Travis W. Turner, 49, of Waterloo, was found guilty Friday afternoon on three counts of sexual assault by force in connection with an incident that occurred in late January 2022.

The jury trial ran all last week at the Monroe County Courthouse, with testimonies from numerous witnesses including the investigating police, the victim’s then-boyfriend and the 22-year-old victim.

It was decided by the court that Turner would be detained at the Monroe County Jail prior to sentencing set for Aug. 29.

As previously reported, Monroe County State’s Attorney Ryan Webb in his opening statements outlined the events and circumstances surrounding the assault which took place the morning of Jan. 29, 2022.

Starting the previous night of Jan. 28, Turner had several friends and work associates at his house for a party, with the victim’s boyfriend at the time being one of those coworkers.

While the victim and boyfriend were at Turner’s party through the evening, the boyfriend left early – around or before 11 p.m. – in order to go home and take medication.

It was decided among the victim, the boyfriend and another woman at the party that the victim would either sober up over time and drive herself home or receive a ride home from the other woman.

As the party went on and other attendees left through the late evening and early morning, the victim continued drinking though the other woman wound up leaving without her in the early morning hours.

Then alone, Turner forced the victim into his bedroom and proceeded to sexually assault her, also pulling her hair and grabbing her forcefully to the point of leaving various bruises.

The victim’s boyfriend ultimately returned to Turner’s house around noon after not hearing from the victim through the morning, coming across the two of them in Turner’s bed.

Also in his opening statements, Webb noted DNA evidence collected from a sexual assault kit used when the victim went to the hospital later in the day following the assault.

He also pointed to several items of physical evidence recorded following the assault, including clumps of the victim’s hair found in Turner’s bed and photographs of the victim’s bruises taken by the nurse who cared for her.

Testimony from the victim’s boyfriend last Tuesday provided some corroboration of the story, mainly how he had returned to Turner’s house having tried to call the victim’s dead cell phone and noticing her location on the Life360 location sharing app the couple had installed on their phones.

The victim herself was the last to testify in the trial on Thursday, with Webb’s examination of her largely providing the jury with a recounting of events from her perspective and in her words.

Turner was represented by attorney T.J. Matthes of the St. Louis law firm Rosenblum, Schwartz, Fry & Johnson.

One of Matthes’ primary arguments in his opening statement was that, while a sexual encounter had occurred and included hair-pulling and bruising, it was simply “consensual, rough sex” rather than assault.

He also pointed to an apparent “toxic relationship” between the victim and her boyfriend at the time – corroborated between both of their testimonies – with several domestic disturbance calls made to the police by neighbors.

Matthes in his opening statements argued that the victim had felt guilt and regret following the encounter and had made the rape accusation against Turner in order to avoid additional conflict with her boyfriend.

During his cross-examination of the victim, Matthes began by questioning her about her meetings with Webb leading up to the trial, seeming to imply she had been excessively counseled in her meetings with the state’s attorney.

To this point, Matthes particularly noted the victim had said in her testimony that the assault was not “rough sex,” echoing the defense’s argument.

Matthes also honed in on a number of perceived inconsistencies in the victim’s recounting of events, both in her testimony and as she described them to police on several occasions following the assault.

Matthes reiterated these apparent inconsistencies in his closing argument. Among the items he noted was whether or not the victim would have had to go to the bathroom – and thus leave the bedroom and then return – in the morning hours that followed the assault after a night of substantial drinking.

The defense also pointed to the apparent fact that the victim was found with a pair of tight jeans on – which would have been difficult for anyone else to place on her –  as well as the circumstances in which the woman who was meant to give her a ride home actually left her alone with Turner, as this detail of the story had seemingly changed from one police interview to another as well as during the victim’s testimony.

Matthes further expressed in his closing argument that the victim had gotten herself strapped into a “roller coaster” as she decided to make the assault accusations in order to avoid conflict with her then-boyfriend, subsequently “lying and trying to manipulate the situation” until the ride ends.

Webb, in his closing argument, suggested to the jury that Matthes was engaging in misdirection and guiding them to focus on items and details beyond core facts of the case.

He ultimately urged the jury to focus on the evidence centered around the assault – chiefly the photographs of the victim’s bruises and the testimony from the woman who was meant to drive her home confirming that those bruises had not been present earlier at the party.

Following the trial and the jury’s guilty verdict, Webb offered a comment to the Republic-Times expressing that he is pleased with the jury’s verdict.

“This case was originally charged in early 2022, and so this has been hanging over the head of the victim for a considerable amount of time,” Webb said. “That is what this trial was about: doing the best to get justice for a young woman whose life changed forever because of what she suffered at the hands of the defendant. Nothing will be able to change what he did, or make her forget, but I can only hope that the guilty verdicts reached by the jury provide her some closure so that she can begin to move on with the rest of her life.”

Matthes was also reached for comment, simply stating that the defense intends to appeal.