BLOOMINGTON – On April 29, 2019, at approximately 11:30 p.m., Bloomington Police officers responded to the 400 block of East 2nd Street after a female reported she had been sexually assaulted in the outdoor stairwell of an apartment building.
The 26-year-old victim was transported to IU Health Bloomington Hospital for treatment and a sexual assault examination.
Investigators interviewed the victim, who told police that an unknown man began following her as she walked to the
apartment building from the area of 2nd and Grant streets. She stated that as she reached the stairwell of the apartment building, the man grabbed her from behind and began choking her, which resulted in her losing consciousness.
The woman eventually regained consciousness and the unknown male then raped her in the stairwell of the apartment building before running from the scene in an unknown direction.
DNA evidence was collected by investigators and submitted to the Indiana State Police laboratory for comparison to samples in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) database, which is the national DNA database created and maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. However, at the time, there was no matching DNA profile in the
database.
On January 12, 2022, Bloomington Police was notified that DNA evidence submitted to the lab in 2019 matched the DNA of a man that had been arrested for rape by the Indianapolis Metro Police Department in September 2021.
That suspect was identified as 23-year-old Tre Shawn David Bowling.
Bloomington detectives worked with IMPD investigators and learned that Bowling had been arrested in September 2021 after he was seen running from the scene of a rape. The victim, in that case, was a 76-year-old woman that was out for a walk.
Because of the fact that Bowling was arrested for a felony, his DNA was then submitted to the CODIS database and investigators were alerted when his DNA profile matched that of the suspect in the 2019, East 2nd Street rape.
Investigators traveled to Indianapolis, where an interview with Bowling occurred at the Marion County Jail. After the interview, Tre Shawn David Bowling was preliminarily charged with the following as a result of the sexual assault in Bloomington, on two counts of Level 1 felony rape, and one count of Level 3 felony rape, kidnapping, and strangulation.
Chief Michael Diekhoff stated, “I sincerely appreciate the hard work of investigators from both BPD and IMPD, as their combined efforts have removed a very dangerous man from the streets of our cities. My thoughts are with the victims and my hope is that these arrests can bring them some relief knowing that the suspect is no longer walking free.”
