Trial underway for DeKalb man charged in 2021 violent home invasion, rape

SYCAMORE – A DeKalb woman told a jury Tuesday that a DeKalb man, charged with home invasion and sexual assault, broke into her apartment in January 2021, beat the father of her children and raped her at gunpoint.

Prosecutors told presiding 23rd Circuit Court Judge Marcy Buick and the jury – a majority white crowd made up of six women and eight men – that the trial, expected to conclude Wednesday, would reveal that Robert D. Gaillard, 29, was the man who wielded the weapon, sexually assaulted a woman and forced her to give him oral sex in front of her children.

Gaillard, of the 900 block of Regent Drive, is charged with home invasion, armed robbery and aggravated criminal sexual assault, all Class X felonies, and resisting a police officer. If convicted of the most serious offense, he could face up to 30 years or life in jail and fines up to $250,000.

Both victims gave emotional testimony Tuesday at a socially-distanced jury trial inside the DeKalb County Courthouse in Sycamore.

“They say that a person’s home is their castle, it’s the safe place that people go to at the end of the day, it’s where their loved ones are and where they rest their head when they go to sleep at night,” DeKalb County prosecutor Suzanne Collins said during opening statements. She and DeKalb County State’s Attorney Rick Amato presented evidence that painted a brutal narrative of the apartment attack on the sleeping household.

She said the victims’ safe space “was intruded by violent offenders” during an armed break-in about 1:17 a.m. Jan. 19, 2021.

Gaillard is one of four facing charges connected to the violent attack inside an apartment in the 800 block of Spiros Court in DeKalb’s north side. Court records allege that Gaillard and another man, Awaan Woods, 26, who lived together on Regent Drive, broke into the Spiros Court apartment. They found a man, his brother, a woman and her two small children, ages 4 and 3 at the time, many of them asleep.

Prosecutors alleged Gaillard – who’s been held without bond at the DeKalb County Jail since the incident – attacked them with a gun, beat one of the men, raped the woman and stole a Playstation 5 from the home.

Gaillard’s defense attorney, Sycamore-based lawyer Brian Erwin, argued that the prosecution would have to prove to the jury that Gaillard was the one who wielded the weapon.

“The gun is what the state’s going to try to say my client is holding when he did this,” Erwin said. “Two pieces of evidence, that is what I want you as the jury to focus on.”

Prosecutors on Tuesday presented evidence and offered witness testimony which put Gaillard at the center of the attack. A request to have Gaillard and Woods tried together was denied by Buick on Feb. 10. Woods’ case remains in pre-trial phases, according to court records.

DeKalb police have alleged the apartment attack stemmed from a spat on the social media platform Snapchat and involved two sisters also facing charges. The sisters were involved in a parking lot fight about 20 minutes prior to the Spiros Court break-in in 2021, which the sisters were not present for.

The 27-year-old DeKalb man, who the Daily Chronicle is identifying as D.C. because he is a victim, told jurors Gaillard bludgeoned him in the head and face with a pistol, striking his back and legs and punching him, threatening to kill him. He said Gaillard forced a black gun inside his mouth at one point, said it was loaded with bullets, called him a curse-filled racial slur, and said “I should kill you.” A second man, alleged to be Awaan Woods, according to court documents, brandished a butcher-type kitchen knife.

The man and woman victims told jurors Gaillard smashed their cell phones and an iPad with the gun to prohibit them from calling for help.

At one point during the attack, a DeKalb woman, who the Daily Chronicle is identifying as R.L., the mother of the two young children, testified that she awoke to the sounds of loud booms as Gaillard broke into the apartment. She said she heard the men beating the father of her children in the bedroom next door. She told jurors she went into the hallway and Gaillard held a gun to her head, forced her back into her bedroom, instructed her to take her pants off and fondled her. He demanded her cellphone.

After Gaillard returned to continue beating the male victim, a second attacker allegedly came into the woman’s room, brandishing a butcher knife, the woman said. He asked where the children slept, and forced her to go into that room. Gaillard returned to the children’s room where the woman was, held a gun again to her head and raped her, forcing her to perform oral sex on him.

“He said ‘Your [expletive] baby daddy got my sister jumped,’ ” the woman said Gaillard told her during the attack. “And I informed him that I had no idea what was going on. ... He said ‘I had been wanting you.’ ”

The woman went to Northwestern Medicine Kishwaukee Hospital the next day to undergo a sexual assault exam.

“I was angry, tired. I wanted to get back home to my children,” said the woman.

Prosecutors said DNA evidence collected from the handgun revealed Gaillard’s DNA on it, and R.L.’s. Body camera footage entered as evidence in court from Northern Illinois University patrol officer Nicole Folz showed police encountering Gaillard outside the Spiros Court apartments before he fled, jumping a story below. Video footage showed a distraught R.L. as police attempted to assess what happened minutes after arriving.

In his attempt to escape, Gaillard jumped from a balcony banister to a story below, breaking both ankles. He was arrested while running in the snow that morning, headed from Spiros Court to Varsity Boulevard. Police later found a loaded Stoeger 9mm handgun under a bush in front of an apartment building at 1212 Varsity Boulevard.

DeKalb Police Det. Maxwell Paul testified that the gun, found by NIU patrol officer Matthew Lae, frozen underneath a bush in the snow, had 15 rounds round of ammunition inside the magazine.

Fight led to home invasion: records

Records allege two sisters – Alexis S. Mackey, 25, and Brianna P. Mackey, 26, of DeKalb – got into an argument with some coworkers on the social media platform Snapchat. They met up with two people in the parking lot in the 800 block of Edgebrook Drive about 1 a.m. Jan. 19, 2021 “to fight,” according to a DeKalb police report.

Toward the end of the fight, Brianna Mackey allegedly fired a gun into the air and the two sisters drove off. Police believe it’s the same gun used in the Spiros Court home invasion.

Police later found an FC 9mm Luger round bullet casing near the area, a bullet commonly used for semi-automatic pistols. Police believe after the fight involving the Mackey sisters and two others, the sisters returned home to their apartment in the 900 block of Regent Drive, to tell Brianna Mackey’s boyfriend, Gaillard, and his friend, Awaan Woods, what occurred.

The Spiros Court home invasion occurred about 20 minutes later.

Woods is charged with home invasion, a Class X felony, unlawful possession of ammunition by a felon and obstructing identification after police allege he first gave them a fake name when being interviewed. The Mackey sisters are charged in the fight incident. Brianna Mackey is charged with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, mob action, reckless discharge of a firearm and aggravated battery in a public place. Alexis Mackey is charged with mob action and aggravated battery in a public place. Both Mackeys pleaded not guilty on March 19, 2021, according to records, and are set for status hearings later this month and next. Woods is expected to appear for a status hearing March 23.

The second and likely final day of Gaillard’s trial is expected to begin at 9 a.m. Wednesday.

“There’s a name for what the defendant and his partner in crime did that night,” Collins said. “It was horrendous. It was violent.”