John Jefferson
Matthew Robert Austin (Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office).
Matthew Robert Austin, an 18-year-old man already facing charges for the alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl, was arrested in a separate case in Oklahoma after police said he was found with latex gloves and a painter’s mask in a Home Depot bag while on the way to stab his ex-girlfriend and her mother.
A copy of an arrest warrant affidavit obtained Monday by Law&Crime explains the allegations.
Austin was arrested by deputies from the Norman Police Department after some of Austin’s friends alerted officials that the young man was talking about “harming his ex-girlfriend and family,” court records show.
According to the affidavit, when Austin was arrested on July 18, he was located near his ex-girlfriend’s house by Norman Police with “a Home Depot sack containing latex gloves and painters mask.”
Police said Matthew admitted to threatening to kill his ex-girlfriend and her family and then advised the officers that he was also under investigation by the Moore Police Department for the separate alleged rape of a different 14-year-old girl.
“Matthew admitted to having sex with the 14-year-old but advised he believed her to be 19 years old,” the affidavit states.
According to a warrant for Austin’s arrest dated Aug. 1, it is alleged that on July 14, the mother of a 14-year-old girl, identified only as “TL” in documents, contacted the Moore Police Department in Oklahoma advising that her daughter was raped by Austin.
The mother showed police text messages between Matthew and TL when they first met and when their conversation ended.
“(Victim) completed a forensic interview advising she met Matthew through church and then exchanged numbers when she was eating at a restaurant he works at,” police said.
Police said Austin told TL he was 16 years old. Jail records show he was born in November 2005, making him 18 years old.
TL said that in July, Austin had “visited her residence and forced himself on her and raped her.”
She told police that Austin told her “everything would be fine and not to tell anyone due to their age and it needed to be a secret.”
He “also stated to TL that he had done this before and told her it was going to be OK,” a Moore Police Department affidavit states.
The girl was assessed by a sexual assault nurse examiner at a local hospital. She also told police that she confronted Austin about his social media pages which indicated that he was 18.
In a report from local CBS affiliate KWTV, witnesses reportedly described to police how Austin detailed to them how he would kill his ex and her mother.
He allegedly told the witnesses that his ex was “messing with his life” and that “he would just stab them so they would not scream.”
When Austin allegedly left the witness’s home, the witnesses called Norman Police and police found him quickly thereafter. A police spokesperson told KWTV that Austin initially told deputies that he was going to “paint his room or something along those lines” when they found him with the gloves and mask.
Police expressed gratitude to those witnesses who sounded the alarm about Austin before it was too late.
“In an instance like this, it could’ve prevented something terrible from happening,” Norman Police Department spokeswoman Sarah Schettler told KWTV.
Austin was detained and booked for planning acts of violence and possession of marijuana. It is unclear if he has retained an attorney.
Publicly available jail records show Austin was charged with rape second degree on Aug. 2. Bond on that charge was set at $400,000. In addition to the possession of controlled substance charge, he is also charged with plan/attempt/conspire to perform act of violence with bond set on that charge for $25,000. Austin is further charged with devise plan to cause serious bodily harm or death and intimidate or threaten states witness. Bond for each one of those counts was set at $5,000 per charge.
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