The woman who brought rapist doctor Stephen Matthews to justice has exposed the method he used to lure unsuspecting targets back to his home.
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.
‘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.’
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 he multiple rapist arranged to meet the woman, who gave her name as ‘Audrey’ in January 2023.
‘It was just a first date,’ she said.
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.
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 sexually 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.
She went to the police and as they began to investigate they found more women with exactly the same experience; a date, a game of Jenga, a drink, a hot tub – and nothing else.
One said that 10 hours after meeting Matthews were a complete blank and ‘she had no idea how she got home.
Another recalled vomiting and curling up in a fetal position after a single drink at Matthews’ home before waking up at her home with Matthews in the room.
When she refused a second date he sent her nude photographs he had taken of her unconscious.
Matthews denied all the allegations as his defense team tried to poke holes in the women’s stories.
But Audrey testified against him in court and plans to deliver a victim impact statement at his sentencing on October 25.
‘It just makes your skin crawl. You want to yell at that person and just shake them and ask why,’ she said.
‘It’s something that you carry for the rest of your life. And I don’t think he’s sorry.’
Matthews has been stripped of his professional license and has remained in custody at at the Denver jail on a $5 million bond since his arrest in March 2023.
He was convicted of 35 out of the 38 felony counts that went to the jury and faces anywhere between five and 25 years in prison.
‘A verdict doesn’t change what happened to you,’ one victim told CBS.
‘There are lifelong physical and emotional things that I will be dealing with as a result of what happened to me. I think he’s not sorry for what he did. I think he’s sorry he got caught.’
Audrey too said she has been struggling to deal with what happened and ‘there are days when you don’t want to get out of bed’.
But she does not regret coming forward and is grateful to the other women who were brave enough to tell their stories.
‘It was really, really nice just to meet all of them and just to give them a hug and tell them thank you for coming forward after I did,’ she said. ‘Because they didn’t have to.’