When neighbors on McKinley Street in Hollywood heard screaming from the cozy yellow house in the middle of the block, they thought the young people who hung out there were just having a party.
There was always commotion at 1632, and young people in black BMWs and Mercedes Benzes pulling up in the driveway from 6 a.m. until well past midnight.
“I always thought it was strange,” said one neighbor who has lived on the block for the past 40 years and did not want to be identified. “I thought about calling police, but what was I going to say? There was just a lot of traffic over there.’’
But the young people at the house on Friday night were not having a party. They were beating and raping a 16-year-old South Broward High student, who was being held against her will by two female classmates who kicked her in the head, threw her down the backyard stoop and dragged her by her hair into the yard as she pleaded with them to let her go. They continued to attack her, ripping off her clothes and threatening her until she agreed to have sex with a 19-year-old man who lived in the house, police said.
The girl was so brutally beaten that several bones were broken in her face and her eyes were swollen shut, police said.
She was recuperating Monday at Joe DiMaggio’s Children’s Hospital in Hollywood.
“It’s absolutely barbaric,’’ said another neighbor who was sleeping too soundly Friday night to hear anything.
The two girls, one 15, the other 16, taunted the victim, as one of the men in the house recorded the rape on a cell phone.
As the girls held her down, Jayvon Woolfork, 19, forced the girl to have sex, police said.
Woolfork, 5-foot-3 and 140 pounds, has a criminal history, including attempted armed robbery, robbery and burglary.
The victim resisted, then begged the girls to stop as they held her down and smashed her head against the concrete floor. She finally agreed to their demands to perform a sex act on Woolfork, the police report said. Two other young men, Lanelyn Singleton, 18, and a 17-year-old, also participated in the attack, according to the arrest reports.
Singleton was arrested last year on charges of battery of a school board employee and carrying a weapon on school property. In March, he was arrested for possession of an incendiary device on school property, his arrest record shows.
The males were charged with felony sexual assault, kidnapping and false imprisonment. Woolfork and Singleton were arraigned Monday and held without bond. The other three suspects were sent to the county’s juvenile detention facility.
The two girls each were charged with one count of felony battery.
The victim was invited to the home by the 15-year-old, described by police as the victim’s “friend.’’ The friend weighs about 100 pounds, is 5-foot, 1-inch tall, has a tattoo of a rose on her wrists and the word “Fearless” on her back, police said. She has more than 600 friends listed on her Facebook page, many of them fellow South Broward High students.
The 16-year-old is 4-foot-8 and weighs 75 pounds. She has a Facebook page that describes her as a student at South Broward High, even though the arrest report lists her address as Coconut Creek. Her page also has a photo of herself standing outside a prison, with a caption “Free my daddy.’’
After the rape, the victim managed to escape by running out of the house and going to the nearby home of a family member. The family member called police.
Late Monday, Broward Schools spokeswoman Tracy Clark said she had not heard anything about the incident.
The crime is still under investigation. Hollywood Police are probing other possible criminal activity involving the suspects, including suspected drug dealing and human trafficking.
Hollywood Police Chief Frank Fernandez said Monday that his concern is that this isn’t the first time that this group victimized someone.
“This type of violence does not happen overnight,” he said. “Repeat victimization is very possible in this case.”
Fernandez said detectives are looking into everything – including whether there are more victims.
“We are looking at all leads and hoping people come forward with more information,” he said. “When you are talking about such young people involve in such a heinous crime, you can’t help but wonder what could possible lead them to do this.”
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