The woman who brought rapist doctor Stephen Matthews to justice has exposed the method he used to lure unsuspecting targets back to his home.
STEPHEN IN COURT
The Denver cardiologist cried in court on Tuesday as he was convicted of drugging 11 women and raping nine of them in a four-year reign of terror between 2019 and the start of last year.
Prosecutors said there was a remarkable similarity between the accounts given by his victims, and now the last of those victims has revealed the strategy that was already chillingly familiar to the other 10.
VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT
‘He gave all of us a life sentence, just not behind bars,’ she told KDVR.
‘One of the hardest things about sexual assault and rape is that your body is the crime scene, and you carry that with you forever.’
HOW MATTHEWS PICKED HIS VICTIM
Matthews, 36, trawled through online dating apps including Hinge and Tinder and ‘strategically’ tried to arrange dates near his home in the city’s Lower Highland neighborhood.
It was on Hinge that the multiple rapist arranged to meet the woman, who gave her name as ‘Audrey’ in January 2023.
‘It was just a first date,’ she said.
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HOW SHE WAS RAPED
They met for brunch before he invited her back to his home where they played Jenga and took a dip in his hot tub.
Her last memory is of sipping a drink he made her, before coming to, hours later, back in her own home with no recollection of what had happened.
COURT HEARD
Attorney Stephen J Burg said the pervert cardiologist would go out of his way to gull his victim’s suspicions.
‘He would build trust and then get them to have a drink, usually close to his home, and drug them in that drink’ he explained.
‘They would be very, very impaired and not know what was going on. And he would se-ually assault them.’
‘He was very savvy and able to build trust. He’d say “Let’s meet in a public place,” and talk about his dog and then oftentimes use that as an excuse to head back to his house or apartment.’
But Audrey was suspicious when she noticed unexplained bruises and went to a doctor for an examination which found she had been raped.
‘I didn’t remember any sexual activity, but I did have a hickey,’ she said.
