he got home and was “white as a ghost,” his mother testified later Tuesday. He told her he was forced to touch a stranger inappropriately, and the boy later identified the man in a photo.

The incident unsettled residents last July. They wondered how such a brazen crime could happen in the middle of a summer day in their quiet southeast St. Louis neighborhood.

But then the same man was accused of two other incidents in the neighborhood. The first case occurred in the fall of 2022, when prosecutors say Gul rubbed his body on a 6-year-old boy in a toilet stall in Francis Park. In the second case, just a week before the St. Louis Hills incident, prosecutors say Gul put a 12-year-old boy in a headlock at Francis Park. In both cases the boys escaped.

Gul admitted to two of the incidents, prosecutors said. He was linked to the St. Louis Hills case through surveillance footage and DNA evidence, including semen.

But Gul’s attorney, Ellsworth Ware, argued Tuesday that the prosecution was wrong on several key points. He says his client never touched the 6-year-old boy in St. Louis Hills, only grabbed the handlebars of the boy’s bike. And he says prosecutors have conflated the three interactions, even though they are separate and complicated incidents that could be explained.

“The state has some gaps and strange things that have not been explained and cannot be explained,” Ware said during opening remarks.

In total, Gul is charged with three counts of statutory sodomy or attempted statutory sodomy, two counts of assault and one count of sexual misconduct involving a child.

Ware argued that the prosecution’s case was not “airtight.” And he tried to cast doubt on the testimony of the St. Louis Hills boy with the bike, now 7.

But the boy’s statement did not let up. He repeated the same key facts and elaborated when asked for details.

The boy said a stranger walked up to him while he was riding his bike. The man didn’t speak English, he said, so he couldn’t understand him.

The boy didn’t want to be “taken anywhere,” he said, so he followed the man.

Ware asked why the boy didn’t fight back, and the boy repeated that the man was stronger than him. He said he tried to pedal his bike but “couldn’t go anywhere.”

“I freaked out,” the boy said. “I was scared that maybe he had something.”

The 12-year-old took the stand on Tuesday afternoon. He told prosecutors a man came up to him, put him in a headlock and gave him a kiss on the cheek. He said he elbowed the man, throwing both of them off balance. After he got up, the boy said, he ran away while the man stared after him.

Ware also asked that boy why he didn’t try to fight the stranger off, but the boy noticed he was in a headlock.

The jury trial is expected to continue on Wednesday.