Opinion ID: 6499681
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Underlying Oﬀense and Investigation

Text: On October 19, 2006, the victim, T.K., was thirty‐nine years old. T.K. spent the day caring for her teenage daughter’s in‐ fant son. Later that evening, after her family returned home, T.K. began drinking whiskey and got into a heated argument with her husband and daughter over the childcare arrange‐ ment. In the midst of that argument, T.K. realized that she was out of cigarettes. She asked her husband for the car keys so that she could drive to a nearby service station and buy more, but T.K.’s husband refused to give them to her because she had been drinking. Although it was around midnight, T.K. began walking to the service station, taking her half‐pint bot‐ tle of whiskey with her. T.K.’s husband followed her for some distance, trying to convince her to return, but to no avail. T.K.’s husband returned to the house, and T.K. walked ap‐ proximately four blocks to the service station and purchased cigarettes. No. 21‐1761 3 As T.K. was walking back, she saw a silver car drive past her, stop, turn around, and then drive back to her. The driver and sole occupant of the vehicle asked her if she wanted a ride. Although she was close to home, T.K. got in the car. The driver said his name was Troy, that he was twenty‐six years old, and that he worked in construction. T.K. later told police that he was Caucasian, had brown hair, and had a tear‐ drop tattoo under his eye. T.K. and the man drove around and talked for a while, smoking cigarettes and drinking from the half‐pint of whiskey. When they ran out of whiskey, the man drove to a nearby house, which he told T.K. belonged to his employer. T.K. waited in the car while the man ran into the house and came back with a six‐pack of beer. He then drove T.K. to a park and stopped the vehicle, where they continued to smoke, drink, and talk. The man drank five of the beers, while T.K. had one. At some point, T.K. became tired and wanted to go home. When T.K. turned to ask the man to take her home, she saw that he had pulled his penis out of his pants and was mastur‐ bating. T.K. immediately demanded to be taken home, and the man stated that he wanted to have sex. T.K. said no and again asked to be taken home. The man then reached across T.K. and pulled a handgun out of the glove compartment. The man pressed the muzzle of the gun to the side of T.K.’s head and forced her to remove her pants. T.K., who was experienc‐ ing symptoms of premature menopause including heavy menstrual bleeding, cramping, and pain, told the man that she was having menstrual problems in hopes that it would discourage him from continuing. In response, the man or‐ dered T.K. to remove her tampon and throw it out of the ve‐ hicle. T.K. complied, and then climbed on top of the man and 4 No. 21‐1761 submitted to vaginal intercourse while he continued to hold the gun to her head. When he finished, the man put the gun back into the glove compartment and got out of the vehicle to urinate. When the man walked out of T.K.’s line of sight, she ran from the vehicle and climbed a fence into the backyard of a nearby house, where she hid behind a picnic table. T.K. watched as the man returned to the vehicle and called her name, then drove away. T.K. then went to the house and knocked on the door. When the homeowner answered the door, T.K. asked her to call 911 because she had been raped. The 911 call was placed at ap‐ proximately 7:00 AM. Police responded, and an ambulance took T.K. to the hos‐ pital, where a forensic nurse completed a rape kit. The nurse also noted that T.K. sustained scratches on her hands and bruising on her right lower extremity, her left wrist, and on her inner thigh on both sides—injuries consistent with climb‐ ing over a fence. Later that morning, Indianapolis Police Detective Richard Burkhardt interviewed T.K. T.K. took Burkhardt to the park, where crime scene investigators recovered five beer cans and several cigarette butts from one side of the narrow park, and one beer can and a soiled tampon from the other. T.K. was unable to identify the house where the man had stopped to get beer. Forensic analysis of the samples taken from T.K.’s body and clothing did not disclose the presence of seminal material, and the case went dormant for approximately four years until DNA analysis was finally performed on the cigarette butts. The unknown partial male DNA profile found on the No. 21‐1761 5 cigarettes matched an existing unknown male DNA profile from another open rape case in Marion County, case IP06051889 (“case ‐889”). The DNA results from the cigarette butts were uploaded to a statewide database and, a year later, were found to match Thurston’s DNA after he was arrested on an unrelated matter. After the DNA in T.K.’s case was matched to Thurston, Thurston waived his rights and participated in a custodial in‐ terview with the police. He told them that in 2006 he was liv‐ ing and working with his boss, and he provided an address in the neighborhood T.K. had identified. He also admitted that he used his boss’s Thunderbird at the time, which matched the description of the vehicle T.K. had given. He de‐ nied having ever been to the park. Thurston also denied rec‐ ognizing T.K. when he was shown a photo of her taken shortly after the rape. Similarly, when the detective later showed T.K. a photo of Thurston in a six‐photo array, she could not identify him.