MEMORY ON TRIAL

IN A CLOSELY WATCHED CASE, A JUDGE WILL RULE ON THE CREDIBILITY OF WITNESSES WHO REPRESS AND THEN REMEMBER INCIDENTS OF RAPE, INCEST AND MURDER

Joel Hungerford, 57, stands ac cused of a crime that would seem unforgettable. In 1991, his daughter charges, he raped her-just days before her wedding. Laura B., as she is called in a New Hampshire court proceeding, did not tell anyone about the assault because, she claims, she repressed all memory of the ordeal. Only after she began therapy a year later did the horror resurface. "It was his hands. It was his beard. It was his body,'' she said last week in a pretrial hearing before Judge William Groff. "He ripped the covers off my bed, pinned my arms over...

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