A prosecutor's affidavit filed today was a further reminder on how much the world has changed since most people switched over from film to digital photos. (I got a wide-angle toy camera for my birthday in March and had a heck of time finding fast film for it.)

A man was charged with child rape and sexual exploitation of a minor after bringing some film into a local Costco to be developed, the affidavit said. (The issue came up in a story I wrote a while back where some experts said digital cameras had spurred an huge increase in the production of child pornography.)

The pictures showed "a juvenile male standing naked in a bathtub; the juvenile male has shaving cream covering his chest and genitals; one of the photographs depicts his hands in his genitalia and his hands are covered with shaving cream... There are three photo prints depicting the same juvenile male wearing a blue t-shirt and an athletic supporter; he is sitting in a recliner with his legs spread apart and two prints depict him lying down on a bean bag type pillow with his legs spread and his feet elevated; one photo print depicts the juvenile male sitting at a computer with one hand under his shorts in his groin area."

The suspect, Eugene L. Pritchett, said they had been "just fooling around." But he declined to identify the child to a Tacoma detective.

Eventually the detective was able to identify the child, the affidavit says. The photos are apparently several years old.

There's an interesting twist to the case -- Pritchett was licensed to provide temporary foster care, but lost his license after he was accused of inappropriate contact with underage boys. It's not clear from the affidavit why he lost his license because it also says the accusation was ruled unfounded.

The child, who identified himself as the boy in the photos, told the detective that he and his little brother stopped going over to Pritchett's house but stopped because of unwanted sexual contact.

The child reported "he visited there for five years and it happened hundreds of times."

I've always liked dogs, and Zeus (pictured here) gives me another reason.

Authorities say he bit one man and chased after another when they tried to rape a woman at a Mason County park.

You can see KIRO-TV's story on Zeus' heroics by clicking here.

Reading the arrest logs day after day, I sometimes wonder if the public realizes the number of people who are arrested for sex crimes in Pierce County.

We don’t write about child molestation and rape very often. Not unless there’s something excessive or violent about the case. There are a number of reasons for that – among them the sheer number of the cases and the small amount we can say about the crimes without getting too graphic or revealing too much about the victims and violating them further.

But I still read the affidavits to make sure we don’t miss any important stories. Some of them are absolutely awful. Many of them contain details too grisly to put in the paper. One that I read today was especially bad.

Those of us who cover crime – myself, Adam, Stacey, Sean – deal quite often with the bad stuff that happens to people. Not as much as the men and women who investigate these crimes, prosecute them or respond to render medical aid -- but still a lot. We carry those stories around with us. And while we go out and report objectively as we can, talk to people, verify information, scrutinize and weigh facts and conflicting statements, make sure everyone gets a fair shake, we’re also human.

So, today I came across a woman who was arrested Friday on a charge of raping her son. Even though it's unusual to see a woman charged with that crime, it’s not really something we’d write about for the paper.

The accusations in this case are especially ugly. The 27-year-old woman is accused of letting her boyfriend tie her and her 6-year-old son together and then performing sex acts with her child. She allegedly told a neighbor she did it because she was scared of the boyfriend, who ordered her to do it.

So, even though it’s not “news” per se, I’m sharing it here for cathartic reasons, if nothing else.

Pierce County deputy prosecutor Lori Kooiman delivered her closing argument Monday morning in the trial of suspected serial rapist Anthony Casper Dias.

For nearly an hour and 15 minutes and aided by a PowerPoint slideshow, Kooiman outlined for the jury the evidence the state amassed against Dias in two rapes and a home-invasion robbery that occurred in summer and fall of 2005.

It included DNA evidence obtained from the rape scenes, evidence that a state expert testified at trial matched Dias' DNA profile to a high degree of certainty.

Kooiman reminded jurors of the mathematical probability that the DNA came from some U.S. citizen aside from Dias: 1 in 28 quadrillion (28,000,000,000,000,000).

"That's a big number," she said.

The deputy prosecutor also ran through similarities in each of the crimes, similarities that she suggested showed the three incidents were committed by the same person.

There were more than 20 in all, Kooiman said. The suspect used a gun in each case. He always wore a mask. The spoke in broken English and referred to his female victims as "bitches." He controlled his victims through threatens of violence and actual abuse.

"He controlled every single victim by fear," she said. "Every single victim knows Anthony Casper Dias. They know him because they lived a nightmare while he lived out his fantasy."

And Kooiman reminded jurors of the testimony of the victims, some of whom described in excruciating detail the repeated rapes they suffered in their own homes.

"He did whatever the heck he needed to do to get what he wanted which was rape, rape and rape some more," she said.

Dias is charged with 20 crimes in Pierce County – rape, robbery and kidnapping among them – and faces a sentence of more than 100 years in prison if convicted as charged.

His attorney, public defender John Chin, will deliver the defense's closing arguments at 1:30 p.m. today.

Dias is charged with another 19 crimes in King County. He goes on trial there in August.

The Pierce County jury weighing the case against Anthony Casper Dias has heard this week about the suspected serial rapist's arrest in Federal Way in November 2005 and the subsequent search of his home, car and person.

They also heard from a woman thought to be Dias' mother, who disrupted testimony Monday by shouting from the gallery, a source told Lights & Sirens.

Several Federal Way police officers testified Monday and today about responding to a call at an apartment complex in their city on Nov. 8, 2005.

They described seeing a man later identified as Dias on a second-story balcony and how he ultimately jumped down and ran into some nearby woods. They weren't allowed to tell the jury the nature of the call so as not to prejudice Dias' Pierce County trial, but they were dispatched to a home-invasion rape.

One of the officers testified Monday about how he shot Dias in the arm when the suspect refused to show his hands when confronted in the bushes.

During his testimony, a woman thought to be Dias' mother yelled from the gallery something akin to "the (expletive deleted) shot my son!" according to someone who was there (I wasn't).

Superior Court Judge Gary Steiner warned the woman that another outburst would get her banned from the courtroom.

On Tuesday, King County detective Marylisa Priebe-Olson took the stand to decribe serving a number of search warrants following Dias' arrest, including watching as workers at Harborview Medical Center took swabs from Dias' cheeks in order to get samples of his DNA.

Deputy prosecutor Bryce Nelson said during his opening statement in the trial that authorities found evidence at two of the rape scenes that matches the suspects' DNA profile.

DNA experts are expected to testify about that evidence, possibly as soon as Thursday.

Dias, who is charged with 20 crimes in Pierce County, has pleaded not guilty.

Other doings in the courthouse caused me to miss most of the testimony Thursday in the trial of suspected serial rapist Anthony Casper Dias.

I caught about 30 minutes of testimony at the end of the day, when Pierce County evidence expert Robert Creek was on the stand.

Creek processed a Tacoma condo for evidence following a home-invasion robbery there on Oct. 31, 2005.

Authorities believe Dias committed the robbery as part of a crime spree that spanned Pierce and King counties during the summer and fall of that year and included several brutal rapes.

Under questioning from deputy prosecutor Lori Kooiman, Creek described photographing the scene, collecting various pieces of evidence and testing that evidence for fingerprints.

Creek testified he didn't find any usable prints on the evidence he collected, which included a screw driver he found outside the condo and wads of duct tape that the robber used to hog-tie two men who lived in the condo.

He said he didn't look for any suspect fingerprints inside the condo because the victims of the robbery said the armed intruder who terrorized them that day wore gloves the entire time he was inside their home.

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I reported in my dispatch yesterday that testimony would continue today in the trial of suspected serial rapist Anthony Casper Dias.

I was wrong.

Further testimony has been put off until Thursday due to some scheduling problems among the lawyers and the judge.

So look for an update Thursday afternoon.

Editors' note: This post originally contained the name of the 42-year-old witness who testified Tuesday. I've since taken his name out in an effort to protect the identity of his female roommate, who the newspaper has decided should be treated as the victim of a sex crime. We generally do not publish the names of sex-crime victims and try not to report specific details that could lead to people discovering who they are.

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The victim of a Tacoma home-invasion robbery testified in Pierce County Superior Court on Tuesday about the day in October 2005 he was hog-tied and stomped on the head by a masked gunman.

“I thought my time was up,” the 42-year-old man said during the trial of suspected serial rapist Anthony Casper Dias.

Pierce County prosecutors contend Dias was the intruder who attacked the man and his two roommates during an early-morning robbery at a condominium in the 6100 block of North 16th Street.

The man testified he never got a clear look at his attacker’s face and couldn't say Dias was the gunman, but prosecutors say they have evidence that ties the 28-year-old Dias to the scene.

Dias is on trial in Pierce County for 20 crimes, including multiple counts of rape and robbery.

He faces another trial this summer in King County, where he’s charged with another 19 crimes.

Dias has pleaded not guilty to all counts.

Under the questioning of deputy prosecutor Lori Kooiman, the 42-year-old man testified for more than an hour about the Oct. 31 attack.

He told jurors about being awakened in his room about 4 a.m. by a man wearing dark clothing and a ski mask.

The intruder was hostile, glassy-eyed and smelled of marijuana, he said.

"I remember seeing a gun in his hand," the witness testified.

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A former Puyallup School District counselor has pleaded guilty to child sex crimes.

Diane Amanda Hillman worked at Ballou Junior High until her arrest in August 2007.

Hillman pleaded guilty as charged Wednesday to three counts of third-degree child rape and one count of third-degree child molestation, deputy prosecutor Sven Nelson said.

She was accused of raping and molesting a 15-year-old student.

Hillman is scheduled to be sentenced March 28. She's been jailed pending sentencing.

I didn't get to the morning testimony in suspected serial rapist Anthony Dias' trial today (personal appointment). When I showed up after lunch, I found no jury, no lawyers and no Dias in the courtroom.

Judge Gary Steiner told me the lawyers finished up with the scheduled witnesses early today and would not be back in court until Feb. 25 due to a scheduling conflict.

When the trial resumes, Tacoma police officers and detectives are expected on the stand to describe their investigation into the rape of a 28-year-old school teacher assaulted in the Central Tacoma house she shared with two roommates back in October 2005.

That woman spent part of two days on the stand this week (see previous posts).

Stay tuned.

A school teacher assaulted during a series of rapes in 2005 testified Wednesday in Pierce County Superior Court that she'd couldn't identify defendant Anthony Casper Dias as her attacker.

The 28-year-old woman said during cross-examination by Dias' attorney, public defender John Chin, that she couldn't identify anyone in the courtroom as the gunman who broke into her house in October 2005 and raped her repeatedly.

"That would be fair to say," the woman said during her second day on the witness stand.

The woman testified previously that her attacker wore a mask and never identified himself during the rape.

But she also testified that she wiped some of the man's semen on a bathroom rug in hopes that authorities could use it to identify her attacker.

Deputy prosecutor Bryce Nelson said during his opening statement last week that investigators determined DNA gleaned from evidence collected at the Central Tacoma house where the attack occurred matches Dias' genetic profile.

Dias is charged with 20 crimes in Pierce County and another 19 in King County, where he is scheduled to go on trial in August.

Also Wednesday, Chin questioned the woman's recall of details from the attack, like the color and type of clothes the rapist wore. He also asked her if she was wearing her glasses or contact lenses during the attack.

The woman, who testified previously that her attacker broke in while she was sleeping, said that she was not. She described the rapist's clothing only as dark-colored.

Chin also asked the woman if she could say for certain a revolver introduced as evidence in the case was the gun her attacker carried.

"I cannot say with absolute certainty," she testified. "But it looks extremely similar, almost identical."

Deputy prosecutor Lori Kooiman got another chance to question the woman when Chin finished his cross-examination.

Kooiman asked if the woman was ever close enough to her attacker to get a good look at his clothes and the gun.

The woman, who suffered bruised arms and legs and internal injuries in the attack, said she had been.

But she added this caveat:"I had to have my eyes closed many times."

The woman's roommate was expected on the stand this afternoon.

A 28-year-old school teacher took the witness stand Tuesday in the trial of serial rape suspect Anthony Casper Dias (seen here).

The woman testified for nearly two hours about the early-morning hours of Oct. 9, 2005, when a masked gunman broke into her Central Tacoma home, tied up her two roommates and raped her.

Her demeanor alternated between defiance and devastation as she told the jury what she'd endured, and she frequently wiped at tears.

At one point, deputy prosecutor Lori Kooiman asked the woman how many times the man raped her.

"Too many for me to count," the victim replied. "I thought he was going to shoot me."

When he was finished, the woman testified, the man forced her into the shower and washed her in an attempt to destroy evidence.

She recounted how she wiped some of his semen on the bathroom rug when he left the room in hopes that it could later be used to identify him.

Deputy prosecutor Bryce Nelson said during his opening statement last week that DNA evidence collected at the scene matches Dias' genetic profile.

Several jurors stared hard at Dias during the woman's testimony.

She is expected back on the stand Wednesday for cross-examination by Dias' attorney, public defender John Chin. One of her roommates also is expected to testify Wednesday.

On Monday, prosecutors called Pierce County sheriff's detective Mike Portmann to the stand.

Portmann testified about his investigation into the August 2005 rape of a Fircrest teenager. Dias is charged with raping and robbing the woman.

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