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SPOKANE, Wash. — Police are investigating a man in connection to six rapes and sexual assaults over seven years in the Spokane area.
A detective is aware of six sexual assaults Oliver Rhodes is suspected of committing between February 2011 and February 2018. Four of the alleged assaults happened in 2011, according to court documents.
One victim testified that she was renting a room at the Downtown Spokane Travel Lodge in August 2011 when she went to the Globe Bar to have a drink. As she was walking back to her motel on the south side of the Spokane River, she was confronted by a black man who she first thought was going to rob her, according to court documents.
According to court documents, the man directed her movement by touching her back and then pinned her down by her throat and arms, removed her pants and sexually assaulted her. The victim said she ran to Deaconess Hospital after the assault.
When the victim spoke with detectives, she said the man directed her into a small park at the corner of 5th and Wall, according to court documents. He then directed her onto some cardboard, where he sexually assaulted her.
When the suspect left, the woman found that $100 in cash was missing from her purse, according to court documents.
At one point, the victim told detectives that she had been drinking at the Blue Spark rather than The Globe, according to court documents.
Police said the victim appeared rather calm and confused after the event, and did not say for sure that she wanted to report the incident as rape.
A sexual assault kit was completed at Deaconess Hospital, where the victim had bloody urine, according to court documents. Detectives also said that the victim had scratch marks all over her torso.
A detective noted some inconsistencies in the victim’s account of the events during his initial investigation, including the location of the bar, according to court documents.
During the investigation, the detective called the victim and left messages but received no reply, according to court documents. He later found that the victim had problems associated with alcohol and that she had suffered a brain bleed similar to a stroke in 2011, which affected her reasoning and prompted anxiety attacks.
According to court documents, the victim later called the detective and said she did not see the man who followed her to park and that the assault had taken place in Riverfront Park. She then gave a very different statement about how and where the assault took place.
According to court documents, the investigation was suspended until additional information surfaced that would lend a higher degree of credibility to the victim’s claim since some parts of the victim’s statement were inconsistent.
The victim’s sexual assault kit was submitted to the Washington State Patrol crime lab for testing. In November 2017, a forensics report found semen in the victim’s underwear, according to court documents.
The DNA in the underwear was linked to Oliver Rhodes, according to court documents.
The detective re-interviewed the victim and she gave the same account of the sexual assault taking place along a walkway in Riverfront Park, according to court documents. She was shown a montage of photos containing one of Rhodes but she ultimately chose a different person, saying she was 75 percent sure it was him.
Another one of the 2011 victims said she did not know Rhodes prior to the alleged assault and encountered him in downtown Spokane, according to documents.
Another victim said she was in a dating relationship with Rhodes at one time before they broke it off in January 2013, according to court documents.
The victim told police she was leaving Rhodes’ home one night in January 2013 when he punched her four to five times in the face with a closed fist and spat in her face, according to court documents. Rhodes then took her car keys and said he would kill her if she didn’t go back into the house with him.
Once inside, Rhodes began yelling at her about her poor driving earlier in the day and said he could have gone to prison because he had methamphetamine in his pocket, according to court documents.
The victim said Rhodes then told her to take off her clothes and lay on the bed on her stomach, according to court documents. She said she did not want to because she as afraid of him.
According to court documents, Rhodes sexually assaulted the victim for ten minutes.
The victim sent texts and Facebook messages to her mother saying she was being held against her will by Rhodes, as he was sleeping on top of her car keys, according to court documents. She was eventually able to get her keys and leave the house before contacting police.
According to police, the victim went to Sacred Heart Medical Center to be seen for the assault and told officers she had been raped. She had a swollen face and scratch mark from the initial physical assault.
The victim’s mother told police she received three text messages and 10 Facebook messages from the victim between 4 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. on the day of the assault, according to court documents. The texts said Rhodes was keeping the victim at his house and had her keys.
According to court documents, the victim told her mother that he felt he would hurt her.
A forensic scientist with Washington State Patrol tested DNA from the victim’s rape kit, which matched the known profile for Rhodes, according to court documents.
Another ex-girlfriend of Rhodes told police that he had sexually, verbally and physically assaulted her, according to court documents. In June of 2013, Rhodes was arrested for assaulting her. The victim said Rhodes had also raped her but she was too afraid to tell police about that part of the assault.
During an initial interview, the first victim told police she did not want to pursue the matter, according to court documents.
The detective involved contacted Rhodes regarding a different rape investigation involving a different victim. He told Rhodes he was under investigation for two separate matters and Rhodes became angry and yelled at the detective, according to court documents.
Rhodes was incarcerated four months later on an unrelated matter and the detective contacted the first victim to tell her he would request a search warrant for Rhodes’ DNA while he was in jail if she chose to pursue the case, according to court documents. The victim agreed.
A search warrant has been issued for a cheek swab from Rhodes that will be tested for DNA analysis and comparison, according to court documents. He is under investigation for rape and kidnapping.