Assault defendant's girlfriend offers alibi

Larry Ray was at home, not the Penn Tower Hotel, the woman said. Larry Ray could not be the man who bloodily beat a University Health System secretary in the Penn Tower Hotel on January 19 because he was at home getting ready for work that morning, Ray's live-in girlfriend testified Friday. Terry Johnson's alibi for the suspect in the savage attack capped the second day of testimony in the trial. Ray, of the 1500 block of Hemberger Way in North Philadelphia, is accused of assaulting Toby Laiken in her sixth-floor cubicle after she walked in on him during an attempted burglary. He is charged with burglary and aggravated assault in the incident. The prosecution rested Friday, allowing the defense to begin its case. Witnesses, who include Ray's family members and employer, are expected to conclude their testimony today, and the jury will likely begin deliberations this afternoon. Jones testified that "he couldn't have done it because he was here [at their home] with me," when she woke up to prepare the family for work. Johnson said she remembered the day because the observance of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday prevented her son from having to go to school. Ray still had to go to work, however, and she had to go to a welfare school in order to find a job. Friday's testimony also featured contradictory testimony pitting the word of Ray and his cousin against that of the police. University Police Det. Patricia Brennan testified that Ray told her, "I didn't mean to hurt anyone." The remark was allegedly made while the two were alone in the interrogation room -- known as the "graffiti room" -- on the second floor of the Philadelphia Police Department's Southwest Detectives Bureau at 55th and Pine streets. Jones questioned the confession's existence: "So it's fair to say that it's your word against his that he made that statement? You know it's not written down anywhere." Brennan explained that she wasn't paying attention to Philadelphia Police Det. Christopher Lee when he left the room to get his typewriter and did not know whether or not he had written anything down. It is unclear whether Jones will call Ray to testify and deny the confession. A second confession was allegedly obtained by police from from Ray's cousin, Casey Brunson, outside Hoagie City at 40th Street and Lancaster Avenue. A hostile witness for the prosecution, Brunson denied signing a statement to police saying that he overheard a conversation between Ray and a friend in which Ray allegedly said that he "beat the shit out of a white bitch." However, Brunson admitted that the signature on the statement looked like his own. Daily Pennsylvanian staff writer John Gutin contributed to this article.