A jury on Friday began weighing the case of a Florida man accused of the attempted murder and rape of his ex-wife, who abruptly axed his lawyer, so he could personally cross-examine her on the stand.
Trevor Summers, 45, is accused of sneaking into the home of his then-estranged spouse and mother of his five children, Alisa Mathewson, in March 2017 to murder her and then kill himself.
During a two-day ordeal, prosecutors said Summers broke in, in the middle of the night, tied Mathewson up with Christmas lights and raped her – despite a protective order barring any contact.
In a bizarre courtroom twist, Summers abruptly fired his lawyer on Wednesday so he could grill his accuser even after Judge Christopher Sabella cautioned him against the move.
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"Did I threaten you to have sex?" Summers asked his ex-wife, who looked uncomfortable, in the Hillsborough County courtroom in Tampa.
"You broke into my home in the middle of the night when I was sleeping, attacked me and tied me up. Yes, I take that as you threatened me to have sex with you. You forced me to have sex with you,"she said, growing visibly angry. "You raped me!"
In a soft voice, Summers pressed, "So you're calling it rape?"
"That is the definition of rape!" Mathewson shot back. Summers allegedly crawled into the house through an unlocked window and had his eldest daughter, who was 14 years old at the time, drive her siblings to his home, according to prosecutors.
Once alone with Mathewson, he allegedly raped her twice then tried to smother her to death with a pillow. When she regained consciousness, Summers drove to a Walgreens, where she tried to escape with her hands tied behind her back, Law&Crime reported.
Mathewson said her captor sliced one of her wrists to punish her for trying to break free then drove them to a remote location and wrote goodbye letters to their children.
"We wish you the best in everything you do and will be watching you from heaven," he wrote their kids, signing the missive "Love you, Dad & Mom."
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Mathewson and Summers were in a car when police began closing in. "This is what love is," Summers allegedly told Mathewson before he slit his own throat, according to Mathewson's testimony. "I’m laying my life down for you. You don’t deserve this."
She was rescued as he tried to strangle her with a rope, according to prosecutors. He allegedly planned to charter a boat, kill her and then himself.
Summers was jealous that Mathewson had started dating other men amid their bitter divorce.
