DNA from Indy rape case identifies suspect in 2019 Bloomington sexual assault
DNA evidence collected from the rape of a 76-year-old woman in Indianapolis last September has led to the same suspect being charged for a 2019 sexual assault of a Bloomington woman.
Tre Shawn David Bowling, 23, of Indianapolis, is charged with four counts of felony rape, kidnapping with serious injury and strangulation in the Bloomington case from April 29, 2019. Two of the rape charges are Level 1 felonies, the most serious category of offense other than murder in Indiana.
Monroe Circuit Judge Mary Ellen Diekhoff set a $500,000 bond in the case. An initial court hearing had not been scheduled as of Wednesday.
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About 11:30 that spring night, a 26-year-old woman who had been walking home was raped in the stairwell of an apartment building near East Second and South Grant streets downtown.
She told a detective she had worked out at a gym on East Seventh Street, walked to the CVS on Kirkwood Avenue and was almost home to her apartment when she was ambushed in the stairwell.
The victim said a man she didn't know dressed in black had been following her. When she reached the stairway, he grabbed her from behind and choked her until she was unconscious. She said when she awoke, the man raped her, then ran from the scene.
A rape examination was completed at IU Health Bloomington Hospital. DNA evidence was submitted to the Indiana State Police lab for comparison to samples in the FBI's Combined DNA Index System database, but at the time there wasn't a CODIS match to identify a suspect.
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That changed after the September 2021 rape in Indianapolis. In that case, a 76-year-old woman taking a walk was attacked and raped, and the man who ran from the scene was identified as Bowling.
Bowling was arrested and charged with felony rape, and a sample of his DNA was added to the CODIS database. An April 11 trial is scheduled in that case.
Then on Jan. 22 of this year, the Bloomington Police Department got word that Bowling's DNA matched the sample collected after the 2019 Bloomington rape.
BPD investigators interviewed Bowling at the Marion County Jail and then charged him in the local case.
In April 2019, less than two weeks before the sexual assault in Bloomington, Bowling was charged in Monroe Circuit Court with criminal trespass; a judge dismissed the case three months later. He also was charged with criminal trespass in February 2019, but that case was dismissed as well.
BPD Chief Michael Diekhoff called Bowling "a very dangerous man," and said in a news release he hopes the arrest gives victims "some relief knowing that the suspect is no longer walking free.”
Contact reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com, 812-331-4362 or 812-318-5967.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Bloomington sexual assault suspect ID'd from DNA in Indy rape case
