Jury selection under way in Bennett Valley attack case

Jury selection is continuing in Sonoma County court this week in a violent rape and attempted murder case that galvanized community support for the alleged victim, the mother of a 2-year-old boy.

On Monday, more than 100 prospective jurors - a number winnowed down from several times that in the past two weeks - were asked to fill out a second questionnaire after questions were inadvertently left off the first survey earlier this month.

Potential jurors are responding to the questionnaire for the trial of Aristotle Quadra, 31, who is charged with first-degree attempted murder, rape, kidnapping and six other felonies that could result in a life prison term if he is convicted.

Quadra is accused of raping and stabbing a 29-year-old woman in February while her 2-year-old boy was in the back seat of her car. The woman said she was taken from the Safeway parking lot in Bennett Valley after her attacker threatened to harm her son.

The new questions include whether prospective jurors have ever been to the location of the alleged crime, whether they?ve heard or read anything about the case and whether they or anyone close to them have been taken advantage of in a sexual way.

During a preliminary hearing in April, the victim identified Quadra as the man who attacked her in the parking lot of the Safeway store as she was loading her son into his car seat.

She said he forced her to drive to a secluded location, where he got into the back seat with her, handcuffed her and began a violent ordeal that left her with as many as 10 stab wounds with an ice pick. Her attacker fled when she was able to reach her foot to her car?s horn to attract attention.

She spent four days in the hospital. The boy wasn't physically harmed.

Quadra has pleaded not guilty and was being held without bail.

The case sparked outrage among many Sonoma County residents, resonating as a nightmare that could happen to anyone going about their routine errands in a public place.

The woman's bravery in trying to protect her son during her attack spurred donations to a trust fund for the ?Bennett Valley Mom? at Exchange Bank for people who wanted to show her support.