Creep alert
With drug-facilitated rape on the rise, Inspector Ron Reynolds hunts a new breed of sexual predator

By A.C. Thompson

Ron Reynolds is slammed. It's the morning of July 10, and Reynolds, a 49-year-old inspector with the San Francisco Police Department, has to meet with a judge, interview a rape victim, and serve an arrest warrant – all before noon. So if I want to interview Reynolds, I've got to roll along with him as he motors from police headquarters to the courthouse at 400 McAllister Street.

A well-placed source familiar with trends at the Hall of Justice encouraged me to talk to Reynolds about drug-facilitated rape – using blackout-causing like GHB or Rohypnol (a.k.a. "roofies") to knock people out and violate them – the offense that last month landed millionaire Max Factor heir Andrew Luster behind bars on a 124-year sentence.

Though drug rape has been hyped by the national media (including CNN, ABC News, Time, and 20/20), little has been said about its unsettling prevalence in San Francisco: in the past year it's become something of a quiet phenomenon here, to the alarm of medical professionals and law enforcement types.

"We get two to four [sexual assault] cases every month that we believe are drug-induced," says Reynolds, a short, stout character in a slightly baggy pin-striped suit. That number, the detective asserts, represents only a sliver of the actual drug-rape incidents that transpire within city limits.

In the most typical attack, a male predator sidles up to a woman who's out clubbing or barhopping and spikes her drink with GHB (gamma hydroxybutyric acid, a dance club drug originally sold as a legal dietary supplement), Rohypnol (a sedative pill available legally in Europe), or Ketamine (an animal tranquilizer). All three drugs are hardcore depressants with a propensity for leaving people semiconscious when mixed with alcohol or taken in large doses. When the victim becomes dazed and disoriented, the attacker generally shuttles the person to an isolated location to commit the sexual assault. (Male-on-male attacks do occur but seem to be less common.) Victims of drug-rapes often recall little of the ordeal.

That amnesia, of course, makes prosecuting the offense challenging – which is part of why we don't hear more about these cases.

Reynolds, however, has plenty of ugly stories that he's investigated and verified: the person who used a hypodermic needle to inject GHB into the bottled water sold in a South of Market nightclub; the art gallery opening at which somebody spiked the punch with GHB; the victim who woke up confused and covered in feces.

"I'm currently investigating one where we don't know what happened," the detective admits. "The victim went to a club and woke up five hours later in a stairwell with no clothes on." Reynolds asks me if I've ever had surgery. A large blast of the most commonly used rape chemical, GHB, he says, is akin to the general anesthesia administered in an operating room. "You lose a day. You can't even remember what happened to you. How can you go testify in court?"

Reynolds can only recall one successful drug-rape prosecution in recent San Francisco history, though he notes, "We've had sexual assault convictions where we believe drugs were used, but we weren't able to prove it [in court]."

The speed at which the human body metabolizes GHB and similar substances poses evidentiary problems. The drugs are often dispelled from the body within 12 hours. And standard urine screens often miss GHB and its analogs. But detectives have a new plan for collecting forensic material: analyzing the stomach contents of victims. People dosed with high levels of GHB often puke – and the drug tends to linger in barf. "Vomit," Reynolds tells me as we stride into the courthouse, "is like gold to us."

Anecdotal evidence

For the national perspective, I contact Jamie Zuieback, a spokesperson for the Washington, D.C.-based Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, who says her group is unsure of the scope of the drug-rape problem. "Anecdotally, we're hearing that drug-facilitated rapes are very common. Some rape trauma centers are reporting as much as a 50 percent increase in the past two years," she tells me.

This lack of hard data makes some drug law reformers skeptical. At least one drug war foe I talk to wonders if the scare stories about GHB and other rape drugs aren't overblown. And in the book Synthetic Panics: The Symbolic Politics of Designer Drugs, author Philip Jenkins illustrates cases in which journalists irresponsibly exaggerated the GHB-rape connection. Writing for Disinfo.com, an alt-news Web site, Rick Reilly points out that booze, our country's favorite legal depressant, is the most commonly used drug in sexual assaults.

Local sex crime experts don't disagree with Reilly. Vanessa Kelly, a clinical therapist at the San Francisco Trauma Recovery/Rape Treatment Center, says the media like to report on GHB and Rohypnol but rarely mention that "a great number of sexual assaults happen because of too much alcohol."

Still, Kelly is "absolutely" sure that rapes involving GHB and other illegal drugs are rising in San Francisco. Her colleague Ann Brennan, a nurse practitioner who treats sexual assault victims at San Francisco General Hospital, concurs. "We've definitely seen an increase in the past six to nine months," Brennan says, adding, "The D.A., police, and our organization have all seen an increase."

Indeed, the issue was a major topic of discussion at an April sex crimes conference at San Francisco City College, and the local sexual assault task force – a collaboration of health care groups and law enforcement agencies – is preparing a new public education campaign. "Our message," Brennan tells me, "is don't go drinking without a buddy. If you're drinking and you've only had one or two drinks and you're feeling unusually drunk, that's the time to get help."

Inspector Reynolds spends a lot of time talking to the people who don't get help, those who fall prey to a class of predator he likens to "lions on the savanna." In describing the casualties, Reynolds pauses for a moment and then pulls out another analogy. "You remember how you felt on 9-11? How vulnerable you felt?" he asks. "That's how the victims feel."

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