The life sentence for a DeQuincy man convicted of raping a special needs teenager will stand.

Willam G. Perkins was convicted in 2023 of first-degree rape involving a then-15-year-old boy with “an intelligence quotient of 70 or lower, which prevented the victim from resisting the act.”

DeQuincy Police Officer Matthew Kellogg testified his department was alerted of the attack by a family member who said her cousin had walked in as Perkins was raping the boy. The 911 call from that family member was played for jurors.

Kellogg said when he entered the home to investigate, he found Perkins and the boy in a bedroom “face-to-face lying on their sides” and “embraced in each other’s arms.”

He said Perkins had no shirt on and his pants and underwear were slid down with his genitals exposed.

Kellogg described the boy as an “emotional wreck.”

Dr. Darrell Turner, an expert in the field of forensic psychology, testified that after examining the victim, it was his opinion based on IQ testing that the boy suffered from a “severe to profound level of mental retardation.”

Tammy Smith, a sexual assault nurse examiner, testified the boy told her Perkins told him not to say anything to anyone “because it was none of their business.” He also threatened to harm the boy should he tell.

She further testified the boy told her that Perkins told him to go to the bathroom and that when he returned, Perkins laid on top of him. She said the boy told her that Perkins had made the “boo-boo on his pee-pee with his hand.”

Perkins was interviewed twice by law enforcement officers. He denied any involvement with the victim during the first interview but confessed the next day during a second interview.

On April 20, 2023, a jury returned an unanimous guilty verdict.

Perkins appealed his conviction, claiming the prosecution failed to prove his confession wasn’t coerced or made while he was under pressure. The Third Circuit Court of Appeal denied that claim, stating Perkins did not admit to anything during the first interview and admitted to having sex with the boy very early on in the second interview — both times after being advised of his Miranda rights.

Perkins also claimed the trial court improperly impinged upon his right to present a defense by denying him the opportunity to publish the video of his first
recorded interview with law enforcement.

That claim was also denied by the Third Circuit Court of Appeal.

Perkins “totally denied any sexual involvement with the victim in the first interview, and this fact was clearly made known to the jury. Accordingly, any error by the trial court in denying the publication of the video to the jury was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt,” the court found.

In his third assignment of error, Perkins claimed the trial court erred in denying his request for a mistrial following inflammatory comments made by Kellogg during his testimony. Kellogg testified he smelled “fecal matter” when he entered Perkins’ home, upon which he concluded “anal intercourse” had occurred.

This claim was also denied with the court stating its review of the transcript of Kellogg’s testimony shows “he did lay a proper foundation for the testimony by providing details of his work as a correctional officer and his experience in dealing with the issue of anal intercourse while working in that capacity. Officer Kellogg’s testimony of the smells he encountered and his relation of those smells to his experience as a correctional officer were in fact based on his perceptions and his inferences from those perceptions.”