“They are accused of raping the woman with such brutality that a sexual assault nurse told police she had never seen an injury so bad.” – The Ee Lee Homicide Complaint
Two Milwaukee teenagers beat a defenseless, homeless Hmong woman with tree branches, gang raped, stomped, body slammed, and kicked her, and filmed themselves laughing while they did it all, a newly filed criminal complaint alleges. They are accused of raping the woman with such brutality that a sexual assault nurse told police she had never seen an injury so bad.
All of this happened as other “kids” stood around watching, according to the complaint. The victim, Ee Lee, an apparent stranger to the teenagers who happened upon her sitting on a blanket in Washington Park, later died from severe head wounds. The complaint charges Kamare R. Lewis, 17, and Kevin T. Spencer Jr., 15, as adults.
“They beat her extremely severely about the head. EL was so impaired when they finally finished beating her and sexually assaulting her that she was unable to talk or breathe,” the complaint says. You can read the complaint here, but be forewarned that it’s very disturbing and graphic.
The video, which circulated via Facebook messenger to their friend group, shows Lewis and Spencer “beating the victim and laughing,” the complaint says.
On Jan. 12, the mother of an eyewitness named KA called police and said her son might have a video authorities were interested in that was sent but later deleted by Lewis. She told police the video showed “two boys beating a lady, hitting her in the face, and her face was bloody.” She also said it looked like a “lot of little kids (were) standing around” during the attack.
Lewis later told police that, after the attack, he thought Lee was dead or soon to be dead so he never called for help. He told police it wouldn’t have “made a difference and that he didn’t really care about her because she is not someone he knows personally,” the Ee Lee homicide complaint alleges.
DNA analysis found strong support for inclusion of Spencer and Lewis’s DNA on her denim jacket. Spencer’s DNA was also found on her body, the complaint says.
Both defendants were charged with first-degree intentional homicide, party to a crime. They are also charged with first-degree sexual assault, great bodily harm, party to a crime.
The Ee Lee Homicide Complaint
The Ee Lee Homicide complaint further alleges:
On Wednesday, September 16, 2020 at approximately 9:36 p.m., two people identified by their initials in the complaint contacted 911 regarding an “unconscious half-naked adult female victim lying on the ground next to the pond at Washington Park located at or near 1859 N 40th Street, in the city and county of Milwaukee.”
She was unconscious but still breathing. The criminal complaint gives her initials only, but she was identified in a medical examiner’s document, by family, and in previous news reports.
It appeared Lee “had been severely beaten and left for dead,” says the complaint.
When authorities arrived, they noted that Lee was “undressed below the waistline, consistent with having been sexually assaulted. In addition, she sustained “multiple severe contusions to her face and head.” She was taken to the hospital for treatment.
The complaint says her clothes – a blue jean jacket, leggings, socks and shoes – were “located scattered near a pink blanket” that authorities believe she was sitting or lying on shortly before being attacked. The items were located about 100 yards from her body.
According to the complaint, the attack left Lee comatose and brain dead; she eventually died. A court order was obtained requiring a sexual assault examination of Lee.
“During the examination numerous injuries consistent with sexual assault were noted,” the complaint says. These were in addition to the “many inquiries EL sustained from having been severely beaten.”
She had a laceration and contusion to her private parts so significant that the laceration was “a type of injury not often observed during the course of her many years.”
She eventually died, and the cause of death was ruled to be blunt force trauma to the head.
The complaint lists a series of severe injuries that Lee suffered, mostly to the head area. She also had a broken collar bone, fractured neck bone, and contusions to her arms.
Authorities obtained video from the Urban Ecology Center in Washington Park that depicted five to six people who were potentially involved in the incident. They were observed running from the area and “then they can be seen fleeing away from the location of E.L.’s unconscious body.”
The footage is dark and grainy, but it appeared she was taken to a tree from the area of her blanket and a portion of the sexual assault and beating occurred under the tree. The video then shows at least two subjects who appear to be carrying or dragging her body along the edge of the pond “where she is eventually left for dead,” says the complaint.
Another surveillance video showed a group of about 11 people leaving the park between 8:21 and 8:27 p.m. A group of six people, all on bicycles, left the park and loitered near the library. Then, a group of five subjects traveled east on Lloyd Street.
Deputies obtained Milwaukee County Transit System bus video footage and found the same five subjects leaving Washington Park after the assault is believed to have taken place. One of the subjects was Lewis, who was on foot “walking in his socks holding his white tennis shoes with one hand.”
Two of the subjects were on distinctive bicycles.
The Ee Lee homicide complaint says two young men, names given only as LJ and KA, called 911 to say they had discovered the victim near the bond.
Deputies followed up at KA’s home, where both KA and LJ live. KA’s mother “told KA to go inside and to ‘delete everything off of his phone,’” the complaint alleges.
It was later learned that LJ was in the park at the time of the assault because he was observed on video walking with Lewis, Spencer and others.
LJ eventually told authorities that two people beat the victim and “forced her to perform sex acts.” He gave authorities a description of Lewis and Spencer. He stated that he “also personally observed Kevin Spencer beating the victim and participating in..sexual assault on the victim. LJ stated that both Lewis and Spencer were hitting and kicking the victim.” He said he then left the scene, according to the criminal complaint.
LJ told police he observed a video on Lewis’s cell phone of Lewis and Spencer “kicking and hitting the victim while she lay defenseless on the ground.” He said that both were beating her but Spencer was the more aggressive of the two.
The Ee Lee homicide complaint further alleges:
KA then told police he witnessed part of the attack and saw Lewis “hitting the victim with tree branches and punching her in the face,” according to the complaint. He said that Spencer was also beating the victim and that she “was laying on her blanket when Lewis and Spencer began kicking her.” Her face became swollen. At that point, Spencer told Lewis “to put her in the water” and Lewis “began dragging her to the water, the complaint alleges. He admitted receiving a Facebook messenger video that was recorded by Lewis.
Authorities talked to a person of interest named KG, identified after a DNA hit on a bottle located at the scene where the victim’s blanket was located. He said he had walked to the park with Lewis and Spencer and they “all saw this lady on a blanket in the park.” They walked up to her and asked if she had any money and “started harassing her.”
He said that Lewis started hitting her and that Spencer “then also started striking and kicking her. …they also picked up sticks and hit her with the sticks and pulled her clothes off her” and then dragged her to the tree where the assault continued.
KG said he didn’t want to be involved and started to walk away.
He said that there were “other kids gathered around” as the two defendants “were still assaulting the victim under the tree.”
After the attack, Spencer called him and stated that he and Lewis continued beating Lee in the park and were “getting her from back and front.”
He stated that the two of them beat her and sexually assaulted her.
He admitted that they “continued to hit, slap, slam and kick the victim to the point of unconsciousness,” dragged her to the area near the pond and left her for dead after gang raping her.
Lewis told police that they started harassing Lee and KG was going through her belongings looking for money. He admitted to hitting her but tried to downplay his role in the incident and indicated that Spencer and “others” did most of the beating, the complaint alleges.
He also claimed that two other people participated to varying degrees in the assault.
He allegedly admitted slapping at her while sexually assaulting her. He said that he believed Spencer broke Lee’s jaw causing her to lose her breath. At one point Spencer struck her so hard that he fell to the ground with the victim by the force of the blow he dealt. He said the victim was “slapped, Stomped and body slammed.”
When they were done with her she was struggling to breathe and was gurgling. He suggested they dump her at the water to cover up the crime, according to the complaint.
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