Matthew Robert Austin (Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office).
Matthew Robert Austin, an 18-year-old man already accused of raping a 14-year-old girl, was arrested in a separate case in Oklahoma. Police say he was found wearing latex gloves and a painter’s mask in a Home Depot bag as he was on his way to stab his ex-girlfriend and her mother.
A copy of an arrest warrant affidavit obtained by Law&Crime on Monday details the allegations.
According to court documents, Austin was arrested by officers from the Norman Police Department after some of Austin’s friends alerted officers that the young man had talked about “harming his ex-girlfriend and family.”
According to the affidavit, when Austin was arrested on July 18, he was found by Norman police near his ex-girlfriend’s home carrying “a Home Depot bag containing latex gloves and a painter’s mask.”
According to police, Matthew admitted to threatening to kill his ex-girlfriend and her family and then told officers that Moore police were also investigating him for the alleged rape of another 14-year-old girl.
“Matthew admitted to having sex with the 14-year-old, but stated that he thought she was 19 years old,” the affidavit states.
According to an August 1 arrest warrant for Austin, the mother of a 14-year-old girl, identified in the documents only as “TL,” contacted Moore, Oklahoma police on July 14 and reported that her daughter had been raped by Austin.
The mother showed police text messages between Matthew and TL from their first meeting and from the end of the conversation.
“(The victim) underwent a forensic interview and stated that she met Matthew through church and then exchanged numbers while eating at a restaurant where he works,” police said.
According to police, 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 “went to her apartment, forced himself on her and raped her.”
She told police that Austin told her “everything would be fine and not to tell anyone because they were old and it had to be kept secret.”
He “also explained to TL that he had done this before and told her everything would be okay,” Moore police said in an affidavit.
The girl was examined by a sex crimes nurse at a local hospital, who also told police that she confronted Austin about his social media pages, which stated he was 18.
In a report by local CBS affiliate KWTV, witnesses reportedly told police how Austin described in detail how he would kill his ex and her mother.
He is said to have told witnesses that his ex had “messed up his life” and that “he would have simply stabbed them so they wouldn’t scream.”
When Austin allegedly left the witnesses’ home, they called Norman police and police found him shortly thereafter. A police spokesperson told KWTV that Austin initially told officers he was going to “paint his room or something like that” when they found him wearing gloves and a mask.
Police thanked witnesses who raised the alarm about Austin before it was too late.
“In a case like this, it could have prevented something terrible,” Norman Police spokeswoman Sarah Schettler told KWTV.
Austin was arrested and charged with planning violence and possession of marijuana. It is unclear if he has retained an attorney.
Publicly available jail records show Austin was charged with second-degree rape on August 2. Bail for that count was set at $400,000. In addition to possession of controlled substances, he is also charged with planning/attempting/conspiracy to commit a violent crime, with bail for that count set at $25,000. Austin is also accused of forming a plan to cause great bodily harm or death and intimidating or threatening state witnesses. Bail for each of those counts was set at $5,000 per count.
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