MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WMOT) -- A Smyrna man has been charged with rape by Murfreesboro Police in an incident where officials say blood tests revealed the presence of two date rape drugs in the victim’s system.
Police were called to St. Thomas Rutherford Hospital in November, 2011, to speak to a woman who believed she’d been raped. During an interview the victim told police that she’d been approached by a white man she didn’t know in a parking lot.
She told offices the man grabbed her arm and she felt a sting like a needle. The woman reported becoming incoherent at that point and says she doesn’t remember what followed, but felt when she woke that something had happened.
A rape kit test revealed the presence of sperm and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation says it matched the DNA to a profile in its CODIS system for 40 year-old Thomas M. Shelton of Smyrna.
During an interview with police last August, Shelton denied knowing the victim or having sex with her.
Shelton was arrested by the MPD this past Wednesday on a single count of rape. He’s scheduled to appear in Circuit Court May 19, 2014.