She was a teacher in 2020 and looking for a loving relationship when she connected with a Denver doctor through a dating app. The two talked for a month before she agreed to meet him at his home.
It seemed like a normal first date as the two got to know each other over cocktails and playing Jenga, but she soon became violently ill and passed out on the man’s bathroom floor.
What followed were hazy memories of a sexual assault that left her anxious and suicidal. When she retired from teaching in 2023, the experience of saying goodbye to her students on her last day was overshadowed by her memories of the attack.
“You put a substance in our tequila drinks and then took full advantage of our minds, bodies and souls,” she said during a sentencing hearing on Friday. “I’ve really struggled with the burden that I could have done something to change you, something to stop this.”
Her story was one of many of humiliation, grief and despair that survivors of convicted serial killer and disgraced cardiologist Stephen Matthews told in a Denver courtroom before he was sentenced to 156 years in prison.
For years, Matthews drugged and assaulted no fewer than 11 women, keeping what victims described as “trophies” in the form of videos and photographs of them being sexually assaulted and having difficulty walking and standing. A jury found him guilty of 35 crimes in August, including assault and battery.
Denver District Judge Eric Johnson sentenced Matthews to 96 years in prison for eight counts of assault, 60 years in prison for 10 counts of second-degree assault and two years in prison for one count of third-degree assault. served consecutively.
Among the lingering fears of Matthews’ survivors is the possibility that more women — “no doubt dozens more,” one victim said — were attacked before his pattern of predatory behavior was exposed, leading to his arrest in March 2023.
When Matthews encountered his victims after attacking them, he was flirtatious. He blames their incapacity on a lack of tolerance for alcohol. His victims, in turn, blamed themselves for accepting the alcoholic beverages that Matthews had added without their knowledge.
They thought with disgust about sexual intercourse to which they could not consent. Many said they considered suicide because they were haunted by fragmented memories and nightmares about the time they spent in the Matthews home.
In a statement read by another victim, a colleague of Matthews described how he drugged her during a tour of his home in 2022 after she agreed to care for his dog while he was out of town.
Over the next four nights, she wrote that she would lock her guest room door and push furniture in front of the door if Matthews returned home early.
When he returned, the victim wrote that he tried to ask her out, telling her he had “a great time” and “would love to do it again.”
“The first time I saw Stephen at work after the incident, he greeted me by saying, ‘Oh, hey, look who it is, the girl who can’t handle her alcohol,’” the victim wrote.
“He took every opportunity in the hallway to brush his hand against mine. He continued to comment on my low alcohol tolerance. He kept telling me I was drinking excessively, and he did it so often that I started to believe him, really believe him.”
Many women said they were inclined to trust Matthews because of his position as a doctor, and accepted on faith his excuse that they blacked out because they drank too many alcoholic drinks instead of the drugs Matthews had put in their drinks .
“He checked many of the boxes that women on dating apps look for,” wrote another woman who was not named among the victims in the case but who said Matthews also attacked her after giving her an alcoholic drink given who was contaminated with drugs.
“Unfortunately for all of us, what Stephen Matthews wanted in a partner was not a relationship at all or even a willing participant in sex. No. What held Stephen Matthews back was a completely incapacitated partner, unable to say ‘no’ to anything he wanted to do with them.”
Matthews’ victims were outgoing and successful – some were medical professionals, teachers or students. The women who testified Friday said the attacks derailed their careers, leaving them traumatized, anxious and unable to maintain relationships.
Matthews used dating apps to find his victims, sometimes agreeing to meet in a public place before finding an excuse to lead them to his home.
A survivor said she met Matthews in January 2023 after the two connected on an app over a shared love of dogs and passion for medicine.
When she arrived at his home, the woman said Matthews pressured her to have one drink, and another, and another. She became disoriented and Matthews placed her in a headlock and kissed her.
As she struggled to protect herself and keep her balance, Matthews took a cellphone video of her that the woman said was played by Matthews’ attorneys during the trial in an attempt to discredit her.
“I saw my ability to control my body slip away as I stumbled,” she said. “I saw a moment in my life that I didn’t know existed, but he made sure he could keep it to himself. … They used my attacker’s trophy from my attack to make jokes at my expense.”
She added that she escaped from Matthews’ home on foot after being drugged, leaving her shoes and coat behind in the winter cold.
At the time of the attack, the woman said she had just bought a house and was hoping to find a partner to share it with. In the year and several months afterward, she said she struggled to rebuild her self-confidence.
“Almost two years later, I’m still afraid to open my front door,” she said. “He has burdened and re-traumatized us with this process because he is not human enough to tell the truth.”
After Matthews’ survivors and their loved ones spent hours testifying that he was brutal and beyond cure, members of Matthews’ family begged for mercy and said the 37-year-old was still capable of making a positive contribution.
His mother, Debbie Steinke, described how he persevered in school despite learning difficulties, graduating with honors from the University of Colorado Boulder and earning a medical degree out of a sincere desire to help others.
“I ask you, judge, to please give him the opportunity to overcome yet another major obstacle, to become a better person and an asset to society by imposing a sentence that does not simply throw away the key” , she said. “He has a good and kind heart. Maybe not here today, but I saw it.”
Matthews did not make a statement Friday, and attorney Douglas Cohen said Matthews will need a public defender if he appeals because he has become indigent since being forced to leave his work as a doctor.
Johnson, the district court judge, addressed Matthews directly before handing down the sentence, describing the evidence of his guilt as “manifestly overwhelming.”
“Mr. Matthews, you have shrunk this world. You dimmed many of his lights. You hurt our society and it is a darker place because of you. You have disgraced yourself and the name your parents gave you,” Johnson said.
Johnson also addressed the victims in the case, urging them to find closure within themselves and their families.
“You were believed,” Johnson said. “The verdict says that, and the Venn diagram between not proven and innocent is not a circle.”
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