YOUNGSTOWN Cop suspects date-rape drugs in sex cases

The commander of the Crisis Intervention Unit warns women who think men they're drinking with are nice guys.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Did the coed who says she was raped at a house on Ohio Avenue pass out on her own from drinking too much, or did someone slip a drug into her glass?
Detective Sgt. Delphine Baldwin Casey, who has reports of four such rapes in the city since December and a similar case she transferred to Liberty police, is taking steps to answer the question.
Casey, commander of Youngstown Police Department's Crisis Intervention Unit, said Wednesday she is working to find out more about two date-rape drugs -- GHB and Ecstasy -- and how they're being distributed locally.
Time to investigate: When nice women not inclined to promiscuous behavior wake up naked and groggy in a strange bed with a man they know from work or school or through friends, maybe there's something else going on besides a lapse in judgment, Casey said.
Women, she said, should be wary of men they don't know very well and should:
U Watch their drinks from the moment they're poured until they finish them.
U Not share drinks or accept someone else's drinks.
U Have a friend nearby to make sure that you don't leave a bar or party in an intoxicated condition with someone under suspicious circumstances.
A Youngstown patrolman interviewed the coed, a 23-year-old Youngstown State University student, at Trumbull Memorial Hospital on Tuesday, where she went for a rape exam. Reports show that she had bruises on her right arm and both legs and ankles.
What she reported: The Warren woman told the officer that she had gone to a bar in Niles at 5 p.m. Monday and spoke to two employees about getting a job. One of the men, the suspect, lives on Ohio Avenue.
As she sat talking to the men, the woman had three shots of whiskey and three to four beers, paying only for the first drink. The free drinks came one after another.
She remembers calling her mother about 8:30 p.m., saying she'd be home shortly. The last thing she can recall is going to finish the last beer and feeling that the alcohol hit her "all at once."
The next morning, she woke up in the suspect's bed and saw her clothes on the floor. She told police her car had been left at the Niles bar, so her mother and boyfriend picked her up.
Uptown bar: A similar sexual encounter happened to a 19-year-old Poland woman who went to a bar on Market Street in the Uptown area about 11:30 p.m. May 24. She has no idea what time she left the bar or with whom -- her memory is blank.
When she woke at 11 a.m. the next day, she was naked in bed next to a man she knows at his place, a condominium off Market Street. Her car was there, but she has no idea who drove it.
She told her concerned parents that she had no memory of what happened, but did recall seeing a used condom on the floor next to the man's bed.
After a shower, the woman went to St. Elizabeth Health Center Boardman campus for a rape exam but because of the time that had elapsed and the shower, one could not be done.
Hard to detect: Because drugs such as GHB leave the system quickly, they're sometimes difficult to detect in emergency rooms.
In these situations, without test results, the men will say the sex was consensual, Casey said.
A 24-year-old Youngstown woman who drank with a male friend at a South Avenue bar in April said he invited her to his place to watch movies and then raped her. She told investigators she did not remember agreeing to have sex.
Another city woman who left a North Side bar to listen to music in a car with a Hubbard man she knew only by his first name told police she blacked out while being raped. A female friend found her throwing up.
The 18-year-old victim said she only had two drinks and couldn't explain feeling so highly intoxicated and noted that she had never blacked out before.
"I'm starting to suspect that maybe something was put in the drinks," Casey said.
Liberty case: The case transferred to Liberty on May 30 began in the parking lot of a bar on Belmont Avenue.
The Girard woman was given pills by a truck driver she knew, who told her they would take care of her headache.
She felt "knocked out" and said everything moved in slow motion.
She awoke naked in the back of the truck.
meade@vindy.com